Summaries of Leadership Articles - Essay Example

In his article “Beyond Cynicism: Building a Culture Which Supports Both Ethical Business Practice and High Performance,” Craig Dreilinger discusses the reasons why workplace cynicism have reached such high levels, why this is a problem and how to address it to achieve a better and more successful future. In his introduction, he discusses how job insecurity and personal vulnerability which increased drastically in the 1980s has led to a condition in which most employees did not feel safe and secure in their jobs, causing them to eventually develop strong cynicism toward their companies. This is a problem because a cynical workforce can have a very damaging effect on the performance of the company as a whole. “Organizations that have been struggling with a cynical workforce increasingly note a decrease in the quality of service to internal and external stakeholders, customer satisfaction, productivity and market share” (125). What cynicism does is causes employees to be hyper-sensitive to shifting climates within the organizational structure and to view any attempts at improvement as a failure waiting to happen. This attitude almost guarantees the expected results as employees fail to ‘buy into’ the program initiatives. What Dreilinger offers in this article, though, are some very specific steps that companies can take to try to overcome some of these issues. He indicates the first step in addressing cynical employees or a cynical company atmosphere is to acknowledge that it exists. Organizations that have successfully turned around the corporate climate have done so through what Dreilinger characterizes as a five step process. “First, they make past history discussable – and learn from it. Second, they directly address the legacy of previous change efforts and do so without ‘business babble’. Third, they take steps to anticipate and address unintended and potentially adverse consequences of new changes. Fourth, they provide employees with real opportunities to participate in decisions about future changes that affect them personally, rather than those that simply benefit the company. Fifth, they communicate information by telling employees: what they know and are able to discuss; what they are unable to discuss; what they do not yet know; and by asking employees what else they want to know” (126). Within this process, it can be seen that these companies are directly addressing the two main contributors to the development of cynicism – fear and mistrust. These steps are effective in this process because they lay out the groundwork for predictability and help to rebuild trust through accountability at all levels. This highlights the need for ethical business practice. In creating a strong ethics approach, Dreilinger says businesses need to tell the truth, deal with reality and do what they say they’ll do. Highly effective leaders can help to build this kind of climate through six active steps. The first of these is to develop the components of an accountability-based culture such as developing a realistic, credible vision and mission statement of values and ethical conduct. A second step is to create a credible, realistic sense of urgency regarding accountability that differentiates this initiative from previous attempts. The third step is to communicate face-to-face with first-line supervisors about ethically appropriate behavior and how this will affect the working unit under them. Following this, it is important for leaders to remove any obstacles that might sustain mistrust such as elements of the company’s policies or procedures and to bring the invisible organization – those issues which are undiscussable or unmentionable – into line with the new corporate climate being fostered. These invisible elements may not be open, but discrepancies between this level and the more apparent level can become strong breeding grounds of mistrust unless both levels are properly aligned along the same ethical channels. The sixth step in the process is to integrate accountability into the permanent structure of the organization by incorporating it into all levels of the appraisal, compensation and promotion systems. Max de Pree’s article “Followership” talks about the important lessons about leading that can be learned by following. The article begins with the background information about the family company that was founded by his father and then led by his older brother for many years. In revealing this information, the author is claiming his primary role in the company as a follower of leaders. From this perspective, the author suggests being a good follower is actually very important training for an effective leader because it gives the future leader both perspective and appreciation for what his followers do. De Prees offers several insights as to the value of the follower in the organization’s success. He says, “The first thing to remember: As long as a follower is in the group you lead, she is essential. Work teams, sports teams, and bands have this in common. I’ve often asked myself, ‘Are the poorest sandlot baseball players chosen last because they commit so many errors? Or do they commit errors because they’re chosen last?’” (92). He backs this statement up with an anecdote. While in England, a colleague found himself spontaneously filling in for the French horn player in a local band in order to allow a scheduled public concert to take place. Without him, the concert would have been cancelled. Following this anecdotal story, De Prees offers several important lessons that leaders can learn by taking on the role of the follower. These include learning who is capable of delivering solutions to problems as compared to who tends to hand them off to others, learning to lower their threshold for BS and increasing their tolerance for pain, the difficulty involved in holding others accountable while still leaving room for them to make mistakes and the need for them to have the help of the eyes, ears, minds and hearts of their followers in order to put on a fine appearance. De Prees also lists learning the “sometimes startling differences between the perceptions of leaders and the everyday realities of followers” (93) as one of the important lessons leaders need to learn. To gain this, it is necessary for the leader to know the needs, gifts and problems of the followers. Finally, it is necessary for the leader to realize that it is only with the help of the followers that he is able to accomplish anything at