Mba 621 Leadership Paper
Name
MBA 621-5A Organizational Theory & Behavior
Instructor:
Comprehensive Paper
Abstract This paper is going to consist of how to have leadership skills for today’s workforce. It will dig deep into previous years of leadership skills, how and where leadership skills came from and what to do in order to achieve the skills of leadership. The big question is; what is the best leadership skill for one to become a leader? This paper will also look into some of the strategies of leadership and how to actually maintain the skills and be able to use the leadership skills in and out of the workplace. This paper will cover some of our great leaders that have held some of the best leadership skills and traits and how they became …show more content…
successful due to their leadership skills. There are millionaires and billionaires that learned how to perfect these skills and have been very successful over the years. These leaders had their minds made up with what they wanted to accomplish and they did just that. They had a process and that process worked in their favor and has worked in the favor of others. The main problem with leadership and the skills needed to acquire these skills is the “big-head” one might get once they become a leader. Sometimes, when one accomplishes a goal, they don’t know how to maintain that goal or share their testimony with others in order for someone else to be successful. This is when that big-headed person can lose focus and eventually lose what he/she worked so hard to get. This research is important due to the fact that most people have a lot of experience and would love to be a leader. Most people have the education, personality, on-the-job experience and even the money, but they don’t have the skills for what it takes to become that leader they have always wanted to be. This research paper will shed some light on how the people who want the skills that are needed will be able to get them and maintain them throughout their leadership career, and be able to share them with other people looking for the same thing.
Introduction
What is leadership and what do you need to maintain leadership?
Some look at leadership as the ability to lead. I agree 100% with leadership being the ability to lead, but in order to have the ability to lead you have to have more. There has to be a process of social leadership in which a person is able to aid and support others in their accomplishment when it comes to a specific task; this is a process of social influence on someone. Paying attention to how leaders carry themselves and interact with others socially giving guidance and being helpful. Leadership is also organizing a group or team of people to achieve a common goal and sometimes the leader may not have formal authority, but they are leading/guiding the group or team in accomplishing the goal. As a leader with leadership skills, there are special traits one should have and studies have produced theories involving these traits. This is what this paper is going to focus on the most; the different traits and qualities of leadership. I found five (5) leadership traits and qualities that are interesting because some people just do not own them and they are as …show more content…
follows:
1. Honest – We always tell our children to be honest when we either catch them doing something or we suspect something. Therefore, we would definitely want our leader or person in authority to be honest with as well. It’s always easier to work with honest people. Most people want honest leaders. Years ago, employees started out trusting and believing in their leadership and had no reason not to because they were the ones in authority and it was just simply taught that way. Well, that was years and years ago. With all of the political and modern scandals going on around the world today, trusting in our leadership is no longer true. It’s even known now that when you start in a leadership role or position, you need to know that your employees or people you are leading will automatically assume you are a dishonest person. It’s sad, but in order to prove they are wrong or be seen as an honest leader, you may need to go out of your way to prove your honesty. Research states that one of the most frequent places where a person in a leadership role misses the perfect opportunity to be honest is when he/she is handling a mistake, made by them. I totally agree with this because it has happened to me on more than one occasion and my leader just looked over it and it wasn’t his fault, it was everybody but him. It just makes me wonder what else he would be dishonest about.
2. Forward-Looking – Once we accomplish one goal as a leader, we want to know where can we go from here, so we look forward and make plans on how to get there. The only problem with us as the leader, you know where you want to go and possibly how to get there, but if you don’t communicate your vision with others they can’t see it and they don’t know which way you are going in order to follow. If the people you are leading don’t consider you as a forward looking leader then the leader is possibly not displaying a forward-looking vision. The leader could be scared to even share his/her forward-looking vision with other people. Usually when a leader doesn’t display a forward-looking vision, they are using up too much of their time on “today”, and they are not thinking about tomorrow. In order to fix this problem, you need to make time for planning and strategizing for the future. If a leader is having a hard time planning for the future it’s probably because they are also having a hard time in leading in the present and have unknowingly created an organization that relies on them for their input and outlook during every stage. You have some leaders that have a very clear vision, but refuse to share it with the fear of losing credibility. This has become a concern all over the world in many organizations. It’s really a shame that leaders think this way because their people need to know that their leader has a vision for the future and a strong plan for moving forward. Some leaders make the mistake of sharing their vision with people and it gets them into trouble because they make promises that they may not be able to keep, which leads right back into number one (1), honesty. This reminds me of when I relocated to the Quad Cities and was promised a certain pay and it was even in writing, but about 2 weeks before I was to report for work I received a phone call from a “leader” telling me I wouldn’t receive the pay originally offered to me. I went to another leader and she said she would handle it because it was in writing and they should grant me that pay. Well, I didn’t get the pay and all they could say was “sorry”, and that was that. Do you think I trust or believe in my leadership? No, I probably never will.
