**3. The international definition of social work and organization**

To foster effective leadership in social work organisations and achieve the expected retains, it is fundamental to appreciate that there are different social work definitions used in various settings. Thus it is important to adequately define social work

#### *Perspective Chapter: Fostering Effective Leadership in Social Work Organisations DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106281*

because it is a profession working in variety of settings that may include profit and non profit organizations or public social service agencies such as Government, Hospitals, Schools, Faith Based Organizations, Industrial settings among others. The social workers in these organizations are concerned with social problems, their causes, solutions and their impacts using different leadership theories or models. The social work as a profession in local, regional and international organizations has been significantly recognized over the past decades. As a result, the global statistics in various social work and non-social work organizations are growing the world afar and social workers in the future have been projected to increase significantly. These and other concerns have therefore called for the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) [8] at its General Meeting and the IASSW General Assembly to redefine social work as:

*"A practice-based profession and an academic discipline that seeks to promote social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. The principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work as underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge's, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing which could be amplified at national and/or regional levels".*

Following the IFSW definition, an array of Governments, national, local and Non-Governmental Organizations have been instituted and mandated to enhance the lives of individuals, families, groups and communities using various models and theories in an organization setting. Due to numerous definitions of the term organisation, it is very difficult to precisely define social work as it is not standardised in certain instances. Because of its dynamic and ever changing nature, the different writers have defined and interpreted the term in line with societal needs, business objectives or environmental changes emphasising different characteristics. Attributable to different forms of organization structures like the bureaucratic structure, entrepreneurial structure, matrix form and independent form, the study found that an organisation is not just a structure or a set of plans and processes but organisations are made up of people who interrelate with each other in carrying out roles and duties in support of the achievement of set goals and objectives. Literature substantiate that organisations are: "(1) social entities that (2) are goal directed (3) are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and (4) are linked to the external environment" [9]. Srivastava [10] treated an organization as "a dynamic process and a managerial activity which is essential for planning the utilization of company's resources, plant and equipment materials, money and people to accomplish the various objectives". From the above definitions an organisation can be understood as a unit that is goal oriented with human groupings that work together in creating structures and technologies that are suitable for pursuing intended goals. These organizations in that regard are requiring to using different leadership styles and models to increase motivation of its workforce and produce good returns. Mostly, studies have discovered that the complications in these organizations are that the knowledge base is purely conceptual and lacks a robust empirical basis to address the contemporary organizational social work challenges [11]. It seems to be that some structures and orientation of these organizations are dynamic which call for dynamic leadership styles. Therefore, the global definition of organizations as a unit pursues the vision and mission of the organization emphasizing only their rationality and goal-directed nature depending on the type of leadership. Thus social work challenges are managed

by engaging and re-engaging with the social work profession, its knowledge, values and skills [12]. Moreover, various professional skills and knowledge base have long been recognized as the heart of every organization including the health care services [5]). The converse is as well true that social workers particularly those from academic organizations have appeared to resist in the reduction of their struggles in the context of the growing implications in evidence-based social work best models and practice guidelines in decades. An organization as defined by Robbins and Coulter is an entity with a distinct purpose which is expressed in terms of objectives or set of goals that an organization can hope to achieve within a space of time. Even though each organization is made up of different people who work for those organizations to achieve their organizational goals, the leadership approaches in these organizations has however been viewed by Haworth et al. [5] as poorly defined.

Today, social workers are expected to function within the scope of organization structures, programs, and advantages that are offered by governmental, civic society and community players in order to guarantee quality social protection of the vulnerable individuals, families and communities. By so doing, each social worker is required to provide the welfare services under diverse regulatory mechanisms like licensure, registration, certification which are fundamental for the professionalization of the social work practice that ought to guarantee accountability. The regulatory mechanisms in that regard have numerous added advantages to the recognition of the social work professionalization that should differentiate the quality of social work and leadership from those of the non-social work organizations respectively.
