How Philosophy Can Turn People into More Effective Leaders - Essay Example

Introduction: The concept of leadership is no longer a mystery. Leadership is not associated with the business field only but it is a concept that helps individuals in reaching their goals using a cooperative and collaborative approach to follow. Leadership in politics, sports, teaching and other professional careers guides towards the importance and significance of this concept. Leadership is defined in different ways by different authors, however, an easy definition may be “the process whereby an individual directs, guides, influences, or controls the thoughts, feelings or behaviours of other human beings” (Rost, p.52) Many researchers have been struggling to define and explain the leadership traits, theories, challenges and related affairs. The importance that has been given to this area of research is the importance of leadership on employees, performance and overall success of the organizations. There have been a lot of facts and myths associated with the concept of leadership. In the past, leadership was linked by people with the superhuman characteristics bestowed by God to various leaders. This idea was further developed by Weber and named as Charisma by him. The leadership charisma involved the qualities and special characteristics that leaders posses. The leaders having leadership charisma are Charismatics. The concept of Charisma actually directs towards the special power and influence of Charismatics over the followers (Rickards & Clark, p79). In addition to the concept of charisma in leadership, it has been a point of debate if leadership skills are inborn or they can be taught. Researchers have been struggling to find an appropriate answer to this. However, it is not unjust to say that the answer to this question contains an equal portion of both statements. The answer to this question has been given attention for the reason that it may help organizations have effective leaders. Brainpower is the only thing that requires being in a person naturally. Knowledge can be gained, skills can be learnt but intelligence cannot be generated. A person needs to be intelligent and sharp in order to gain knowledge and utilize it. Leadership requires certain traits in a person. These traits include strength of mind, interest to resolve issues, ready to face challenges, power to proceed with plans, will to succeed, determination and passion (Levicki, 2008). Leadership Dilemmas and Personal Experiences: Leadership qualities, theories and concepts are valuable and useful when it comes to practical life. The leadership skills are not limited to benefit in businesses but are useful in leading all teams including the political, social, cultural and virtual ones. The leadership techniques, qualities and skills are of paramount importance in successfully handling the followers. Religious and political leaders may be taken as a helpful example of how influential leaders are. My personal experiences helped a lot in learning the concept of leadership in a better way. The theory and practice of leadership differ in some ways. However, the theory and literature on leadership helps in understanding and building a better and more influential personality to handle and motivate the followers. To make my opinion more clear and effective I would describe Managerial work and leadership. Since my personal involves being a night shift manager for a small hotel, finance manager for one year in a construction company, and finally the manager for the construction company for three years which has hundreds of employees. The step by step development of my career and promotions helped me in understanding which traits are valued and which ones are not. Managerial work is closely linked to leadership. A leader is a person who carry out plans and knows what to do, whereas, a manager is a person who knows how to do things and how would they actually complete a particular task. For instance, a student who is making a plan to carry out a stage performance on some occasion and take the responsibility to select the performers too, is not only acting as a leader but also working as a manager. Leaders normally work as managers too. For this reason we may say that leadership requires managerial skills too. Hence, we may conclude that leadership and managerial work are joined together to achieve the goal successfully. Managerial qualities can be taught to the person by giving proper management education. In simple words, a person can be taught to plan, organize and control things (Hanrikson, 2008). Leadership and managerial work are common observable facts that there are no general rules that creates leadership events or leadership methods, or for that issue great leaders. Managerial work and leadership are made cooperatively. Therefore, the only way to understand leadership correctly is the basic knowledge in group sciences. In simple words, managerial work is the process of describing and calculating the victory. A leader is the person who puts forward the plan, explains success, and confirms the capability of success. It is clear that a leader who assures these things will be more competent than other leader who desires to put the idea but refuses to accept any work in the managerial part (Clark, Clark & Albright, 1990). Hence, effective leader is the one who have power over people and whose decisions are binding on others. Everyone possesses leadership potential. Effective Leadership can, & normally does, emerge from the inside. Effective leadership requires the leader to take the whole group along. It is not necessary to involve the whole group in decisions regarding the group’s success however; the members of group are ‘helpers’. These ‘helpers’, if