3. Competent – A leader needs to be competent. Most people want to follow someone who is competent. It doesn’t have to be an expert in every aspect of the organization, but just be able to demonstrate competency along with the honesty and integrity. This is a visual for some and others may just assume because you hold a leadership role that you are competent, but that’s not always true. Therefore, demonstrating competency is a plus for being a leader and letting your followers decide on their own if you are competent. It has to be noticeable.
4. Inspiring – As people we want to be inspired. The way the world is today, it would be nice to have an inspired leader. Most people will follow an inspired leader even if he/she has nothing else to offer. With all of the other traits, having inspiration is just the icing on the cake. Being able to communicate clearly and have passion is a form of being inspiring. Having the knowledge and able to tell your people how your organization will change the world is being inspiring. One example is how Steve Jobs stole the CEO from Pepsi by asking him, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?” One might think that it’s hard to be inspiring, and it can be if you let it, but being inspiring can be learned. Just watch other inspiring people, take notes and always ask questions when in doubt.
5. Intelligent – Not everyone is intelligent, nor will they be intelligent. Learning how to be intelligent can be difficult to develop. It’s all about investment. You have to invest your time and energy in becoming intelligent. Continuing education is a start at becoming intelligent. Learning to become intelligent takes time and a great deal of commitment. Learning formally and informally. If you don’t have time to actually go sit in a classroom every day of the week, you can take a class or two throughout the year. This just keeps your mind in the learning mode. Not only will you begin to notice your intelligence, but so will other people around you by observing your behavior and attitude towards different ideas and situations. It’s all about helping other people learn by actions and demonstrations and not always letting them know that you already have the answer, but helping them learn how to search for it themselves.
Problem Statement What I believe the problem is when it comes to identifying an individual with leadership skills or special traits, the person that’s actually looking for these individuals don’t have them themselves. There are so many different political views on leadership that it has people so mixed up with what’s right and what’s wrong. Some leaders assume that since they occupy positions as leaders, they automatically exhibit leadership. But this is not accurate. While a leader is generally defined as someone who is over a country, organization or group of people, the quality of leadership concerns how a leader acts toward others. When a leader thinks he’s elevated above others and assumes he’s much better than the next person, he is setting himself up for failure and that’s one of the major problems with our leaders today. Instead of working with their people, some leaders are working against them and this causes a major problem. It refers right back into the leadership skills and traits; the quality of a good leader and his motivation to lead by example and not by ignorance.
