Suze Ormans Achievement - Research Paper Example

Introduction

Suze Orman, also known as Susan Lynn, is a financial advisor, a renowned author, television host and a motivational speaker (Bio, 2016). She was in born Chicago and pursued degree in social work. Orman has had outstanding achievements, being labeled a committed financial advisor. In 1983, Orman’s leadership skills were put to test as the Prudential Bache Securities' vice-president. One Suze Orman’s achievement is founding her organization, the Suze Financial Group. The achievements portray her as an outstanding leader, having been the host of Suze Orman Show since 2002 (Bio, 2016). For instance, the Gracie Award in 2006 acknowledged her as one of the greatest and outstanding program host.

More so, her achievement is evident from the many and several books she has written on personal financial management (Bio, 2016). Therefore, Orman presents an excellent case study to explore some of the compelling leadership attributes that make people successful within any leadership context. Besides, with the achievements in leadership roles, she is the perfect case to explore what current leaders can learn from an effective outstanding leadership. Hence, the focus of this analysis is to explore Orman’s leadership qualities including why current leaders should learn from her personal attributes.

Why Suze Orman

Many reasons explain why Suze Orman is an excellent leader. For one, she has currently shown and established herself in the American as fierce advisor always encouraging viewers that they have the control and full responsibility of their financial situations (Frei, 2010). Although she is fierce with her criticism, Orman sticks to standards when engaging with viewers. On the contrary, she has stood out as a role model with the passion to create new possibilities in the lives of her audience, or the viewers. Therefore, Orman represents a leader who has the passion, good emotional balance and intelligence and as such, committing all her energy to help people make their lives better.

On the other hand, Orman is known with her non-verbal communication cues that have worked well when interacting with the viewers (Frei, 2010). Besides, she is such a leader that has on many occasions put herself in the shoes of other people, especially with the viewers who have admitted to being victims of forces beyond their control. In this regard, Orman is chosen for this case because of her empathy with the situations encountered, giving the viewers a choice to control their lives; this explains why her leadership has exploded to greater heights. Moreover, she is an outstanding leadership character to study since Orman has the right mixture of intense devotion and keeping high standards when speaking or interacting with the audience.

Suze Orman’s leadership characteristics

One of the leadership characteristics exemplified by Suze is that she shows empathy that Răducan and Răducan (2014) define as the character trait in a leader who always focuses on creating proper and legitimate rapport with the followers and as such, making the interaction seem less formal by imaging being in the shoes of the individuals. As a financial advisor, her attention has been focused on helping troubled viewers (Frei, 2010). Although she offers the much-needed advice on how best to manage their finances, Orman always allows the viewers and callers in her talk show the chance to take the responsibility of how best to approach their situations. Empathy is an important character trait that makes great leaders because when the team has the perception that the leader is empathetic towards their concerns, the people work in close cooperation with the leadership, sharing their visions, and desisting from developing negative attitude towards the leader (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). The Suze Orman’s leadership situation Suze is that of an empathetic character and this has garnered her large masses since her show is always exploding with people seeking personal financial advice.

Nonetheless, having direction or vision is one of the important characteristic traits that make good and able leaders and such is the case with Suze Orman. Accordingly, Răducan and Răducan (2014) suggest that a leader with direction develops a vision with goals to achieve greater things. Besides, a good leader lays out some of the steps for realizing the set vision. As such, Suze’s visionary leadership is evident from her career achievements, writing many books to inspire people on how best they can manage their personal finances (Frei, 2010). On the other hand, she always has a good vision with her viewers, making them feel valued and helped with their personal financial management problems.

Moreover, effective communication is one of the characteristics that make Suze Orman a good and efficient leader. According to Răducan and Răducan (2014), effective communication is necessary as it helps in guiding the team and cultivating the right attitude within a group. The implication is that when a leader communicates effectively about the expectations, advice and issues with the followers, there are higher possibilities that they will have a positive reaction towards the leadership, and as such, showing the dedication towards meeting the set goals and visions. Suze is a leader whose effective communication with her audience has earned her the reputation of a great boss and a supportive figure to her viewers (Frei, 2010). More so, Orman is always good at communicating with her audience by showing great concern to their feelings.

Suze’ s Leadership attributes

Nevertheless, certain qualitative attributes make Suze Orman’s leadership such an admirable leadership. For instance, she always expresses passion when engaging with the viewers (Gallo, 2013). Particularly, the passion aspect in her leadership is exemplified from the manner in which Orman communicates with the audience. Notably, despite being successful in the financial sector, Orman chooses to help people with their personal finances, and not focusing on such important financial matters like saving accounts, stocks, trusts or even bonds. In this regard, her passion as a leader is shown from the extent to which she has dedicated the time and resources to helping other people avoid debts and financial problems, as was the case with her family (Gallo, 2013). In most cases, Orman has vowed to appeal to people’s heart by involving their emotions when addressing their financial issues and concerns. On the other hand, the passion is portrayed from the manner in which Suze does give her viewers or followers the chance to express their feelings. She also shows the same passion when addressing their concerns.

Another leadership attribute found to be so much intriguing about Orman is the authenticity that she has always shown in leadership (Gallo, 2013). In most cases, people express different images of themselves, especially when on the camera. On the contrary, Orman is the direct opposite, always seen as the same person when on and off camera. The implication is that the leader uses the same language, expresses the same image and persona when off-air and on-air. The same is presented in her books when talking about the way people can change their habits to manage their finances effectively and efficiently, also evident when she engage in one-on-one conversations with the viewers. Therefore, Orman is that type of a leader who keeps real with herself, and this has earned her an excellent reputation among her followers.

