An Essential Requirement for Effective Leadership - Coursework Example

Running head: Vision Vision - An Essential Requirement for Effective Leadership ___________ ________________________ ________________ Vision - An Essential Requirement for Effective Leadership Introduction This paper has the primary objective to trace the important influences and applicability/utility of Lao-Tzu, Sun Tzu and Nicolo Machiavelli's vision of leadership and their respective influence(s) on "modern" leadership theory as it pertains to the ethical culture and conduct of an organization. The paper goes on to probe all that constitutes with in an essential requirement of effective leadership by drawing upon theoretical contexts from modern day theories of leadership. Lao-Tzu, Sun Tzu and Nicolo Machiavelli's vision of leadership According to Sun Tzu the art of war was of vital importance for the State. The art of war, in turn, was governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field. These were: the Moral Law; Heaven; Earth; the Commander (leader) and method and discipline. The Commander (leader) stood for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness. These virtues gelled perfectly with the five cardinal virtues of the Chinese philosophy i.e. humanity or benevolence; uprightness of mind; self-respect, self-control, or "proper feeling;" wisdom and sincerity or good faith. It may be observed that in contrast to the virtues enunciated for a commanding leader the virtues of "wisdom" and "sincerity" are put before "humanity or benevolence," and the two military virtues of "courage" and "strictness" are substituted for "uprightness of mind" and "self-respect, self-control, or 'proper feeling' in this civilian version. Rosenthal explains in his Tao Te Ching's translation that while a sage leader is just, thoughtful, profound, kind, sincere and aims at competence in management while ensuring even pacing of his moves; additionally a wise leader would recognize that the nature is not contrived and all that which is required to be done is to be achieved .In order to save his energies a wise leader replaces desires with dispassion and lets all actions flow through natural energy. Such a leader knows that more is still required to be done and more actions should follow but he does not let such actions rush in with deliberate intent and in fact maintains no intention. To act without contrived intent is to act without contriving, which is natural way and the way of the Tao.As against this a Machiavellian system of governance implies being like, or befitting Machiavelli. In such a system governance acts in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described. This system is characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty (The Random, 1997). Thus while the Chinese Confucianism emphasizes the virtues of honesty, justice, integrity, peace, humanity, etc. ;according to Machiavelli, if a prince always act only according to these virtues he will not last long. Machiavelli suggests that a prince at times must know how to be dishonest, when to use war for advantage, when to use tumults - even start it. Machiavelli also suggests that a prince must know how to act like a fox. Thus while Tao style of leadership and the military leadership of Sun Tzu were both essentially aligned to a positive value system based in the Chinese philosophy the Machiavellian system was contrived ,expedient and the leadership was defined to conniving, self centered and narrow and totally focused on ends rather than means. In today's competitive and globalized commercial business the modern leadership styles have evolved around the more towards the Sun Tzu and Tao systems rather than Machiavellian system; the prime reasons being that all serious businesses wish to live out their perpetual lives by building trust in stakeholders. Expediency and short run objectives still do result in Machiavellian leadership styles but they are far outweighed by leadership styles based on positive value systems. Globalized commercial business has been an area where critical managerial inputs are required. Since modern day business tasks tasks, processes and their sequences of steps are growing complex with heightened budgets and global dimensions there has been a felt need to review an important input to any organizational management task viz. that of leadership. While a view holds that project managers should assume and nurture leadership roles; it is the view here that management and leadership are two distinct functions and should be developed as such. A view holds that leaders are people oriented and their main task is to inspire people. Their primary functional output is a change (Veal, 2004) and their capabilities are assessed in terms of controlling the process of this change. That is to mould and control change to suit project's objectives. Whereas managers are task and process oriented and their main task is to organize such tasks and processes. Management's main output is task done in target time at target cost. In plain language Management is assigned the task of producing and maintaining a degree of predictability & order (Veal, 2004). Leadership on the other hand assumes the function of producing change under a constantly updated schemata of direction and vision. Leadership is the process of motivating others to work to meet specific goals and objectives. Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned fashion for the purpose of accomplishing the leader's agenda. According to Bass (1997:17), leadership has been conceived as the focus of group processes, a matter of personality, a substance of inducing compliance, the exercise of influence as certain behaviors, a form of persuasion, a power relation, an effect of interaction, a differentiated role, an initiation of structure, and as an instrument to achieve goals". McConnell, who is considered to be one of the gurus in the human development field, underscores few of the most important qualities that are generally found in business leaders. McConnell views leader as a person with vision, inspiration, courage, integrity, empathy and emotional intelligence.