Essay On Contemporary Leadership Skills 

INTRODUCTION OF LEADERSHIP 

Leadership doesn't have single concrete definition. Everyone have their own thoughts regarding performing as a good leader (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2013). For instance, a few individuals think authority means directing others to finish a specific task, while others trust it means rousing the employee spirit to be their best selves. However, the general supposition is that leaders are individuals who know how to attain the objectives and motivate individuals along the way (Kouzes, & Posner, 2011).
Good leaders take steps to unleash the maximum capacity of their devotees, so they can achieve higher and go more remote than they previously assumed imaginable (Bass, &Riggio, 2005). Thornton (2013) has identifies following four types of leaders.
Nowadays the leadership is changing with the changing market dynamics (Cummings, & Worley, 2014). George Bradt (2014) has defined the leader following three types of leaders that are required in current situation of emerging economies. These are:

ROLE OF A LEADER

There are different roles that are played by a leader. Some major roles are:
Setting up a clear vision 
It means impacting workers in such a way so as to comprehend and acknowledge the future condition of the association and work accordingly (Vaccaro, Jansen, Van Den Bosch, &Volberda, 2012).

Communication

Good leaders are also good communicator. They convey their values in a clear and effective way. Different organizations have different communication requirement and leaders are affluent in delivering message accordingly (Yoder-Wise, 2014).

Motivating employees 

It intends to sufficiently discover about the needs and desires of the workers, issuing them what they need and giving applause to work well done (Wright, Moynihan, & Pandey, 2012).

Coaching employees

Coaching and guiding employees, is important part of work process and provides employees them with tools needed to perform and participate in their efforts along the way (Ladegard, &Gjerde, 2014).

Building morale

It involves pulling everyone together to work towards a common goal (Selznick, 2011). Making the employee know how much their work is essential for company builds morale.
All of these roles have profound impact on behaviour of employees and at organization at large. However, here Communication and coaching are discussed below in detail critically, taking the example of British Airways.

COMMUNICATION

While strong leadership is essential to business achievement, an association can just succeed when representatives at each level plainly comprehend where the business is going, and they reinforce, and do what is needed, to accomplish business objectives. Subsequently, communication is exceptionally key necessity here (Hackman, & Johnson, 2013).
Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory is fabricated on the conviction that employees get to be de-motivated, both in connection to their employment and their boss, in the event that they feel just as their inputs are more noteworthy than the yields. Workers can be relied upon to react to this is distinctive ways, including de-motivation. Powerful correspondence is the best way to reassure the de-motivated workers (Sambhanthan, & Good, 2013). To approach these ideas British Airways is using its management communication structure.

The communication role at British Airways would be differentiated in two parts.

Internal Communication
External Communication.
Internal Communications
Internal Communications manages to keep the company staff educated and aware of improvements in the company influencing their region and the business overall. This purpose was achieved with the help of magazine named, “Up to Speed” (Cedar, n.d.). This common magazine is for employees of all level at British Airways. It covered different internal news and issues, for instance communication among employees, snaps and stories of different events and occasions at British Airways. This was done to develop close relationship among employees.

External Communications

It was meant to identify and clarify issues of British Airways with the external world outside British Airways. It is meant to manage issues identified with the media, be it taking and noting enquiries from writers when a real occasion happens or proactively getting stories identifying with the carrier secured inside the media. The communication team briefs reporters on all way of issues regularly, while the press office tackles calls consistently from reporters needing responses to all way of inquiries (BA, n.d.).
The vital component of the communication by leader is that it is contemporaneous, it is open and fair, and up to some extent it is also close and personal. The other crucial prerequisite is the requirement for line administration to take the obligation regarding communication. So as to attain to the majority of the benefits of communication British Airways is doing following things:
Primarily company is building the image of communication as an important success factor. This effort will make communication a significant supporter to the business.

The organization is recognizing the people who are involved in good communication and reward them.

