Leading Group Challenges Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leading Group Challenges Paper - Essay Example There have been a significant number of literatures covering the nature, theories and applications of leadership and its effect to job performance and satisfaction. The diverse patterns of behavior and actions that leaders exhibit over a period of time and perceived by followers have been identified as the dominant style of leadership. This style is developed utilizing an interplay of factors which shape leadership development. In this regard, the essay is written to proffer challenges of leading groups in a criminal justice organization. Particularly, a description of the challenges currently faced by criminal justice leaders would be included in the discourse; as well as predictions of the challenges that will be faced over the next 5 years. Leadership is the process of influencing people to work or act towards the attainment of specifically defined goals (Martires & Fule 2000: 569). â€Å"Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal† (Northouse, 2004). Authors Lussier & Achua (2004) define leadership as â€Å"the influencing process of leaders and followers to achieve organizational objectives through changes†. And Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn (2008, 243) state leadership as â€Å"the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives†. All authors share the same conviction who perceived leadership as a process of influencing others. Further, all authors conform to the following factors as relevant components of the leadership process: (1) influencing people; (2) towards the achievement of a goal. There is the component of influence by exerting the ability to develop and communicate that vision to a group of people who would make that vision come true. According to McKinney (2008, par. 1),