**5. Leadership definition**

Leadership has been extensively studies for centuries. The concept is famous for being defined from individuals' perspectives and the aspects that interests them most. Emanating from a historical and impactful leadership definition by Stodgill, "leadership is the initiation and maintenance of structure in expectation and interaction" [14]. The study by Masango on leadership in the African context reveals that, "leadership is a group phenomenon', meaning that, there "are no leaders without followers" [14], [708]. In other words, a definition of leadership in the African context must consider the collective aspect. He further stated that "leaders use influence to guide groups of people through a certain course of actions or towards the achievement of certain goals", leadership is therefore, goal directed, and plays a significant part in the life of a group, tribe or community" [14].

*Tourism*

operations and environmental degradation from Thailand perspective [12].

Although tourism businesses in Africa are not isolated from developed and developing communities, there is interdependence of the different sectors, individuals and groups involved in tourism [4]. Hence, there is a school of thought on various contingency or situational leadership, where the behaviour of the leader is explored by looking at the situation at hand or the context. For example, the environment in which the tourism sector operates is increasingly complex and competitive, leaving organisations to structure themselves in order to get quick, flexible and innovative responses. There has been a rise within the number of tourism organisations experiencing changes due to increasing tough financial climates, competitive advertising conditions and continuous technological changes over the final few decades. This ever-changing global landscape has led to a number of challenges as well as opportunities that organisations, its leaders and employees can embrace. Numerous tourism organisations that have had to re-assess their working models. The tourism sector continues to develop whilst the tourists' preferences are changing as the tourism consumers are more mindful of the significance of their free time and are more specific in their choice. Pechlaner, Kozak, Volgger & Volgger [13, 39] refer to the contingency theory by Fiedler, the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory by Graen and Uhl-Bien and transactional/transformational theory by Bass, Avolio [40] and Spencer et al. as successful theories in describing and explaining effective leadership in firms and other organisations. Consequently, leading and managing in the tourism sector is of great importance, particularly in the 21st century. Therefore, creative thinking enables leaders to contribute novel insights that can open up new opportunities or design mutually beneficial effective work groups. In the 16th century, the focus of organisations was on management and improving productivity (refer to **Figure 1**). According to Iszatt-White*, et al.*, in the 1880s and 1890s the core ideas of 'scientific management' were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor and first published in 1903; they were later expanded to the principles of scientific management [41]. Among Tylor's co-workers was Henry Laurence Gantt who left legacies to production management by coming up with the 'task and bonus' system that is linked to the bonus paid to managers to how well they taught their employees to improve performance [41]. Among Gantt's contribution is a Gantt chart commonly used in project management (which is also used in the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors) [42]; it is one of the most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or events) displayed against time. Research into travel, tourism and hospitality has an established tradition of investigating leadership issues (although not always appearing under the label of "leadership") [39]. In this chapter, Gantt's contribution is highlighted because of its use on tracking project schedules (an essential component in effective leadership in the tourism sector). Gantt chart shows additional information about the various tasks or phases of the project; for example, how the tasks relate to each other, how far each task has progressed, what resources are being used for each

We live in the world where dynamism of the markets and the current business scenarios require companies to have effective leaders that will be able to manage several projects simultaneously. Projects in the tourism industry are not new, the projects in a corporate context take about 50% of the organisational budget; hence, the nature of leadership and the characteristics of great leaders are debated

In the 20th century, the trait theories were developed where attributes or characteristics of 'great men' were examined. These theories presumed that leaders are born and that successful leaders have similar traits. The trait theory is concerned with the characteristics or traits that a person brings to the field in which leadership is

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task and so on.

intensely.

With the changes in the societies, markets, customers, competition, and technology around the globe, organisations are forced to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating; hence, the definition of leadership has evolved to suite a certain context. Meyer and Boninelli concur that leadership has no sequential beginning or end, it is rather critical to understand perspectives on what leadership is about, and the implications for organisations in the modern economy [38]. One may then argue that leadership is a choice and being a good leader is a skill that anyone can learn. Some believe that leadership is inherent in certain individuals; hence, it is referred to as an essential in achieving the vision of the organisation. Others believe that leaders rise from the masses when the situation demands it. According to Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube, good leadership is developed through a never-ending self-study, education, training, and the accumulation of relevant experience [13].

Leadership should be visionary, motivating, and stimulating for the team members; hence, the transformational leadership style is advocated for tourism leaders [40]. Thomas distinguishes leadership from management by identifying five nuances not found in management such as giving direction, providing inspiration, building teams, setting an example and being accepted as a leader [46], [119]. Leadership is viewed as a process (focusing on what leaders actually do) and as a property (the set characteristics attributed to individuals perceived to be leaders) [47]. Therefore, looking at the travel and tourism organisations, cooperation as the base in the organisations and their environment is critical. This permeates through the consistent travel and tourism management practices, processes, procedures, tools and techniques (value chain). Leadership is an effective tool to be used by the travel and tourism managers to influence outcome, otherwise, lack of leadership skills could be directly associated with failure which my negatively affect the contribution of tourism in the country and the rest of the continent. Perhaps, distinguishing the differences between leadership and management in projects is paramount.