Administration is recognising that not only that there are a corporate values and returns for good correspondence, yet that there is additionally individual credit.
Obligation regarding the communication process must rest with administration at all levels over the association (Liu, Horsley, & Yang, 2012), and are equally important to be aided by the middle level management, as are in direct contact with employees. British Airways is building correspondence significantly among the management disciplines and enhancing it to middle level administration as well.
In 2012, key focus point of British Airways was to enhance the communication and identify behaviours that promote well being. It made efforts to enhance communications with employees in relation to their main problems and to enhance the response rate of around 44% from annual survey in year 2011, by using communication tactics. The efforts were fruitful and response rate of 58% was achieved from Speak up survey in year 2012 (British Airways, 2012a).
According to Julie Boddy, who is Business and Technology Improvement Manager, of Service Transformation Department, at British Airways, recognised that British Airways needed to improve its communication channel and tools. Every employee is not always available behind the desk and in front of computer. This creates gap in communication. The British Airways has vision to facilitate its employees with a good communication channel, which would be efficient in information sharing and deriving and acquiring knowledge.
Difficulties in top-down correspondence imply that British Airways corporate declarations are sent through a numerous of correspondence channels, including the postal services, to communicate with the whole workforce. British Airways additionally needs to streamline correspondence among the diverse brands working under International Airlines Group. To centralize the communication channel a system was needed which would be assessable to all employees.
For resolving this problem British Airways analysed the techniques which were in general used by the employees for communication outside the company. All the features that were detected to be user friendly along with added features were introduced in Microsoft Office 365. It thus, proved to be a good communication tool for business and employees of British Airways (Microsoft, 2014).
British Airways gives importance to the internal and external communication. It appointed Amanda as Head of its communication. She dealt with both internal and external communication tasks. She formed a team that and the aim of formation of team was to spread appealing and ingenious communication. With this measure she achieved the firm’s goal of achieving pride and fame. The proper communication also added value to the image of the brand in the eyes of its employees, customers and shareholders. The proper communication also spread harmony among the employees. The employees became more connected and created an environment where every individual employee was conducive with other’s decision, as they knew the background and need of steps taken and the future implications that were aimed to be positive for both employees and the company as a whole.

COACHING

Business coaching has gone from being considered to be a trend to basic. As per the 2010 Executive Coaching Survey, led by the Conference Board, 63% of associations utilize some type of interior coaching, and 50% of the rest plan to. Yet coaching is a little piece of the set of expectations for most directors. About half spend under 10% of their time honing others (Conference Board of Canada, 2010).
Target learning and coaching are crucial for the success of company. British Airways has currently launched Skills Strategy. It is British Airways step towards coaching and learning. The skill development program features the combination of guiding and training in class room. Here the main emphasis is on practical learning. With this initiative British Airways will have more skilled and expert employees at work. The employees will have all the necessary information to start a task and accomplish it successfully (British Airways, 2012b).
Leader is aimed at guiding at all instances, even while dealing with legal issues or to avoid legal issues. British Airways intends to comply with all important laws, regulations, principles, voluntary codes and other legal issues, while dealing with promotion and advertisement cost and strategicoffers in the United Kingdom.
Another important aspect of coaching is that leader does not make outlines and rules like manager, in spite he indulges them in activities which compel them to think and find the new ways themselves. As said by Socrates that he can't show anybody anything, although he can just make him think.
British airways provides on the job training which is intended to give opportunity to employees to analyse the work requirement, learn tactics to perform it and increase their potential to able to solve arising problems themselves. They provide formal coaching and also encourage cognitive learning (British Airways, 2012c). The employees are self motivated to take initiative and make decisions. Moreover, as the Herzberg’s Model demand motivation and satisfaction of employees, the coaching is helpful in this regard (Smith, & Shields, 2013). Employees feel that they are learning while working and their skills are getting polished as well.  Proper coaching also develops the sense of proficiency and achievement. Suchcoaching process also brings observable changed behaviours that in turn benefit the whole organization.
As the employees of British Airways have quite close interacting with the customers at the Airplane during flight, so they are given proper training to deal with customers who are having different needs and are speaking different languages. There are many emergency situations which are sometimes predictable and sometimes unpredictable, the employees are given coaching to deal with both king of situations. To avoid panic among the riding customers, it is primarily important that the employee is calm and is mentally available to solve the issue.
In year 2009-10, there was dire need to cut down number of employees and other expenses. This needed proper leadership and guidance. British Airways set up coaching for enhancing and reinforcing the leadership qualities of upper-level employees. This initiative was pretty much admired by the mangers (Annual report 2009-10).