all. Within the second half of his article, De Prees examines what followers owe, what leaders should watch out for to avoid inhibiting good followers and what followers need to know in order to effectively serve their leader. Generally speaking, De Prees says good followers take the time to develop a high degree of literacy about the company and its environment, take responsibility for their own goals but hold the company responsible for creating a fair playing field, take ownership of their responsibilities, are loyal to the company concept even when they don’t agree on all goals or processes, resist the fear of the future that has developed in the modern workplace, recognize and appreciate the contributions of others, commit to being open to change, take responsibility for relationships, help to build the company rather than take from it and expect much from their leader in return. According to De Prees, leaders must also take care not to inhibit good followers by avoiding ‘crimes of the spirit’, maintaining open communication and quality training, developing an atmosphere in which followers feel needed and have room for advancement or change, managing change effectively, encouraging involvement, making themselves available to help, ensuring fairness and carefully and systematically conduct fair evaluations. Finally, De Prees outlines what followers should do to keep their leader in top form. Although he says followers should not follow the common assumption that the leader needs to be protected from knowing what is happening within the organization, he indicates it is also not necessary for the leader to know everything. Let the leader know the truth of problems and make all options for solutions available, even when they are difficult. The title of Manning Marable’s article begs the question “Where Are Our Future Leaders?” The article is targeted primarily to the African American community regarding issues of equality. The author begins his article by pointing out that “a generation ago the objective of African-American activists was to destroy racial segregation and integrate mainstream political and economic institutions” (168). Now that much of that has been accomplished for many, the author fears for the future of African-Americans unless new progress is made. In writing this article, the author indicates the primary purpose of his article is to try to bring a dividing community back together by finding a stronger future leadership. The schism Manable sees occurring within this community is the result of a diversifying economic base. In the past, he points out that much of the Black community was united by similar oppression. All members of the Black community were restricted in where they could live, where they could work and what they could do. This functioned to keep them all within a relatively narrow margin of poverty or low-class at the same time that they had only each other to turn to for professional services and only each other to take on the part of clients. As numerous professional African-Americans have escaped the bounds of segregation and the professional ceiling, they have moved out of the inner cities and begun to serve people of all colors, starting to break down the common ties of community. There is not a sense within Manable’s article that he feels anger or negativity toward those who have moved. Instead, he remains focused on factual ways in which the community has started to break down on both a physical and emotional level. At the same time that professionals were moving out of the cities, those who were unable to enter the world of professionals remained locked within the cities, their children attending substandard schools and attempting to deal with widespread social issues under a lack of resources. Within these increasingly fractured communities, Manable says continued progress will depend on the emergence of new leaders that have the ability to unite across these physical and emotional gaps. “We must recognize that one of the root causes of our divisions and social unrest is an absence of creative dynamic leadership. Oppressed people need leaders to liberate them” (168). He calls for people with the spirits of some of the great leaders of the past, such as Ida B Wells, WEB Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr. Although these leaders seemed to have been natural-born fighters to correct the social ills they saw around them, Manable calls on his audience to recognize that these people had to be given the support and the education necessary to rise and take their place. “Our struggle for freedom now requires that we identify creative young people in our cities who will lead us into the next century” (169). To accomplish this, Manable calls on those professionals to reinvest in the future. According to Manable, it is the moral and professional obligation of Black professionals to “provide the resources necessary to develop leadership abilities in our young” (169). To ensure that these young people are exposed fully to the kinds of information they will need if they are to become the leaders of tomorrow, Manable suggests founding ‘freedom schools’ wherever and whenever possible. These schools would offer a specialized curricula that would foster social and political consciousness with classes offered after normal school on weekdays and on Saturdays. Another idea he offers is for Black professionals to create partnership programs with public schools that will help the school and encourage young African-Americans to pursue careers in business. Finally, Manable calls on the various existing organizations of followers to take a more active role in helping their sister or brother communities. He says religious groups should be opening credit unions and food cooperatives while sororities and fraternities should be providing training opportunities. In the article “Moral Leadership: An Overview,” Al Gini explores some of the concepts this phrase refers to and what studies contribute to a stronger understanding of what this means. He starts his article with a brief survey of studies that have been conducted on the topic of leadership and suggests rather than being misunderstood because of a lack of study, problems regarding leadership are the result of a lack of consensus opinion on what is meant when the terms leadership and leader are used. After examining the concept a bit, Gini offers his own definition of the term leadership as “a delicate combination of the process, the techniques, of leadership, the