Describe about the Leadership for Underpinning Proposals.
There are various ways and means that leaders can use to lead the people. In this case, the following leaders are going to be used in the analysis (Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs). It is considered vital to learn the impact of leadership styles indicated by the above leaders in order to develop individual approach on leadership, this will make one a productive and effective leader. Leadership is considered as one of the success stories that had made significant changes for the betterment of the society. Various scholars have deduced that leadership is a learned behavior, while others have dismissed such claims and considered leadership as a born behavioral trait. Chaudhry and Javed (2012) on the other hand depicts that, the failures of similar organizations are also attributed to poor leadership. Leadership is a behavioral practice that has to be cultured in order to meet the needs and demands of the people. We cannot shy away from good leadership, but we can correct or amend our bad leadership styles to conform to better and well-known leadership traits that meets modern or contemporary needs and demands (Chemers 2014). The purpose of this paper is to discuss leadership theories as well as factors that attributed to bad and good leadership (limitations of theories). The above three leaders are known to offer the best in leadership hence able to influence their people to the best.
For example, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader from India was leading concept was based on situational leadership concepts and ideology (John and Taylor 2014). According to situational leadership theory, leaders in this type of category are viewed as changing their leadership tactics based on the level of task ahead of them. This type of leadership can be attained by using participatory style whereby ideas are shared among followers. This leadership style also allows delegation of duties (Shriberg, A, Shriberg and Lloyd 2002). According to Mahatma Gandhi, his leadership was full of selling style-all the decisions taken by the leader are explained to others. Moreover, Preston (2012) illustrated that Mahatma Gandhi used telling style-specific concerns are shared with specific individuals while undertaking their chores and responsibilities.
The other leader is Steve Jobs. He is considered as a transformational leader. Under this type of leadership, he was able to use creativity and innovation amid his employees at Apple to drive his leadership style (Susanj and Jakopec 2012). In addition, he used rewarding system to attain the best performance among his employees or followers.
Lastly, Martin Luther King was a transformational leader that incorporated charismatic and inspirational values to manage his followers. The key ideology behind this type of leadership is to foster motivation to create or boost performance. It can be deduced that leaders such as the ones discussed above used several leadership style, hence their success in leadership (Preston, 2012)
To start we are going to examine the leadership qualities, styles, and achievements comparatively and analytically of a man named Steve Jobs, who started small in a garage, in 1976, become separated in 1985 but returned to find it almost bankrupt and in ruins in 1997. By the time he passed away in October 2011 the company became the globes most valuable business entity, and in his life cycle at the helm of apple he changed the world with tablet computing, personal computing, animated movies, mobile phones, digital publishing not to mention retail stores and the huge success they derived.
This revitalizing seven industries along the way, IE, communication, software and computer rendering, Pixar to name a few. This places him in midst of giants like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Walt Disney, all using their innovation and intelligence to make a better world. The value of interpersonal connections in solidifying a relationship, organizational culture, or business deals, Social capital conveys the notion that strong relationships have a tremendous value of goodwill.
Great multicultural leaders are able to generate this goodwill across cultures and inspire strong interpersonal relationships, not only between people very much like themselves, but also among people who may be quite different from them. Steve job’s achieved this through vision and inventiveness of products and systems, which made the world more connected and dissimilar.
This created enhanced understandings of culture’s and their different ways of seeing each other, according to (Hamm 2006), CEO’s who fail to communicate, clarify and relate their vision, will fail to impress upon people the importance of this and create meaningless cultures. Some keys to his success according to Walter Isaacson (2012) viewpoint were that in 1997 taking back an array of computers and peripherals. Moreover, at least a dozen differing Macintosh clones, screaming stop and it is explained how they were going to concentrate on just four computers, by doing this saved the company from bankruptcy, stating what to do is as important a decision as what not to do, that’s true for products as well for companies.
Simplification strategies like, taking responsibility end to end, whereby he knew the best method to gain simplicity was to guarantee seamless integration of peripheral devices, hardware and software. IE, a Mac with iTunes connected to an iPod allowing problem free, smoother and simpler synchronizing between the devices.
Analyzing Steve Jobs effectiveness, Steve’s early mentor, wrote him a memo urging three basic principles, empathy, focus, and impute. The last being a little awkward but became a key for jobs, he knew people form opinions on companies and products on structures of how it has presented and packaged, that taught him people do judge a book by its cover. These and the hunger for integrating a world with the success of his ingenuity, and vision while being very successful made him a very effective leader that unified and shrunk the world a little more, also saving lives through knowledge sharing genius and inventiveness.
