Today, the view of people being the most important component of organisations, reigns supreme. Successful management of this critical organisational resource requires strong leadership, a skill sometimes viewed as the mystical "it" that a person radiates to rally support for a cause, motivate others and change the very face of organisational life day to day. In a word, leadership is about influence.

In this ebook, the aim is to remove the mystic veil from leadership, the processes that make leadership work (power, empowerment and politics) and the critical role that leadership plays in organisational life all around us. The vast literature available on the subject of leadership, power and politics underpins the importance that the organisational society places on these concepts.

A commentary on management vs leadership will be followed by a discussion of power. This provides a neat platform to introduce the concept of empowerment and the various leadership models and perspectives. This is followed by a brief expansion of organisational politics, especially in the technical environment.

Finally, the knowledge and intuition thus gained will be used to model the interdependability of leadership, power, empowerment and politics to illustrate the critical role that leadership has to play in the broader organisational context, such as motivation, organisational culture, management of change and strategy, etc.

Autorentext

Minnesh Kaliprasad is a qualified Chemical Engineer who has migrated towards the field of project management and project controls in particular for the larger part of his working career thus far. He has over 20 years working experience with various companies ranging from the petroleum, mining, and construction sectors, in varying roles. He is currently a Project Controls Manager for South Africa's public electricity utility, ESKOM.

He also holds a qualification in the field of Project Management, and a post graduate degree in Technology Management. Furthermore, he has earned accreditation from the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE) for the Certified Cost Professional (CCP) and Earned Value Professional (EVP) credentials. In addition, he is also a Project Management Professional (PMP) with the Project Management Institute (PMI).

He has held the positions of Technical Director and President of the Cost Engineering Association of South Africa (CEASA) which was later rebranded as the Southern African Project Controls Institute (SAPCI) under his leadership.

He has had a total of 3 peer reviewed technical articles published in the Cost Engineering Journal, viz. Proactive Risk Management ( Cost Engineering Journal December 2006, Human Factor I and II, Cost Engineering Journal June 2006). The former article has since been featured in AACE International's Professional Practice Guide to Cost Engineering in the Global Environment, while the latter two articles have been featured in AACE International's Professional Practice Guide to Leadership and Management of People.

When he is not working he is probably running, gardening, or reading.