Four Page Report on On Becoming A Leader by Warren Bennis - Book Report/Review Example

Four Page Book Report on “On Becoming A Leader” by Warren Bennis Warren Bennis’s “On Becoming a Leader” is a central source in leadership studies andproposes Bennis’ key concepts for becoming a leader. The focus of this paper is to provide a detailed book report of Bennis’ key concepts with a critical analysis of Bennis’ model of core leadership traits and consider contextually whether anyone can become a leader within Bennis’ leadership paradigm. Bennis posts that the key elements for leadership are as follows: 1) A guiding vision; 2) Passion; 3) Integrity; 4) Trust; and 5) Curiosity and fearlessness (p.39). To this end, Bennis’s hypothesis of leadership proposes that “a leader is, by definition an innovator. He does things other people haven’t done or don’t do. He does things in advance of other people. He makes new things and makes old things new” (Bennis, p.143). Moreover, in highlighting the core leadership requirements, Bennis refers to former US President Henry Kissinger’s assertion that “Presidents don’t do great things by dwelling on their limitations, but by focusing on their possibilities” (Bennis, p. 49). Bennis utilises this example to highlight a distinction between leaders on the one hand and managers on the basis that “I tend to think of the differences between leaders and managers as the differences between those who master the context and those who surrender to it. There are other differences, as well, and they are enormous and crucial” (p.45). For example, Bennis highlights the distinction between a leader and a manager below: 1) Managers administer and leaders innovate; 2) The manager copies, the leader is original; 3) The manager maintains, the leader develops; 4) The manager focuses on systems and structure, the leader focuses on people; 5) The manager relies on control, the leader inspires trust; 6) The manager has a short range view, the leader has a long range perspective; and 7) “The manager has eyes always on the bottom line, the leader’s eyes are on the horizon” (p.45). These arguments are further supported if we contextually consider the work of Continental Airlines CEO Larry Kellner. For example, it is submitted that the leadership model is arguably embodied in Kellner’s management strategy, which has fuelled Continental US’s growth in a customer orientated and competitive marketplace. Indeed, Hurd et al (2004) posit that the central factor in ensuring continued growth and profits is creativity as “Questions answered from detail data lead to new, more detailed questions and will reveal new opportunities. Asking questions is the best way of doing business. Continental has proven it time and again” (p.30). To this end, Hurd and Nyberg (2004) refer to Kellner as a “marginal manager” (p.30) and that his strategy epitomises the creativity in innovation approach to business strategy as “when he focuses on costs and revenues, his mantra is margin, making more than he’s spending. Like many companies, employees are one of the key resources at Continental, and more productive employees means better margins” (p.30). Moreover, Hurd and Nyberg (2004) highlight the point that Kellner has been instrumental in acknowledging that need to address internal employee management and participation as instrumental to business success. Furthermore, Kellner’s purpose in implementing a learning organisation model was part of his vision to continuously improve the airline and Hurd and Nyberg (2004) comment that “every day Kellner has his eye on thousands of seemingly small things, asking how Continental might improve. Leadership sets the pace” (p.31). As such, this suggests that not everyone can become a leader and that essentially “no-one can teach you to become yourself” (Bennis, 55). Essentially, therefore in addition to highlighting the core elements of leadership skills, Bennis highlights that individual have to take responsibility for acquiring leadership skills, which intrinsically implies that not everyone can become leader. To this end, Bennis proposes the principle of self-knowledge in acquiring leadership skills and extrapolates the following four core principles within the self-knowledge paradigm: 1) You are your own best teacher; 2) Accept responsibility and do not pass the blame; 3) You can learn anything you want to learn; 4) True understanding comes from reflection on personal experience (Bennis, 56). Therefore Bennis suggests that self-knowledge is the central factor in acquiring leadership skills and to this end, Bennis proposes the Akin model of learning to acquire the relevant self-knowledge for leadership, which encourages self acquisition of knowledge as opposed to merely following pre-conceived concepts. For example, Akin’s modes of learning are as follows: 1) Emulation; 2) Role taking; 3) Practical accomplishment; 4) Validation; 5) Anticipation; 6) Personal Growth; and 7) Scientific Growth (In Bennis). Moreover, an important part of Bennis’ self-knowledge proposition is the assertion of self reflection and individual responsibility. To this end, Bennis refers to Piaget’s assertion that “every time we teach a child something we stop him from inventing it for himself” (Bennis, p.69). It is precisely this element of innovation and invention that is the crux of Bennis’ argument as to what distinguishes a leader from a manager. For example, Bennis refers to comments of Apple Computers CEO John Sculley that “the real role of the leader is to figure out how to make diverse people and elements work together” (Bennis, p.106). This would further support the implication in Bennis; book that not everyone can become a leader as the requisite leadership skills are inherently intertwined with the nuances of individual personality and background. Moreover, an individual’s personality and background experiences will clearly influence the extent to which they will be fearless and daring as required by Bennis’ core ingredients of leadership. Indeed, Bennis appears to acknowledge this point directly in commenting that: “Most of us are shaped more by negative experiences than by positive ones. A thousand things happen in a week to each of us, but most of us remember the few lapses rather than our triumphs because we don’t reflect….. when you’re going along, and everything is working well, you don’t sit down and reflect. Which is exactly the moment you should do it”(Bennis p.116). Furthermore, Bennis asserts that “if you wait for the great mistake before you reflect, two things happen, once, since you’re down, you don’t get the most out of it, and two, you tend only to see the mistake, instead of all the moments in which you’ve been