Literature Review The authors of Coaching for Leadership talk about how leadership is exercised by people at just about every level of the hierarchy. The article is focused on leadership for coaches and how leadership is a big focus in coaching because most coaches are seeking to develop the most reliable understanding of leadership practices and the concepts of leadership. It talks about how some coaches really work hard at understanding leadership because they use their leadership skills as their foundation for their personal models of coaching. It talks about the demands of understanding leadership in today’s world and how it’s essential. The article talks about the leadership challenges. How leading others is complex human endeavor. In order to withstand scrutiny and criticism, leaders need to have confidence and self-esteem in order to provide consistent direction for their followers. With this being said, it can also cause a lot of conflict because too much confidence has been known to be a problem in isolating some leaders from some very important feedback and being educated on important issues. Therefore, finding the right balance between confident decisiveness and open humility has become a big challenge for leaders. Decision making is another issue with leaders. It talks about how organizations are dynamic, and how leading an organization requires making a lot of decisions. How leaders make decisions that support some people, but not others and there will be winners and losers. The leaders that depend on logic or positional power will lose support from constituents. Leaders need to be in a position to initiate change and be able to make decisions while sometimes only having limited information. Being able to make decisions that affect people’s careers can be difficult on many levels; analytical, political and emotional, but it’s something that a leader has to be capable of doing. The article also talked about the choice to lead. Rather on a small or big scale, every management position has leadership elements. As managers begin to advance and move up throughout ranks, they tend to be downplayed by their responsibilities. This can result in some managers finding themselves in a role with significant leadership demands without even choosing to become leaders. Another article I read was Clinical leadership in primary care. It gives the definition of clinical leadership; “clinical healthcare staff undertaking the roles of leadership: setting, inspiring and promoting values and vision, and using their clinical experience and skills to ensure the needs of the patient are the central focus to the organisation’s aims and delivery’.” It discusses how nurses are working in an evolving healthcare environment across the UK seeing the changes within the primary care. It talks about how the clinical leadership challenges relate to some extent the changing demographics of the population and continued evolution of community-based care. Just like in any other area of leadership, it’s now for the clinical leaders to step up and influence the changes, lead practice development, and take responsibility for raising standards of service delivery. It’s stated that clinical leadership is primary healthcare and can be distinguished from institutional settings due to the nature of the clinical activities. It’s all about having the right leaders in the right place in order to provide safe, effective care. The article talks about how the clinical leader will need to work strategically and with a vision for better practice across the team, while not necessarily managing the team, but working with the team. Clinical leadership is focused on the development of services with the patient, client and family members. Leadership matter to them because leaders make improvements in service and outcomes. Leaders promote professional cultures that support teamwork, continuous improvement and patient engagement. High performance requires distributed leadership including clinical champions.
Proposition
With the above literature reviews and from the two excellent selections (books) suggested by Dr. Kevin Kuzina read during this course, I’ve definitely learned a lot about leadership and the different ideas of what good leadership is all about. I believe there could be great leaders with the proper leadership skills. It would be wonderful to see all of the skills and traits mentioned being performed in our leaders today and I honestly believe it could happen. With the already existing great leaders and upcoming leaders, if they would allow themselves to be taught some of the great skills and traits that have made such great leaders in the past, I think we could double our leadership all over the world. It’s all in the training and just being able to set aside differences and be willing to learn with an open mind.
Discussion/Conclusion
It amazes me how many people actually realize what they are doing wrong and where they are going wrong in their leadership roles, but are scared to make a change in order to be more successful as a leader.
Too many people in authority falsely equate their positions as leaders with being automatically smarter and better than those they lead. Conversely, a good leader is inclusive, honorable and fair, compassionate and merciful, and honors others. His/her leadership is clearly with humility. It’s said in one of the online articles I read that “Good leadership is serving those who are led”, and I truly believe that. How do you ever know how to even become a good leader if you’ve never followed or served a good leader? It’s almost impossible. I know I mentioned above the training and skills, but that all comes with following and serving a good
leader.
References
Aust, J., (2008, September). What’s the key to real leadership? Retrieved September 25, 2013, From http://www.ucg.org/christian-living/whats-key-real-leadership/.
Bennis, W., (1997, May 12). Character and Traits in leadership. Retrieved September 25, 2013 From http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadchr.html.
Betteryou., (2010, March 11). 10 Qualities of a real leader. Retrieved September 25, 2013 From http://betteryou.hubpages.com/hub/10-Qualities-of-a-Real-Leader.
Bowman, R. F. (2013). Learning Skills in Middle School. Cleaning House, 86(2), 59-63. Doi:10.1080/00098655.2012.744291
Frisch, M. H., Lee, R. J., Metzger, K. L., Robinson, J., & Rosemarin, J. (2011). Coaching for Leadership. Journal for Quality & Participation, 34(3), 22-26.
Shead, M., (2011). Five most important leadership traits. Retrieved September 25, 2013, From Leaderhttp://www.leadership501.com/five-most-important-leadership-traits/27/.
Taylor, R., & Martindale, S. (2013). Clinical leadership in primary care. Primary Health Care, 23(5), 32-38.