CONCLUSION

The leader plays a very important role in accomplishment of tasks and consequently the success of organization. Different leadership roles are performed by a leader in different situations. These roles are very influential and shape the behaviours of the followers. Some important roles are Motivation, setting up clear vision, coaching, communication, building high morale, etc. The critical role of communication and coaching has been discussed in detail. There are many steps taken by British Airways to improve its communication and coaching’s viability and was proved effective.

List of References

BA. (n.d.). Contact us. Available from https://www.britishairways.com/en-es/bamediacentre/contactus/contactus [Accessed 8 April 2015]
Bass, B. M., &Riggio, R. E. (2005). Transformational leadership. Psychology Press.
Bradt, G. (2014). The Three Types Of Leaders The World Needs Most: Artistic, Scientific and Interpersonal. Forbes, Available from http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2014/01/29/the-three-types-of-leaders-the-world-needs-most-artistic-scientific-and-interpersonal/ [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
British Airways. (2012a). Corporate Responsibility Report 2012. Available from https://responsibleflying.ba.com/wp-content/uploads/BA_CRR_Full_Report.pdf [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
British Airways. (2012b). Information Technology. Available from http://www.britishairways.com/careers/it.shtml [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
British Airways. (2012c). Learn and Work. Available from http://www.britishairways.com/careers/apprentices.shtml [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
Cedar. (n.d.). British Airways – up to Speed. Available from http://www.cedarcom.co.uk/our-work/up-to-speed [Accessed 8 April 2015]
Conference Board of Canada. (2010). The 2010 Executive Coaching Survey. Available from http://www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did=3538 [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning
Daft, R. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal Leadership, With a New Preface by the Authors: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Harvard Business Press.
Hackman, M. Z., & Johnson, C. E. (2013). Leadership: A communication perspective. Waveland Press.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2011). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it (Vol. 244). John Wiley & Sons.
Ladegard, G., &Gjerde, S. (2014). Leadership coaching, leader role-efficacy, and trust in subordinates. A mixed methods study assessing leadership coaching as a leadership development tool. The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 631-646.
Liu, B. F., Horsley, J. S., & Yang, K. (2012). Overcoming Negative Media Coverage: Does Government Communication Matter?. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 597-621.
Microsoft. (2014). British Airways. Available from https://customers.microsoft.com/Pages/CustomerStory.aspx?recid=8856 [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
Northouse, P. G. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage.
Sambhanthan, A., & Good, A. (2013). Critical Success Factors for Positive User Experience in Hotel Websites: Applying Herzberg's Two Factor Theory for User Experience Modeling. arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.5196.
Selznick, P. (2011). Leadership in administration: A sociological interpretation. Quid Pro Books
Smith, D. B., & Shields, J. (2013). Factors Related to Social Service Workers' Job Satisfaction: Revisiting Herzberg's Motivation to Work. Administration in Social Work, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 189-198.
The Kmiec Ramblings. (2013). Great Managers Are Different Than Great Leaders. Available from http://www.thekmiecs.com/marketing-advertising/great-managers-are-different-than-great-leaders/ [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
Thornton, P. (2013). Four Types Of Leaders. Training Mag, Available from http://www.trainingmag.com/four-types-leaders [Accessed 7th April, 2015]
Ulrich, D., Zenger, J., & Smallwood, N. (2013). Results-based leadership. Harvard Business Press
Vaccaro, I. G., Jansen, J. J., Van Den Bosch, F. A., &Volberda, H. W. (2012). Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size. Journal of Management Studies, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 28-51.
Wright, B. E., Moynihan, D. P., & Pandey, S. K. (2012). Pulling the levers: Transformational leadership, public service motivation, and mission valence.Public Administration Review, vol. 72, no. 2, pp. 206-215.
Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2014). Leading and managing in nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Yukl, G. A. (2007). Leadership In Organizations, 6/E. Pearson Education.