The Significance of Informal Leadership in Organizations

The workers with the biggest quantity of status in the informal organization usually become its informal leader. Some of the advantages of casual leadership are that the informal leader is someone within an organization or work system who, by virtue of how he or she is viewed by his peers (or others in the company) is viewed as worthy of paying attention to, or following. The major thing that differentiates a casual leader from a formal one is that the informal leader does not hold a position of power or formal authority over those that select to follow him or her.

The capability for a casual leader to affect or lead others rests on the ability of that individual to evoke respect, self-confidence, and rely on others, and it is not unusual for a casual leader to not intentionally attempt to lead. Casual leaders can be exceptionally important to companies, and to the success of official leaders, or, if informal leaders do not support the official leaders and their programs and vision, they can work as barriers in the company.

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The reasons for the drawbacks in informal leadership are because informal standards: personal goals and interests of workers differ from official organizational goals, also, informal communication: changes of communication routes within an enterprise due to personal relations between coworkers. In an informal group: certain groups of coworkers have the same interests, or (for example) the same origin. The informal leaders: due to charisma and general popularity, certain members of the organization win more influence than originally intended.

There are different interests and preferences of coworkers as well as different status of coworkers.

Lastly, the work requirements are difficult and their conditions of work are unpleasant. On balance, I feel that informal leadership is good for the organization because it plays several useful roles for a work unit. For example, the informal leader is expected to model and explain the key norms (informal standards of behavior) of the informal group for new members. If someone fails to comply with the groups norms, the informal leader will most likely play a dominant role in applying various forms and degrees of pressure or punishment to the individual to induce the desired behavior in the future.