Profile of the leader - Assignment Example

Profile of the leader George Washington is considered to be one of the greatest leaders in the past history. He stood for his men in all circumstances which made him a servant leader. George Washington was a leader who believed in his men and was led by emotions. During the revolutionary war that occurred in 1782 soldiers were not keen towards working for the country. This eventually led to lot of unrest amongst the American army. However in such scenario George Washington as a leader tried to understand the problems being faced by his men. Army officer Lewis Nicola stated that their team needed a commander who could control the condition but Washington did not agree with the concept of setting up a monarchy in the country. He wanted to resolve issues of his men by talking to them as a leader. As the first president of America he always avoided the approach of forming of hostile groups and tried to calm people down on the basis of his position so that they are able to stay inclined towards their job. He always thought about his country and citizens as one amongst them and not as a President. When there was alarming conditions in United States he proposed Proclamation of Neutrality. He believed that his men had potential for building great future which should not be wasted in wars (D’Arienzo, 2010). He trusted his people much more than any leaders and believed in giving time to his country for future development. Thus he can be stated as a servant leader as he worked for his men. George Washington never preferred giving directions to his people but appreciated working together as a team towards the common goal. Added value of a servant leader Servant leadership is an approach that is aligned towards seeking contributions from others and giving importance to opinion of others. There are certain values that are added by a servant leader. In this approach leadership is present at the end of the pyramid and importance is given to group work. Empowerment is first major value addition by this form of leadership. Team members tend to become more responsible when such an attitude is shown by their leader. This factor was greatly observed in George Washington when he gave liberty to his men to take decisions that would benefit the country as a whole. The other form of value addition is that it enhances interconnectivity amongst team members. Servant leaders like George Washington prefer to communicate with all group members in order to resolve issues or design new strategies. These leaders are visionary by nature and they set goals in such a manner that it benefits the overall team. Being energetic is another value that is added by these leaders. Servant leader is one who does what is right and takes step against any wrong in the system (Wheaton, 2009). George Washington is an example of this energetic behavior as he always took necessary steps to avoid any complication in the country. The last value that is added by such leaders is generosity as hard work is appreciated by servant leader and required support is given so as to achieve common objectives. Fast forward to today Do you think servant leaders are needed in all organizations? Leadership is all about leading from the front. I do believe that servant leaders are needed in all organizations. Servant leaders are the leaders who lead their followers in supportive and cooperative ways. Modern-day organizations are full of employee diversity. In this diverse environment educational back ground, skills and knowledge vary from employee to employee. To support all the employees in different situations is extremely required and for that reason the presence of servant leadership is significantly important for each and every organization. The modern day business world is highly competitive, to remain competitive in the market organizations face lots of challenges, in front of those challenges sometimes employees or followers feel helpless. Here comes the necessity of the servant leader where a leader leads their followers by example. Due to the exemplary servant leadership followers get significant motivations and inspirations. Highly motivated and inspired employees are keys to the success of the organizations. With the help of this leadership style organizations can achieve improved performances. Servant leaders devote themselves for the purpose of organizational needs and focus towards the followers and try to bring best out of the employees. Servant leaders focus significantly towards the needs of the followers, as their demands and needs are take care of so employees devote their full potentials. (Source: Agosto, 2005) To be a healthy organization is the objective of all companies across the world. According to the picture it can be achieved with the help of 6 key factors those are providing leadership, authenticity, development of people, and value creation among people, leadership sharing and community building. Organizations across the world can achieve all these with the help of servant leadership only. All the above arguments are clearly indicating that all organizations require servant leadership. What would an organization full of servant leaders be like? Justify your response If an organization is full of servant leaders then it may have significant impacts on the performances of that company. All employees of the organization irrespective of any functional department can get great amount of supports from their leaders. In their each and every activity employees will feel confident and can perform their tasks in better way. A friendly and cooperative atmosphere will prevail in the organization where employees and leaders can collectively mitigate different business challenges. The barrier of the power distance between leaders and followers will be less which will result in the effective and productive communication for the organization (Baron, 2010). Organization structure will be simplified and numbers of hierarchy will be reduced as the power distance will be less. Employees will be able to showcase their capabilities freely. Servant leadership will help the organization to learn new things collectively. Servant leaders do not think that they are better than their followers this concept will offer the organization a sense of equality. Servant leaders are vigilant. They will not allow raising the ugly heads of arrogance, elitism and complacency in the organization. Servant leaders believe in individual dignity. They never humiliate or abuse the follower and give significant importance towards trust building. This attitude will help the organization to enhance the employee engagement and to improve the business performances. What are the significant contingencies that would lean in favor or against servant leadership? Servant leadership is no way an unmixed blessing. There are certain situations under which this leadership style flourishes or fails. Incase of short term objective servant leadership is not suitable because the objective has time constraints (Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009). It is often being noticed that different teams are created for achieving temporary short term purposes and once the purposes are achieved then that team does not exist. Under this kind of contingency servant leadership is not required. When an organization only focuses towards the betterment of the investors and ignores the interests of other stake holders like employees, environment and community then servant leadership will not work under that situation. Career orientation is also a situation where servant leadership may not work properly because under this situation leaders are more focused towards their personal career growths and they are not that much concerned with the betterment of their organizations and followers. In the case of long term visions of organizations servant leadership works best. Under this situation leaders lead their followers permanently and try to guide their subordinate without any power distance. Servant leadership is significantly suitable for broad mind setup of the organization. When the matter of people building, community building and environmental responsibilities comes then servant leadership plays important roles to increase the performance and brand image of the companies. References Agosto, E. (2005). Servant Leadership: Jesus Andpaul - the Ultimate Mode P5021. New York: Chalice Press. Baron, T. (2010). The Art of Servant Leadership: Designing Your Organization for the Sake of Others. New York: Wheatmark, Inc. D’Arienzo, B. (2010). By George!: Lessons in Leadership from George Washington. USA: Tate Publishing. Trompenaars, F. and Voerman, E. (2009). Servant Leadership Across Cultures: Harnessing the Strength of the World's Most Powerful Leadership Philosophy. London: Infinite Ideas. Wheaton, C. E. (2009). At Your Service: Lessons in Leadership. USA: Dorrance Publishing. Read More