Informal leadership: What makes informal leaders thrive
Lenbeck, Mirka (2022)
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060315186
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060315186
Tiivistelmä
Leadership is one the most discussed and studied topics in business world. What makes someone a great leader has interested researchers for decades. Area in leadership research which lacks further study, is informal leadership. Informal leaders exist in every organisation and on all levels.
Who informal leaders are and what makes them thrive, are the objectives of this study. The idea for this topic stems from the researcher’s own experience and perceptions after working for many years in a role requiring leadership skills regardless, that it was never stated in the job descriptions. Also working with people considered as informal leaders has resulted great interest towards this topic.
This research was conducted as a qualitative case study to comprehend the informal leadership phenomenon. Data was collected by interviewing experts from various companies. The research was not conducted to any particular organisation or company. It was considered by the researcher that by not limiting it to one company would create better understanding of informal leader’s role and also to determine whether there are similarities regardless of the company or the industry.
Results show that the key elements of successful informal leadership are intrinsic motivation, political skills and support from of the formal leaders. What drives them is internal desire to make change and better themselves by working and learning from others. The enthusiasm they have influence also other people to reach the goals. This conclusion was made after reviewing literature and the data collected from the interviews. The literature review covered organisations and organisational behaviour, motivation, power and influence. Leadership theories were also studied and how they have evolved over the decades.
Who informal leaders are and what makes them thrive, are the objectives of this study. The idea for this topic stems from the researcher’s own experience and perceptions after working for many years in a role requiring leadership skills regardless, that it was never stated in the job descriptions. Also working with people considered as informal leaders has resulted great interest towards this topic.
This research was conducted as a qualitative case study to comprehend the informal leadership phenomenon. Data was collected by interviewing experts from various companies. The research was not conducted to any particular organisation or company. It was considered by the researcher that by not limiting it to one company would create better understanding of informal leader’s role and also to determine whether there are similarities regardless of the company or the industry.
Results show that the key elements of successful informal leadership are intrinsic motivation, political skills and support from of the formal leaders. What drives them is internal desire to make change and better themselves by working and learning from others. The enthusiasm they have influence also other people to reach the goals. This conclusion was made after reviewing literature and the data collected from the interviews. The literature review covered organisations and organisational behaviour, motivation, power and influence. Leadership theories were also studied and how they have evolved over the decades.