MBA 621-5A Organizational Theory & Behavior
Instructor:
Comprehensive Paper
Abstract This paper is going to consist of how to have leadership skills for today’s workforce. It will dig deep into previous years of leadership skills, how and where leadership skills came from and what to do in order to achieve the skills of leadership. The big question is; what is the best leadership skill for one to become a leader? This paper will also look into some of the strategies of leadership and how to actually maintain the skills and be able to use the leadership skills in and out of the workplace. This paper will cover some of our great leaders that have held some of the best leadership skills and traits and how they became …show more content…
successful due to their leadership skills. There are millionaires and billionaires that learned how to perfect these skills and have been very successful over the years. These leaders had their minds made up with what they wanted to accomplish and they did just that. They had a process and that process worked in their favor and has worked in the favor of others. The main problem with leadership and the skills needed to acquire these skills is the “big-head” one might get once they become a leader. Sometimes, when one accomplishes a goal, they don’t know how to maintain that goal or share their testimony with others in order for someone else to be successful. This is when that big-headed person can lose focus and eventually lose what he/she worked so hard to get. This research is important due to the fact that most people have a lot of experience and would love to be a leader. Most people have the education, personality, on-the-job experience and even the money, but they don’t have the skills for what it takes to become that leader they have always wanted to be. This research paper will shed some light on how the people who want the skills that are needed will be able to get them and maintain them throughout their leadership career, and be able to share them with other people looking for the same thing.
Introduction
What is leadership and what do you need to maintain leadership?
Some look at leadership as the ability to lead. I agree 100% with leadership being the ability to lead, but in order to have the ability to lead you have to have more. There has to be a process of social leadership in which a person is able to aid and support others in their accomplishment when it comes to a specific task; this is a process of social influence on someone. Paying attention to how leaders carry themselves and interact with others socially giving guidance and being helpful. Leadership is also organizing a group or team of people to achieve a common goal and sometimes the leader may not have formal authority, but they are leading/guiding the group or team in accomplishing the goal. As a leader with leadership skills, there are special traits one should have and studies have produced theories involving these traits. This is what this paper is going to focus on the most; the different traits and qualities of leadership. I found five (5) leadership traits and qualities that are interesting because some people just do not own them and they are as …show more content…
follows:
1. Honest – We always tell our children to be honest when we either catch them doing something or we suspect something. Therefore, we would definitely want our leader or person in authority to be honest with as well. It’s always easier to work with honest people. Most people want honest leaders. Years ago, employees started out trusting and believing in their leadership and had no reason not to because they were the ones in authority and it was just simply taught that way. Well, that was years and years ago. With all of the political and modern scandals going on around the world today, trusting in our leadership is no longer true. It’s even known now that when you start in a leadership role or position, you need to know that your employees or people you are leading will automatically assume you are a dishonest person. It’s sad, but in order to prove they are wrong or be seen as an honest leader, you may need to go out of your way to prove your honesty. Research states that one of the most frequent places where a person in a leadership role misses the perfect opportunity to be honest is when he/she is handling a mistake, made by them. I totally agree with this because it has happened to me on more than one occasion and my leader just looked over it and it wasn’t his fault, it was everybody but him. It just makes me wonder what else he would be dishonest about.
2. Forward-Looking – Once we accomplish one goal as a leader, we want to know where can we go from here, so we look forward and make plans on how to get there. The only problem with us as the leader, you know where you want to go and possibly how to get there, but if you don’t communicate your vision with others they can’t see it and they don’t know which way you are going in order to follow. If the people you are leading don’t consider you as a forward looking leader then the leader is possibly not displaying a forward-looking vision. The leader could be scared to even share his/her forward-looking vision with other people. Usually when a leader doesn’t display a forward-looking vision, they are using up too much of their time on “today”, and they are not thinking about tomorrow. In order to fix this problem, you need to make time for planning and strategizing for the future. If a leader is having a hard time planning for the future it’s probably because they are also having a hard time in leading in the present and have unknowingly created an organization that relies on them for their input and outlook during every stage. You have some leaders that have a very clear vision, but refuse to share it with the fear of losing credibility. This has become a concern all over the world in many organizations. It’s really a shame that leaders think this way because their people need to know that their leader has a vision for the future and a strong plan for moving forward. Some leaders make the mistake of sharing their vision with people and it gets them into trouble because they make promises that they may not be able to keep, which leads right back into number one (1), honesty. This reminds me of when I relocated to the Quad Cities and was promised a certain pay and it was even in writing, but about 2 weeks before I was to report for work I received a phone call from a “leader” telling me I wouldn’t receive the pay originally offered to me. I went to another leader and she said she would handle it because it was in writing and they should grant me that pay. Well, I didn’t get the pay and all they could say was “sorry”, and that was that. Do you think I trust or believe in my leadership? No, I probably never will.
