Personal Growth - Research Paper Example

PERSONAL GROWTH RESPONSE PAPER Synopsis The topic I chose is "leadership is an art" by Max Depree. From this book I managed to learn a lot regarding leadership and it has helped me formulate strategies that could well be used to the society's benefit. From this stand point I can say that leadership can be called an inborn trait and leaders can be judged by their actions. Review This review helped me a lot in job settlement and differentiating between a leader and a manager. Though their tasks look common to all but there is a vast difference among the two. Leadership is inventive, original and, for the most, proactive. Effectivity counts a lot in leadership and as CEOs become effective leaders, they gain the ability to foresee problems and opportunities. In lieu of these situations they motivate and develop strategic responses. While being effective leaders the CEOs must actively engage themselves in the realization of action-oriented plans. This meant that leaders are vision oriented whereas the manager is objective oriented. He further emphasized that a leader works under unstructured environment and the manager is facilitated by a semi-structured environment under well-defined policies and guidelines. This lead to an important decision in my life which was a choice between a leader and manager and I came to realize that why should one settle for a manager whose goal is, basically, to maintain the status quo Thus I came to recognize that the true task of a leader is to reinvent strategies so that the organization and every person who works with him continuously become better. Why is leadership called an art is because a leader has to have these trait sets in order to be classified as a leader. The traits include 1. Adaptability; 2. Sincerity; 3. Clarity of vision; and 4. Ability to rule over Hearts rather than minds. Adaptability: A leader should be flexible enough to be associated with the change in structure. To further explain this I would like to quote the example of Z.A. Bhutto explaining that Bhutto's downfall had come as a result of his inability to adapt to the changing political situation in the country. While the military and the U.S. backed out in supporting him, he persisted with his old policy eventually he failed. Therefore a leader needs to change oneself according to the environment and the structure. Sincerity: A leader has to be sincere to all stakeholders on all fronts ranging from his job to the vision of the organization and including followers, superiors and peers. In other words a leader should practice relationship management at its maximum potential. Clarity of Vision: A leader is one who gives a clear vision for an organization to make a better future. That is to say that the leader looks upon the bigger picture and long term goals. The leader is like an eagle that flies high enough to take a complete view of what there is and what is coming, but not too high to get its eyes off its prey. This enables a broad yet focused view. Ability to rule over hearts rather than minds A leader should be able to empathize on followers such that the followers do not find him dictatorial rather they pursue him according to their own will. This means that the leader is so powerful in convincing his followers that they ought to follow each and every of his commandment without the need of coercing. What I found interesting is the fact whether I should aim for becoming a CEO or stay in between with satisfaction. The facts I came across were very intriguing. Here I assume the CEO to be a successful leader. A CEO's responsibilities vary from the start to the end: everything, especially in a startup. The CEO is responsible for the success or failure of the company. Every operation that can be , financing, marketing, strategy or even creation of company culture, hiring, firing, human resources, conformity with safety regulations and many more, it all falls on the CEO's shoulders.. A CEO is a leader. A leader has to be sincere to all stakeholders on all fronts ranging from his job to the vision of the organization and including followers, superiors and peers. In other words a leader should practice relationship management at its maximum potential. A leader is one who gives a clear vision for an organization to make a better future. That is to say that the leader looks upon the bigger picture and long term goals. The leader is like an eagle that flies high enough to take a complete view of what there is and what is coming, but not too high to get its eyes off its prey. This enables a broad yet focused view. The CEO's second duty is building culture. Work gets done through people, and people are deeply affected by culture. A miserable place to work can force away high performers. It is fact that they have their pick of places to work. This leads to the point that a great place to work can attract and retain the very best. It is usually thought that the top manager is free of accountability. He is allowed to practice all that he can without being questioned. However, this is not the case, since in actuality even the most minor move by the leader is monitored and he can be questioned on it by any of the stakeholders. Being answerable to almost everyone means that there is in fact accountability. These review leads to solutions for other problems which I think were down streaming the society. These ascertain teacher student relationships and that teacher is to be regarded as a leader and not only a mere leader but someone whom the subordinates follow deeply. More is required by the teacher and principal in order to achieve better understanding among students and to improve upon their achievements. In addition to having the right attitudes and perceptions of their roles, both principals and teachers need to manage resources well. Resources are defined as the tangible and intangible entities available to the school that enable it to produce efficiently and/or effectively programs and services that have value for their stakeholders. As such, resources are not restricted to a school's tangible assets, but are anything available to the school that has an enabling capacity. The principal is regarded as the key to the performance of the student and teacher relationship. Parallel leadership asserts that principals and teachers need to establish a working relationship where both principals and teachers engage in collective thought and action. More on parallel leadership is that this leadership style sees the principal as a premeditated leader "walking in parallel" with teachers leading in pedagogical development. This working relationship empowers teachers to emerge as "experts" in their own right and instills upon them a newborn sense of value equivalent to that of principals. It is affirmed that through parallel leadership, school communities are driven towards cultivating a revived "living school culture", one that is characterized by school wide professional learning, school wide culture-building and school wide approach to pedagogy. With the integration and alignment of these three processes school communities are able to enhance whole school capacity. More to my concern was the way schools operate and how leadership should be practiced there in. Trust is a major factor contributing to the rise and fall of leaders or in this case teachers. The outcome of trust will promote professionalism among staff because the egalitarian attitude allows the staff to make decisions related to their work and to take ownership in the process of teaching and learning. For both parties to be able to take on their respective roles, their role perceptions should be aligned to that of parallel leadership. Principals and teachers would have to perceive themselves as part of a collaborative relationship in a community that works towards enhancing the capacity of the school and not as individuals working in isolated pockets. Because leadership has such a significant impact on student achievement, state and district policymakers are shifting leader preparation programs toward a dual focus on leadership skills and management training. Principals need core knowledge, as well as management skills, to inform and lead change. Too, as districts and schools move toward increasingly data-driven systems, it is critical that principals understand how to interpret research findings and evaluative data. Bending away into the current society the role awareness should also break away from that of perceiving the competence to lead as belonging only to those who hold formally appointed leadership positions in the school. This perception of the principal's and teachers' roles in leadership should reinforce principals taking steps back to allow teachers the space to lead and for teachers to step up and have a say in the school's pedagogical matters. Just the practice of the above directions will not lead to success merely as it is not over yet as more is to be learned and managed in order to put forth the best tactic which would encourage bettering student fostering through the use of effective teacher and principal leadership. Leadership is also subject to past history of the individual being involved as the case was with Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. Where Winston belonged to a background where he was groomed in Love and affection and the opposite was the case with Hitler. Thus creating two vast differences that Hitler was more towards Hatred and Winston being close to love. Hitler, thereby, pursued racial policies and Churchill went against him. Both were Situational leaders and both nevertheless both failed as situational leadership tends to diminish as time passes. As far as heredity is concerned there can never be a better example than the Holy Prophet Hazrat Mohammad Mustafa P.B.U.H. who left behind him five generation of leaders. Here such an observation is no where to be seen as most inheritors fail to learn and understand their Gurus, making amendments to the system. Relationship management is a key fundamental in the success of a leader. A good leader needs to be empathetic such that the follower needs not to hide any backlogs being witnessed. The leader is held accountable to all who are affected by his work or decisions. Suppose that a company launches a new product line that is very fruitful to the firm and its customers, there may be case that its make up is somehow affecting those living nearby the production facility. Bibliography 1. DePree, Max (1989), Leadership is an art. New York: Dell Publishing. Read More