person, the specific talents and traits of a/the leader, and the general requirements of the job itself” (6). Although he makes a distinction between the concepts of leadership and leader, he also points out that he feels the reality of leadership cannot be fully separated from the person who is the leader or the job of leadership that needs to be done. With this definition in hand, he defines the purpose of this article to be a more in-depth examination of the distinctions made between the process, the person and the job. In terms of the process of leadership, Gini defines it as a power and value laden relationship between the leader and the follower. Power can be used to “orchestrate, mobilize, direct and guide” or it can be used to be “coercive, dictatorial or punitive” (7). By examining the etymology of the word, Gini comes to the conclusion that the term was originally intended to refer to the ability to effect change in a controllable direction to achieve results. He offers the five basic laws of power identified by Adolf Berle – “power fills any vacuum in human organizations, power is always personal, power is based on and emanates from a system of ideas or philosophy, power is exercised through and depends on institutions and power always acts within and is responsive to a field of responsibilities and tasks” (7-8). According to Gini, those who use power most effectively are those who approach it from the perspective of stewardship or social responsibility. This concept leads directly into the idea that leadership is value laden as they are the moral leaders of their community. This, in turn, leads to the idea that all leadership positions are necessarily a process of the interaction between the leader and the followers. Because of this dynamic relationship, Gini suggests that there can be no true answer to the question of whether great leaders are born or made. Rather, it is a question of whether prepared leaders have a hungry and willing constituency to boost them into greatness. This is because leadership depends on an initiative of change in order to function. Without a need for change, there is little need for leadership and without the participation of the team, there is little effective change. The person who fulfills the role of leader is equally important because he or she must have the correct concepts in mind to achieve maximum effectiveness. This emerges as the expression of the individual’s character, charisma and political ambition. Character is defined as factors engraved on our personality which include inborn talents, learned and acquired traits imposed by life and experience. Charisma refers to the individual having enough personal self-esteem to make themselves seen, heard and understood. And although Gini says that leadership must be undertaken from a perspective of service, he also acknowledges that leaders must have a certain sense of ambition in order to drive them to accomplish their goals. These attributes must also be coupled with what Gini refers to as know-how, simple well-rounded education on how to achieve results. The jobs of leadership include maintaining a vision of what needs to be achieved and how to achieve it, effectively managing resources, encouraging scholarship among followers through participation, trust and taking risks and assuming responsibility for choices made. Also writing on the concept of followership, Ira Chaleff suggests in “Learn the Art of Followership” that effective change depends on successful followers. “It is the relationship between leaders and followers all the way up and down the organization chart that makes programs, breaks programs and makes or breaks careers” (89). By developing strong follower skills, leaders make it possible for shifting roles within the organization to allow for most effective, efficient change. Chaleff points out that no matter what level leader a person might be, when working with other people, they will invariably take on the role of follower from time to time and must actively seek out the necessary training. “Superior followership requires loyal, energetic support of the leader’s agenda, as well as willingness to challenge the leader’s policies or behaviors if they are harmful to the common purpose” (89). In attempting to learn good followership, one of the first hurdles to overcome is within the self. “The process starts with an honest examination of how we cope with authority relationships” (90). Questions to ask in pursuit of this examination are: what is the common purpose of the present initiative, are personal actions and self-interests in line with that purpose, does the common good require further individual action on my part, will personal current behavior or initiative help to accomplish these goals or is new behavior needed, what is my individual power in this situation that would allow for greater initiative on my part and what skills or knowledge can I add to the equation, why is there hesitancy on my part to act, do I expect others to fill in my gap and what is my personal source of courage to keep me at my top output on this project. Another common downfall of the change initiative within the organization is the tendency for followers to concentrate on the weaknesses or shortfalls of the leader rather than attempting to identify with their strengths and help find ways of overcoming those weaknesses. “It is only from genuine respect that we can initiate change without being perceived as a threat” (90). Chaleff also offers a series of questions to help in this arena: What skills and attributes enabled this individual to fill the leadership position? How were these adaptive in their environment and what respect do they deserve? Are there ways that these attributes can help accomplish the current mission? What pressures and challenges does the leader face? Are those challenges forcing the leader to rely on old habits or risk new behavior? Would the leader be less likely to rely on dysfunctional behaviors if they had more support? How can I strengthen trust between myself and the leader so they will be more likely to consider my ideas? What is in the leader’s self-interest that will help make them more receptive to change? Once we have honestly and completely worked through the questions Chaleff brings forward, the author suggests we will become much more effective followers and thus much more capable of affecting future change regardless of the position we hold or the size of the organization or team with which we are involved. Read More