3. Competent – A leader needs to be competent. Most people want to follow someone who is competent. It doesn’t have to be an expert in every aspect of the organization, but just be able to demonstrate competency along with the honesty and integrity. This is a visual for some and others may just assume because you hold a leadership role that you are competent, but that’s not always true. Therefore, demonstrating competency is a plus for being a leader and letting your followers decide on their own if you are competent. It has to be noticeable.
4. Inspiring – As people we want to be inspired. The way the world is today, it would be nice to have an inspired leader. Most people will follow an inspired leader even if he/she has nothing else to offer. With all of the other traits, having inspiration is just the icing on the cake. Being able to communicate clearly and have passion is a form of being inspiring. Having the knowledge and able to tell your people how your organization will change the world is being inspiring. One example is how Steve Jobs stole the CEO from Pepsi by asking him, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?” One might think that it’s hard to be inspiring, and it can be if you let it, but being inspiring can be learned. Just watch other inspiring people, take notes and always ask questions when in doubt.
5. Intelligent – Not everyone is intelligent, nor will they be intelligent. Learning how to be intelligent can be difficult to develop. It’s all about investment. You have to invest your time and energy in becoming intelligent. Continuing education is a start at becoming intelligent. Learning to become intelligent takes time and a great deal of commitment. Learning formally and informally. If you don’t have time to actually go sit in a classroom every day of the week, you can take a class or two throughout the year. This just keeps your mind in the learning mode. Not only will you begin to notice your intelligence, but so will other people around you by observing your behavior and attitude towards different ideas and situations. It’s all about helping other people learn by actions and demonstrations and not always letting them know that you already have the answer, but helping them learn how to search for it themselves.
Problem Statement What I believe the problem is when it comes to identifying an individual with leadership skills or special traits, the person that’s actually looking for these individuals don’t have them themselves. There are so many different political views on leadership that it has people so mixed up with what’s right and what’s wrong. Some leaders assume that since they occupy positions as leaders, they automatically exhibit leadership. But this is not accurate. While a leader is generally defined as someone who is over a country, organization or group of people, the quality of leadership concerns how a leader acts toward others. When a leader thinks he’s elevated above others and assumes he’s much better than the next person, he is setting himself up for failure and that’s one of the major problems with our leaders today. Instead of working with their people, some leaders are working against them and this causes a major problem. It refers right back into the leadership skills and traits; the quality of a good leader and his motivation to lead by example and not by ignorance.
