A Review on the Concept of Leadership, Power and Politics

Leadership is concerned with policymaking, directing, supervising and controlling other factors, components or members of the organization or the team, among other important functions. Power is inherent to leadership as it gives rise to, and maintains, hierarchy among the members of the group or organization. Leaders are supposed to exercise the vested power for smooth functioning of the organization. Politics is one misused and misunderstood idea in the organizational context. It is looked at and described as an evil. This paper aims at resolving the misconception about politics and presents it at its truest state by understanding it as stated by the person who coined the term, Aristotle. It will also be analyzed in comparison with leadership to understand the similarities between the two. Upon analysis, it is understood that politics and leadership are the same in their functional nature; it is only their scope of operation that differentiates them.