correct” (Bennis, p.116). A central element of Bennis’s leadership model is the requirement to create trust and to this end, Bennis highlights the importance of the interrelationship four key ingredients: 1. Constancy; 2. Congruity; 3. Reliability; and 4. Integrity (p.160). Bennis further asserts the importance of trust in effective people management, which is the “primary resource” of organisations (p.179). Bennis argues that in practice many organisations “have taken the opposite track, eschewing loyalty to workers, pruning rather than nurturing and focusing almost exclusively on the bottom line” p.179). However, trust and organisational management inherently requires effective people management and Bennis asserts that whilst “ruthless management may succeed in holding change at baby for a while, only visionary leadership will succeed over time” (p.179). It is submitted that this proposition of Bennis is essential to sustaining continued long term organisational growth as a central element of organisational behaviour is rooted in employee management and employee personality. Employee management involves the balancing of numerous differentiating personal characteristics which make them unique. Understanding these variances in individual traits and personality is vital to effective employee motivation and performance. Various assessment tools and theories-based on human nature provide perspectives in understanding individual performance in the workplace. For example, McShane & Von Glinow’s “Organisational behaviour: emerging realities for the workplace revolution” (2005) research into organisational behaviour focuses on the notion of the human, individual personality as a key factor in employee performance, which in turn is viewed as an essential element of organisational success. This in turn underlines Bennis’ argument regarding the interrelationship between trust and employee management as a core ingredient of leadership. The overriding focus of McShane & Von Glinow’s “Organisational behaviour” is the relationship between employee personality and employee performance. Firstly, they make reference to Richard Karash’s theory of the “learning organisation”. The learning organisation is an evolving notion which has become increasingly incorporated into the modern company and multinational philosophy. McShane & Von Glinow expressly refer to Richard Karash’s proposition of the ideology underlying the learning organisation: “A learning organisation is one which people at all levels, individuals and collectively are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about” (Karash, R. 1995). The ideological underlying principle behind the learning organisation is that it produces a flexible workforce with a shared vision, which in turn ensures internal stability within an organisation. McShane & Von Glinow further refer to Mike Wills’ definition of the learning organisation as a “group of people who work together” (Wills, M. 1998). Wills further defines it as a “company, corporation, firm, enterprise or institution, or part thereof, whether incorporated or not, public or private, that has its own functions and administration. For organisations with more than one operating unit, a single operating unity may be defined as an organisation” (Wills, 1998). Moreover, in reinforcing this argument, Bennis’ book supports Tom Peters’ hypothesis regarding effective organisational management, which proposes the following: 1) A less hierarchical structure; 2) Increased employee autonomy; 3) Quality controls; 4) Service Controls; 5) Responsiveness; 6) Innovative Speed; 7) Flexibility; 8) Highly skilled employees with increased decision making powers; and 9) Leaders at all levels as opposed to conventional management structures (Bennis, 180). Additionally, Bennis underlines a very important point by commenting that the “basis for leadership is learning, and principally learning from experience” (p.181). This proposition is utilised by Bennis to put forward his “10 personal and organisational characteristics for coping with change, forging a new future, and creating learning organisations” (p.192); which are as follows: 1) Manage the dream through communication, recruitment and retraining; 2) Embrace Error; 3) Encourage reflective interaction; 4) Encourage dissent: “Leaders need people around them who have a contrary view, who are devil’s advocates – variance sensors, who can tell the difference between what is expected and what is really going on” (p.194); 5) Leaders should have the attributes of optimism, faith and hope; 6) Leaders should understand the Pygmalion effect in management; 7) Leaders “should have a certain touch” (p.199); 8) Leaders should consider the long term view with regard to business growth; 9) Comprehension of stakeholder symmetry: “they must balance the competing claims of all the groups within a stake in the organisation” (p.200) and 9) Create strategic alliances and partnerships. Therefore, Bennis’s leadership paradigm is imperative in highlighting the core ingredients of leadership and the role of self perspective in acquiring leadership skills. This proposition in turn is utilised to highlight the importance of effective leadership in long term business growth and strategy. Part B: Can I become a leader? In using Bennis’s leadership hypothesis, I feel that I can be a leader if I firstly work out a future vision of my role and career goals and scope for innovation. This will inherently require preparation and long term goal planning as Bennis asserts that “a leader is, by definition an innovator. He does things other people haven’t done or don’t do. He does things in advance of other people. He makes new things and makes old things new” (Bennis, p.143). However, in addition to creating a vision for myself, it is important that I reflect in previous experiences had and learn from this in considering acquisition of leadership skills. Additionally, it is imperative that I actually acquire practical experience of leadership skills and therefore I should apply to participate in college geared leadership programs that are specifically designed to train students on leadership skills. In particular, application to youth leadership programs will be important as these are bespoke programs addressing specific skills that employers are looking for. Bibliography Bennis, W. (1990). On becoming a leader. Hurd, M. & Nyberg, L. (2004). The value factor: how global leaders use information for growth. Bloomberg Press. Karash, R. (1995) Why a learning organisation? Available at www.richardkarash.com McShane & Von Glinow (2005) Organisational behaviour: emerging realities for the workplace revolution. 3rd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More