Finally, an important leadership attribute that makes Suze Orman an outstanding persona is her simplicity (Gallo, 2013). When speaking to her audience, Orman does keep it simple, staying away from speaking jargons used in the financial sector. Her simple nature is also evident from the courage in using simple language while still able to make serious sense to the audience. According to her, a leader does not impress the followers by showing off about information and knowledge gotten (Frei, 2010).

The difference between leadership and management characteristics

The leadership and management characteristics are different from the reactive and proactive approaches when addressing specific situations (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). For instance, managers have reactive characteristics traits whereby they take actions after an events take place. On the other hand, leadership is a proactive approach to events whereby a leader takes the responsibility of anticipating the situation or events in time before they occur. Suze is such a leader who has taken a proactive approach in her leadership situation of helping people with their financial problems. In her case, the best approach or ways of handling financial problems is earlier anticipation and from this case, Orman suggests that a leader has to help the followers anticipate problems, unlike a management approach that will react after the event has occurred. Through her approach and proactive characteristic, she has helped many individuals to address their financial problems in time; thus, helping avoid cases or chances of financial despair.

In addition, a distinct characteristic between managers and leaders is how they handle their respective groups because managers tend to have directive traits while on the other end, leaders possess attributes of creating teams (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). For this case, Orman shows the difference because in her case, she focuses on creating and inspiring people towards a good course, making good choices with their personal financial management. Besides, by being an inspiration to many, she has won many hearts, and this explains the large audience always glued to her shows as well as the victims of poor financial management who are confident enough to share their financial problems in the show.

The difference in leadership and management traits is also evident from the communication perspective; managers always strive to communicate with their teams thereby focusing on good traits for qualitative communication but leaders tend to persuade whereby they have character traits that enable them convince the masses (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). Notably, Suze is a real leader who has been persuasive in her communication since she always shows passion, empathy, and simplicity when handling and addressing the different masses.

Suze’s level of leadership

Suze Orman can be argued to be at the level 4 of leadership or the people development stage because, in this level, leaders invest their energy, money time and personal thought in growing others. In this sense, a good leader at level 4 focuses on the best ways or methods of growing others to become better (Răducan & Răducan, 2014). As such, the primary concern of a leader at this stage is how to develop others instead of concentrating on their personal productivity. The same applies to Suze's leadership situation because she has been emphasizing on encouraging and motivating people to have personal financial management plans. More so, her plight is to see people develop and grow to become good personal financial managers, making sure that the viewers understand the necessity for proper planning with their finances (Gallo, 2013). On the other hand, Orman’s level of leadership is also indicated or shown by the emotional support and engagement she has with the viewers because, in most cases, she has been empathizing with them, putting herself in their problem situations as well as making sure that proper engagement ensues by keeping simple communication. Therefore, given the response and the respect she has received from the viewers, it is accurate to infer that Suze is in the level 4 leadership, focusing on how best to inspire and help others develop themselves.

Implications for current leaders

Many lessons can be learned from Suze's approach to engaging and leading her people, viewers of her program and readers of the many books she has written. For one, current leaders can learn the importance of being empathetic such that one puts his or herself in the shoes of the followers (Frei, 2010). Besides, a good leader is the one who keeps it simple when communicating with the followers, especially being authentic and consistent with the image presented or conveyed to the followers. Nonetheless, a leader must have passion in everything done, as this has been the primary driver of Suze Orman’s success. For this case, current leaders should always show that they have passion in leading people and dedicate all the time and energy in fulfilling such mission. More so, vision is what drives leadership and with the current world of stiff competition, contemporary leaders should borrow a leaf from Suze’s exemplary visionary leadership by focusing on developing and creating goals that have always driven her to success (Frei, 2010). Furthermore, current leaders have the opportunity to learn about the necessity of a leader to help and nurture others. The implication is that Suze Orman’s leadership is at level 4 that concerns people development. Therefore, a leader should strive, at all costs, to develop and encourage others into personal growth.

Suze’ Orman’s attribute of leading others

An important attribute of the leader is the fact that she keeps it real or authentic with the approach to interacting with the followers. Authenticity is a necessity in every leadership situation because followers are more inclined to trust and value leaders who are true to themselves as well as to the people around them (Gallo, 2013). On the other hand, an important attribute of the leadership is the emphasis on passion as one of the core elements to which her leadership has been embedded. In most cases, people envy leaders who have passion in their work as an implication that the attribute is useful in every leadership scenario given the time, dedication and efforts they commit towards leading their people. Moreover, empathy is the basis of a successful leadership because the leader must always make a decision by taking into consideration the impact it will have on the followers (Frei, 2010). Since Orman is engaged in a leadership situation that compels more engagement in speaking, she needs to work more on her communication approach since this will enable her to convince the masses as well as appeal to the broad audience. Otherwise, she exhibits real account of an efficient leader with both her attributes and character.

Conclusion

In summary, the discussion has focused on the leadership attributes and traits of Suze Orman, a renowned financial advisor and a famous author whose focus has been to help people with the management of their financial personal financial problems. The discussion has identified her as an empathetic, passionate, visionary, encouraging and a staunch leader who has won the hearts of many with her leadership approach. Therefore, current leaders have a lot to borrow from her, especially with the way she always bring the best out of the people she engages with, her approach to communication besides the role she plays in changing the lives of the audience (viewers and readers).