An example of a modern leader who transformed life, as we know it for many in the USA and for many around the world was Dr Martin Luther King Jr (MLK). Dr King in his journey to racial equality and justice displayed many of the traits the modern study of leadership deems necessary in order to lead a company or be successful in leadership in everyday life, these traits include but are not limited to ethics, multicultural leadership, the psychology of leadership. Through Martin Luther King’s leadership we can also see an example of the four characteristics of a transformational leader (Burns 1978 ), similar to that of Gandhi who transformed the way people thought and acted about social justice and race in India years earlier. In order to properly determine if Dr Martin Luther King would be would be the ideal candidate from Mr Jobs and Gandhi we must first analyses these key traits and behaviors.
Trust is the strongest form of currency in leadership (Brunicardi et al. 2007, Shriberg and Shriberg 2011), you cannot have trust without ethics, therefore it is the strength of MLK’s ethics that when examined can help explain the strength of his transformational abilities. MLK born into a family of Baptist ministers in Atlanta Georgia was always certain of his convictions, he was a strong moral person and a strong moral manager (Shriberg and Shriberg 2011), this birthed his understanding of life and his value system. The most outstanding of which was to love your brother, MLK believed that he must match hate with love in order to change the opinions of white Americans. On top of this unwavering belief ‘MLK opposed all the trappings of wealth and success, he lived a modest life in order to stay true to himself and stay a part of the community he was fighting for’ (Clayborne 2005). Such strong morals and ethical convictions made believers out of many people, both black and white.
MLK’s power to change the opinions and gain leadership over many was displayed most prominently when he matched on the nation’s capital, he enlisted the help of Caucasian to stand with him and fight the injustice they see around them. This ability to understand other cultures makes MLK, by definition, a multiculturalist; he has transitioned through the stages of acceptance to be able to understand all fellow men. The only other prominently documented example of this is Dr King’s respect for Ghandi (McGuire and Hutchings 2007) and his teachings; he drew from men of all cultures and faiths because of his respect for them, therefore, if MLK was a leader today he would thrive as a leader in a globalized world.
Further evidence of MLK’s ability to outperform any other leader in todays globalised world is shown when we look at MLK’s self doubt and questioning character, he was keenly aware of his limitations. This level of self-understanding along with his ability to understand all other manner of people makes him a person with incredibly high EI, something that is more valuable than intelligence in the work place.
Dr King is perhaps one of the best examples of a Transformational leader alongside Ghandi. The philosophy of non-violent protests for social change uplifted people to a higher motivational and moral level in order to create real and lasting change. He did this by utilizing the four key characteristics of transformational leadership (Burns 1978), namely:
-Idealized influence: MLK was an upstanding person and someone to model yourself by, because of this influence he achieved this first characteristic (Clayborne 2005).
-Inspirational motivation: MLK had the enviable skill of being able to eloquently articulate the change he wanted to see in a clear and systematic way, this allowed for a clear mission statement for people to get behind (Stone et al. 2004).
-Intellectual stimulation: MLK held services and talks to inform African Americans of their oppressions; however, he also encouraged his community to take hold of the information, educate themselves to expand their own understanding (McGuire and Hutchings 2007).
-Individualised consideration: MLK cared and valued his followers, he personally attended funerals of those who he lost and grieved as one of the community, this personal attachment to his clan allowed for a deep emotional connection to his devotees (Clayborne 2005).
It is all the qualities, traits and behaviors combined in the one entity of Dr Martin Luther King Jr that made him one of the greatest transformational leaders in the western world. Those traits would also make him one of the greatest leaders of the globalised business world today.
Mahatma Gandhi is commonly credited with leading India to its independence from British occupation (Shriberg and Shriberg), (Barnabas and Clifford). However, he was not necessarily a natural leader in his younger years and only shaped his true leadership ambitions following successful litigation in South Africa where he practiced law. It was also, where he experienced personal discrimination and perhaps more importantly fashioned his own personal philosophies. Of particular interest in terms of leadership is the style of opposition Gandhi employed against the British.
Prior to Gandhi joining the Indian National Congress Indians had several violent clashes with British soldiers resulting in bloodshed and little progress. Gandhi looked to adopt a strategy of non-violence thus empowering all Indians in their struggle against occupation.
In describing Gandhi’s form of leadership the literature is varied and considers him an ideal representative of servant (Barnabas and Clifford 2012), transformational (Shriberg and Shriberg 2011) and democratic (Ray and Ray 2012) leadership.
Servant leadership refers to the concept where a leader has to have experience of acting as a “servant” (Spears 1996) or experience of his follower’s challenges. Barnabas and Clifford (2012) argue that “Mahatma Gandhi personified the model of servant leadership” as a result of him exhibiting qualities such as seeing himself as a servant of the people; acting in service of his followers; displaying integrity and interestingly using moral reasoning to influence others (Barnabas and Clifford 2012).
