**6. An integrated social work approach to organisational leadership**

As indicated earlier in the introduction, social welfare organisations and social workers employed in these organisations, deal with complex and dynamic social problems emanating from continually evolving human relationships. These organisations also comprise of employees with different needs, personalities and from different backgrounds. This therefore calls for a leadership approach which will fully and comprehensively respond to these dynamic and diverse situations. They require a leader who will develop different styles of leadership when the environment, the presenting problems, employees' needs and personalities as well as community and societal factors so require, while at the same time creating an enabling environment for subordinates to respond accordingly in addressing the issues presented by their client systems [2]. This section proposes an integrated approach to leadership as a suitable approach to leading a welfare organisation.

One of the central arguments purported in this section of the chapter is that an integration of all approaches to leadership is essential if welfare organisations are to effectively and efficiently respond to dynamic modern societal problems. Due to the dynamic and multifaceted nature of these problems, a leader may in one instance guide the organisation to respond to a particular part of a problem by drawing from the trait theories while in some instances a collection of leader-oriented theories may be adopted to guide an intervention. She/he may also consider adopting the women in leadership approach by "anointing" a woman to assume the position of leadership in order to address the gender imbalances and in line with societal expectations.

Thus, the need to uproot the presenting problems and to curb its further impact may in some instances call for an application of all leadership theories on the various dimensions of such a presenting problem while at the same time paying attention to the context in which such problems manifest. In other words, how a leader guides the organisation to respond will be determined by among others, the overall organisational mission, the type of personnel or subordinates that he is leading, the context of the issue presented at the time (the type of the issue (i.e. genderbased violence, sexual abuse, substance abuse etc.) or its extent (i.e. whether or not is considered a crisis). This suggest that leaders in welfare organisations should possess both qualities of leader-oriented theories and relationship-oriented theories as explained above in order to guide their organisations to respond whenever the situation requires.

An observation made by Druker is that effective leadership is characterised by eight characteristics [9]. A leader should acquire the needed knowledge in order to effectively lead. She/he should have the potential to determine what is required for the organisation and ensure that plans are put into action [9]. A leader must take a responsibility for decision making and always communicate effectively. She/ he should always focus on opportunities as opposed to problems, use time and resources efficiently and encourage team approach [9]. Looking at the above features, it is clear that an effective and efficient leader should possess the knowledge, ability and competency to apply the right approach at the right time. Such a leader will have the competency to assess any presented situation and guide the subordinates on how to respond based on her/his assessment. She/he should always have her/his "tool box" readily available at hand to immediately use the correct "tool" where required.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105586 Perspective Chapter: Leading Welfare Organisations from an Integrated Leadership Approach…*