( McConnell,1994) The competitive organizations that are sustaining their value and alongside the reputation of their leaders in these tough times have one thing in common: leaders who set a great deal by what they will leave behind them after they are gone. They coagulate as to what values will sustain the organization over the long run; what public might say of them; whether the organization they led will still be there to remember them; and if so, in what manner in the organization's memory. The paradox at the heart of organizational leadership is that the leader must add value to the organization but must not take it away when he or she leaves. An essential part of a leader's job is to become dispensable through creating a culture of leadership that extends throughout the organization (Deering,2003).In quest of this modern day leadership is constantly driving their organizations to wider agenda and vistas-a change process which is thoughtful and natural in Tao fashion. Change has turned into a featured theme of leadership literature for a good reason. Leaders set the direction, define the context, and help produce coherence for their organizations. Leaders manage and run the culture, or at least the vehicles through which that culture finds expression. They set the boundaries for collaboration, autonomy, and the sharing of knowledge and ideas, and give meaning to events that otherwise appear random and chaotic. And they inspire voluntary behavior -- the degree of effort, innovation, and entrepreneurship with which employees serve customers and seek opportunities (Kanter, 1999).Thus the leaders are playing the role of catalysts in motivating the organization into strategic moves. Overcoming complacency is crucial at the start of any change process, and it often need a jolt of surprised shock which may be even mild, something that grabs attention at more than an intellectual level. One needs to surprise people with something that disturbs their view that everything is perfect. Successful change leaders illustrate to people what the problems are and how they can be resolved. They use tangible things and innovative experiments that people can see, hear, or touch. This may mean showing a video of an angry customer rather than a report of a customer survey. Change leaders make their points in emotionally engaging and compelling manner so as to obtain focused attention of the listener and learner. They rely on vivid stories that are told and retold. You don't have to spend a million dollars and six months to prepare for a change effort. You do have to make sure that you touch people emotionally (Kotter, 2003). Management theory has the concept of the emotional maturity and quotient of the leadership. The higher such emotional maturity the higher would be the effectiveness in leadership outcomes. Leaders who do use emotional integration in their organization are called resonant leaders. An individual leader can be resonant first at individual levels, and then at teams. First of all, if you are a resonant leader, you tune in to your own values, priorities, sense of meaning, and goals -- and you lead authentically from those, and you do it in a way that you tune in to other people's sense of values, priority, meaning, and goals. When you tune in to others, that helps them tune in to you. In other words, you create a climate where you can articulate a shared mission that moves people. The opposite of resonance is dissonance. Dissonant leaders don't care how people feel.A similarity with the Machiavellian system. Such leaders just want to get the job done, no matter what and how. They pressure people; they create fear as a motivator -- which is itself a destructive emotion -- and they do things that make people angry, and they act as though it didn't matter. But it matters greatly. And the data is very strong in showing that, everything else being equal, if you take two leaders, one resonant and one dissonant, the resonant leader will always do better than the dissonant one(Goleman,2002). With this resonant approach the leader should still remain a problem solver.As Kouzes says that a leader must have a "fresh, creative response to here-and-now opportunities," and not much concern with how others have performed them. (Kouzes, 1987).Thus he would be capable of giving new solutions to complicated problems and lead in dead ends. A resonant approach would also imply a generous input of empathy. There is vast amount of difference between empathy and sympathy (Barry, Top). Although the words rhyme, they, in fact have widely different meanings. According to Norman Paul, in sympathy the subject is principally absorbed in his or her own feelings as they are projected into the object and has little concern for the reality and validity of the object's special experience. Empathy, on the other hand, presupposes the existence of the object as a separate individual, entitled to his or her own feelings, ideas and emotional history (Paul, 1970). Ability to put oneself in other's shoes and appreciate situation from his angle helps critically in any situation analysis. Some views have even expressed the view that more empathy ensures greater identification with the vision of the leader as empathy extended results in empathy received. References Bass, Bernard M. Concepts of Leadership. In Leadership: Understanding the Dynamics of Power and Influence in Organizations. Robert P. Vecchio (ed.). 1997. Notre Dame, IN:University of Notre Dame Press. Deering, Anne, Dilts, Robert, and Russell, Julian. "Leadership Cults and Cultures" Leader to Leader. 28 (Spring 2003): 36-43. Goleman, Daniel "Leading Resonant Teams" Leader to Leader. 25 (Summer 2002): 24-30. Kanter, Rosabeth Moss "The Enduring Skills of Change Leaders" Leader to Leader. 13 (Summer 1999): 15-22. Kotter, John P. "The Power of Feelings" Leader to Leader. 27 (Winter 2003): 25-31. McConnell, John .On lemmings, managers and leaders. The Journal for Quality and Participation.(1994). 17(2), 26-29. Ruffin,Veal. Project Management and Leadership:Equal Partners for Project Success www.asapm.org. 2004. The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary Copyright 1997 by Random House Inc. Read More