Maditobane Robert Lekganyane

By Maditobane Robert Lekganyane

Organisational leadership plays an important role in addressing societal problems. For welfare organisations, effective leadership is even more crucial given the nature of problems presented to these organisations, which are complex and affecting mostly vulnerable population groups. Despite the contribution of traditional leadership approaches in resolving some of the social problems, research evidence have proven that the traditional approaches to leadership have not been effective, with some researchers calling for an integrated approach to leadership. The call is considered legitimate given the complexity and dynamic nature of social problems to which welfare organisations respond. A leadership approach for an organisation should adapt to the broad and diverse contexts in which welfare organisations exist (including its own internal environment) in order to effectively respond to these complex and diverse social issues that are often presented for intervention. The aim of this chapter is to argue for an integrated leadership approach as an appropriate leadership approach for leading a welfare organisation. Drawing from the leader-oriented and relationship-oriented approaches to leadership, the chapter demonstrates how the conventional approaches to leadership can be adopted interchangeably or even collectively in an integrated fashion to respond to a single-presenting problem within the welfare organisational context.

Part of the book: Social Work