As Shriberg and Shriberg note (2011) transformational leadership results in “mutually beneficial relationships between leaders and followers whereby the leader is seeking to promote growth and real change”. Thus, transformational leadership is focussed on the growth of both leaders and followers. Of particular interest is the crossover between transformational and servant style leadership styles as described by Shriberg and Shriberg (2011) stating that both transformational and servant leadership are about power “to” rather than power “over”.
The term “democratic leadership” is also used to describe Gandhi and refers to “a very open and collegial style of running a team” (Ray and Ray 2012) and describe Gandhi as an “ideal model of democratic leadership in democratic movements” (Ray & Ray 2012). This assertion is made on the basis that Gandhi worked hard to deliver democracy to India and was focussed on human rights.
It can be argued that it is appropriate to describe Gandhi’s leadership style as servant, transformational and democratic. In terms of servant leadership Gandhi acted like a common man and was seen as a common man by his followers. They were able to relate to him. He acted in service of them, understood the difficulties of the common person and as such can be described as a servant leader.
Gandhi’s concept of non-violent opposition and ability to motivate millions of Indians in this action represents true elevation of both follower and leader. It also required sacrifice by both follower and leader and is a powerful example of transformational leadership. Both India and Gandhi grew and matured as Gandhi led and India followed. The argument for Gandhi as a democratic leader appears less compelling and whilst it is true Gandhi truly symbolizes servant and transformational leadership all three can be used to describe his leadership.
There is nothing good like undertaking a task in a group. We were able to integrate the course materials as well as come with better understanding of the assignment because of the efforts that each member of the group contributed. It is also evident that the group was split into further groups, this made efforts towards undertaking the task an easy one. I was given a task to undertake in the group. This is one of the added advantage that come with group work. I can deduce that there were various merits related to group work, which I was part of. The below are example of the merits:
All the work that was done individually was evaluated by other members of the group, as a result, the group was attained the best results ever.
During the group was an added advantage in several ways such as timely delivery of the assignment done and that the work did meet the needs and the demands expected.
I consider that group work was the best thing that ever happened in my academic life. I was able to understand all the coursework as well as undertake our group work assignment as a team. Lastly, I conclude that if it were not of the teamwork sprit vested in us, we could not have completed the assignment on time, not to say even doing it better than we did as a team.
Individual Feedback 2
I consider leadership is the ability of a superior person to introduce to its subordinates the roles and responsibility in confidence and power to handle their chores (Chemers 2014). The group process was able to guide and influence the work of others in order to meet the needs and the demands or to attain certain goals (Herrmann and Felfe 2014).
It may also be defined as the position held by group of people or an individual that offers him or her a chance to participate interpersonal influence on others members in order to direct and mobilize their efforts towards attaining certain goals and objectives. The leader is supposed to manage the group, promote group cohesion and move others to attain the goals of the group and to maintain the pace or momentum of the group or team.
The leader may arise in the team or group because of his or her personal values and qualities or by the virtue of common consent by other group members. In this case, the leader is able to drive his or her will and power from others team or group members. He is considered to go ahead with the leadership position at will or the team in a collective manner (Herrmann and Felfe 2014). It is considered that leadership exists in most team or group setting regardless of the size of the group.
I consider that there are various theories states that good leaders or effective leaders have a common interest on some of the personalities such as traits and characteristics. According to early trait theories, leadership is innate, it has instinctive qualities that you may or may not have. Thanks to the new values of leadership that denote leadership, qualities can be learned. It is clear that trait theories help to identify the best leadership traits and qualities.
However, it is clear that none of the traits or even a combination of the theories will be able to offer or support the success of leadership. The theories also state that traits are external behaviours that come up from our minds. It is clear that the theories are considered as an internal and external processes and beliefs that are vital of effective leadership (Lam and O’Higgins 2012). Therefore, it is ideal to note that the facets of trait theories are there to support of clarify the traits that are related to the ethical systems of a group or an individual when it comes to support of better leadership. It is ideal to note that trait theories have offered better understanding of the values that have to be on board to create a better leader. Leadership is considered as a behavior or values that is developed or created in order to support leadership success (Preston, 2012).
Likewise, behavioral theories have limitations as trait theories. First it does not explain the causes of bad leadership especially in the contemporary world, knowing that most of the leaders are known to have better leadership. Lastly, it does not pin the values that are considered important when it comes to provision of best leadership traits (Roueche, Baker III and Rose 2014). Thus, it is clear that behavioral theories, do not explain the facets of leadership, for instance, it does not explain the best leadership styles that should be adopted but rather it offer a list of many leadership styles.
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