Literature Review The authors of Coaching for Leadership talk about how leadership is exercised by people at just about every level of the hierarchy. The article is focused on leadership for coaches and how leadership is a big focus in coaching because most coaches are seeking to develop the most reliable understanding of leadership practices and the concepts of leadership. It talks about how some coaches really work hard at understanding leadership because they use their leadership skills as their foundation for their personal models of coaching. It talks about the demands of understanding leadership in today’s world and how it’s essential. The article talks about the leadership challenges. How leading others is complex human endeavor. In order to withstand scrutiny and criticism, leaders need to have confidence and self-esteem in order to provide consistent direction for their followers. With this being said, it can also cause a lot of conflict because too much confidence has been known to be a problem in isolating some leaders from some very important feedback and being educated on important issues. Therefore, finding the right balance between confident decisiveness and open humility has become a big challenge for leaders. Decision making is another issue with leaders. It talks about how organizations are dynamic, and how leading an organization requires making a lot of decisions. How leaders make decisions that support some people, but not others and there will be winners and losers. The leaders that depend on logic or positional power will lose support from constituents. Leaders need to be in a position to initiate change and be able to make decisions while sometimes only having limited information. Being able to make decisions that affect people’s careers can be difficult on many levels; analytical, political and emotional, but it’s something that a leader has to be capable of doing. The article also talked about the choice to lead. Rather on a small or big scale, every management position has leadership elements. As managers begin to advance and move up throughout ranks, they tend to be downplayed by their responsibilities. This can result in some managers finding themselves in a role with significant leadership demands without even choosing to become leaders. Another article I read was Clinical leadership in primary care. It gives the definition of clinical leadership; “clinical healthcare staff undertaking the roles of leadership: setting, inspiring and promoting values and vision, and using their clinical experience and skills to ensure the needs of the patient are the central focus to the organisation’s aims and delivery’.” It discusses how nurses are working in an evolving healthcare environment across the UK seeing the changes within the primary care. It talks about how the clinical leadership challenges relate to some extent the changing demographics of the population and continued evolution of community-based care. Just like in any other area of leadership, it’s now for the clinical leaders to step up and influence the changes, lead practice development, and take responsibility for raising standards of service delivery. It’s stated that clinical leadership is primary healthcare and can be distinguished from institutional settings due to the nature of the clinical activities. It’s all about having the right leaders in the right place in order to provide safe, effective care. The article talks about how the clinical leader will need to work strategically and with a vision for better practice across the team, while not necessarily managing the team, but working with the team. Clinical leadership is focused on the development of services with the patient, client and family members. Leadership matter to them because leaders make improvements in service and outcomes. Leaders promote professional cultures that support teamwork, continuous improvement and patient engagement. High performance requires distributed leadership including clinical champions.
Proposition
With the above literature reviews and from the two excellent selections (books) suggested by Dr. Kevin Kuzina read during this course, I’ve definitely learned a lot about leadership and the different ideas of what good leadership is all about. I believe there could be great leaders with the proper leadership skills. It would be wonderful to see all of the skills and traits mentioned being performed in our leaders today and I honestly believe it could happen. With the already existing great leaders and upcoming leaders, if they would allow themselves to be taught some of the great skills and traits that have made such great leaders in the past, I think we could double our leadership all over the world. It’s all in the training and just being able to set aside differences and be willing to learn with an open mind.
Discussion/Conclusion
It amazes me how many people actually realize what they are doing wrong and where they are going wrong in their leadership roles, but are scared to make a change in order to be more successful as a leader.
Too many people in authority falsely equate their positions as leaders with being automatically smarter and better than those they lead. Conversely, a good leader is inclusive, honorable and fair, compassionate and merciful, and honors others. His/her leadership is clearly with humility. It’s said in one of the online articles I read that “Good leadership is serving those who are led”, and I truly believe that. How do you ever know how to even become a good leader if you’ve never followed or served a good leader? It’s almost impossible. I know I mentioned above the training and skills, but that all comes with following and serving a good
leader.
References
Aust, J., (2008, September). What’s the key to real leadership? Retrieved September 25, 2013, From http://www.ucg.org/christian-living/whats-key-real-leadership/.
Bennis, W., (1997, May 12). Character and Traits in leadership. Retrieved September 25, 2013 From http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadchr.html.
Betteryou., (2010, March 11). 10 Qualities of a real leader. Retrieved September 25, 2013 From http://betteryou.hubpages.com/hub/10-Qualities-of-a-Real-Leader.
Bowman, R. F. (2013). Learning Skills in Middle School. Cleaning House, 86(2), 59-63. Doi:10.1080/00098655.2012.744291
Frisch, M. H., Lee, R. J., Metzger, K. L., Robinson, J., & Rosemarin, J. (2011). Coaching for Leadership. Journal for Quality & Participation, 34(3), 22-26.
Shead, M., (2011). Five most important leadership traits. Retrieved September 25, 2013, From Leaderhttp://www.leadership501.com/five-most-important-leadership-traits/27/.
Taylor, R., & Martindale, S. (2013). Clinical leadership in primary care. Primary Health Care, 23(5), 32-38.