motivated and encouraged to work together, may quicken the process of success. This is what my experience led me to realize. The first experience as a night shift manager of a small hotel was the most difficult phase of my life. I hardly knew how to handle the staff and motivate them to work speedily and accurately. Leaders in the service industry need to be more attentive since the customers and workers are in a direct contact. The motivational theories helped a lot in running the business successfully from the very beginning of my professional career. The knowledge and understanding of such managerial and leadership concepts were the only assets I had. Motivation emerges with the feeling to improve the surroundings. An effective leader must know that motivation is the key to improve the group’s performance and the chances of success. Motivation, however, is not easy. It requires continuous performance appraisal and strong communication skills. This is the point from where effective leadership enters. The motivational techniques that I adopted were the comments of the customers on the comment cards. Those feedbacks were then analyzed to measure the performance of the team and helped in realizing the weaknesses which needed proper attention and techniques to be resolved. This experience leads me to think over the charisma concept. The believers of this concept assume that the charisma is God gifted and the influence of charismatics is because of the powers bestowed by God to those leaders (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). However, my leadership experience clearly directs towards continuous efforts and application of managerial and leadership concepts (like motivational theories etc.) to be an effective and successful leader. People often argue that leaders are born and not made. The basic fact/myth behind this notion is the belief that leadership is an inborn quality that allows a person to rule, direct and have influence over others. Defenders of this notion argue that leaders have inborn qualities of domination, control and persuasiveness which they use to effectively manage a team or group or a large crowd. Effective leadership requires the leader to choose the tasks for the group. A leader may also take suggestions from other group members but it may end up in losing the actual aim of the group. Hence, an effective leader is the one who keeps a strict watch over the performance and path of the group if it is moving towards achieving its goals or not. The criticism against those who believe that leaders and particularly effective leaders are born not made is the fact that all these techniques to keep the group together and to motivate them and decision making techniques can be taught (FBI, 2007). The difference among success and failure of a team or group can be determined by leadership. Leadership divides the achievers from the spectators. And it’s what gives the way to persons and associations. The line "Leaders are Born, Not made", explains that leadership is a trait, a natural part of ones structure, rather than a quality to get sooner or later. The basis of Self-Leadership is that everybody is able to expand leadership talents and traits. This is true, to some extent, that leaders are born and not made. To lead, you require some qualities such as strength of mind, the eagerness to determine, defy the class quo, proceed for what you accepted as true, hazard, negative responses, rise up against power, and modify (Graf, 2004). I observed that all these natural traits were important for me to develop and further prove myself as an effect leader/manager. The first experience of provided me with the account of a number of discrepancies in my character. I faced troubles while managing the hotel staff due to my inexperience and lack of confidence. I used to take suggestions and change my plans as per the requirements of the staff. The concept I had in mind was the fact that staff satisfaction leads to a better performance. However, a leader must keep in view the betterment of the organization he is working for and must keep an eye on the goal. My friendly nature, extremely flexible attitude and misconceptions about staff satisfaction led to certain difficulties that I overcame gradually. However, the inflexibility in my decisions after that experience was not the one gifted by nature but was developed by careful analyses of the requirements of my job as a leader. I developed myself to a more dominating, powerful and able leader by changing my attitude towards the staff. No one is born with any talent, not even a great singer or a great player. Everyone, however, is born with a potential to do a certain thing. If leadership means having a challenging personality then a leader requires being demanding and a bit stubborn in the early stages of life. This nature of a person may help him in future to be a good leader or an aggressive loser. It all depends on the perception, teachings and guidance provided to a person from his childhood to his adulthood. Nature provides us with certain qualities and we need to utilize them correctly (Harvard Business Review, 1980). However, it will not be just to say that ‘Leadership is an innate quality’. It is just some natural features that give people a starting point. A person who is shy enough to discuss his own needs and requirements cannot be taught to lead a group, team or nation. The fact to notice is that natural features count a lot on the career or position a person wants to achieve. A person, who does not have controlling qualities, may still be taught to become a leader. He can still be chosen as a leader but his soft tone and compromising nature may affect the team’s performance and may divert the group away from the goals (Casse & Claudel, 2007). I had a friendly, shy and perplexed personality but as I moved on with my professional life I realized that these traits are posing a threat to my professional success. I left the first job and in my second job with the construction company, I kept a dominating, strict and rigid behaviour with the staff. It was difficult to go against your nature but I was quite successful in making it a habit. It is however, important to discuss that a certain change in my nature affected my life a lot. My extremely rigid behaviour was leading to staff dissatisfaction and I soon realized that it will affect staff performance. This is the point where I learned to manage and exercise balance between my rigid and flexible behaviour. A leader must be inflexible on the issues that may harm the achievement of goals but must act as a flexible and friendly person for the team so that he may be able to know and solve the team problems. Moreover, suggestions of team members are not always flawed and must be heard and considered for increased staff motivation and job satisfaction. Earlier theories of leadership rejected the idea that leaders have a number of natural qualities because they acknowledged leadership with the individualism and skill to convince group members. However, the earlier theories ignored the fact that there are a number of techniques to control people. The idea is to be creative, use excellent communication skills to persuade others and to demand success using different expressions. These qualities can be adopted by practicing and observing them closely (Knight, 2002). Hence we can say that some traits of leadership are inborn and others can simply be taught to the leader. An example may be the time of carrying out a task where the whole team must be aware of their duties and timings to perform those duties. I observed the importance of communication skills while working on a construction project. The timings and direction of performing a task were of immense importance. A little mistake or an incomplete direction may lead to huge material and other losses. Persons might have heredity, family background or further resources impelling them into leadership, however leadership can also be erudite and encouraged by other leaders and institutes. Leadership is explained as a general set of policies based on the behaviour, opinions and feelings that everyone employ to control over themselves. Leadership techniques can be taught but one cannot impose the duty of being a leader on anyone. It is a person’s willingness and determination that helps him achieve a certain task (Garic, 2006). Charismatic leaders have profound and overwhelming effects on the followers’ beliefs, actions and perceptions. The followers have strong faith and believe in the charismatic leader (Yukl, 2009, pp. 270-275). However, is it justifiable to believe that such a leader has inborn qualities to impress, mesmerize and captivate the followers? This is a point of debate. My personal experiences deny to completely accepting such notions. My 5 years experience made me what i am today. The starting of my career reveals the reality of a natural leader with flawed personality traits. That friendly, staff-oriented attitude was not the requirement of a successful leader. Neither was the perfectly rigid and inconsistent behaviour. Experiences, study and critical thinking leads to betterment in a leader’s performance. The natural qualities that a leader requires, in my opinion, are the willingness to achieve, resistance to change and ability to analyze, evaluate and adopt the required change. The leader requires continuously evaluating his performance. I have identified the importance of evaluation, analysis and implementation of required changes via my experience. After learning the theories of leadership and traits of a leader in depth, I have realized that all I was applying in my practical experience can actually be learnt. I could have started my career in a better way if these theories and helpful studies be known to me at that stage. However, the new communication skills, motivational theories and leadership traits are still helpful for my future development as an effective leader. The motivational theories and communication techniques are the most crucial steps for my future leadership practices. I aim to apply the concepts that i have learnt so far in my professional life. I also aim to further study time and team management skills in depth to be a successful leader in my future. Conclusion and Further Research: The research on charismatic leadership and ‘born-or-made’ arguments led me to a better understanding of what leadership is and how it affects the performance of the team. The research, however, was limited in explaining the practical implications of the concept of charismatic and inborn leadership traits. There is a need to further study the distinctions and levels of success of learnt leadership skills in contrast with the success of the leaders with natural or charismatic traits. In conclusion, we can say that a number of leadership traits are inborn but they need to be polished and improved in order to create an effective leader. Leadership theories and enthusiastic practices to become a successful leader can help a person get succeeded in his tasks. Leadership can be taught but a person can only be a great leader when he has certain inborn qualities along with a willingness to achieve and the quality to persuade others on his command. Bibliography: HENRIKSON M. (2006). Great leaders are made, not born. AWHONN Lifelines / Association of Womens Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. 10. HENRIKSON M. (2006). Great leaders are made, not born. 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