In today’s day and age, the citizens of America and around the world see the many domestic and global issues that are taking place and believe that because adversities continue to increase, they result to the conclusion that there is a crisis of leadership.
Personally, I do not believe that there is a leadership crisis. I believe that there is a follower crisis. As discussed in class, we have identified that leaders are put on a pedestal and are seen as an elitist group. What people fail to realize that just because someone is a leader that does not mean that they are all knowing. To me, leadership is the way people view their role in their community, whether it be in their values, responsibilities or contributions; people who make a difference to others in any way are leaders.
John W. Gardner wrote that the first step towards leadership is understanding, not action. This connects heavily to my philosophy because I believe that anyone can be a leader or a follower at any given time. This is why understanding is key. Understanding when to step up and lead, understanding what actions need to be taken and understanding when it is time to step down and let someone else lead. Understanding not only tones in on understanding when to lead and what actions to take; but it also means understanding the leadership of other leaders and learning from that. Learning from others creates better followers and leaders.
However, what makes leaders different from followers? This is the question people use to find out what traits it takes to be a leader. Some may argue that followers and leaders are one in the same, while others can instantly tell you their top five traits it takes to differentiate between a follower and a leader. Many people see reoccurring traits that many leaders today have and think that one can only be a leader if he/she possess all of the trait “qualifications”. Personally, I believe that yes, certain traits are important to be a good and effective leader, but that is not what defines them.
The traits each and every person says makes the perfect leader is based on their own opinions. Meaning if someone does not possess a trait they like, others most likely will not follow that person, while someone else might admire that trait, and that be the sole reason he or she follows that leader. Trait theory is solely based on the person you ask and who the leader is. The traits of the followers follow the traits of the leader. That is why leaders and follows are interchangeable, any one person can lead at any second and if everyone in the group shares the same traits and values, it makes the group run much more smoothly.
Some traits, like being humble or courteous are traits that people are born with. While other imperative traits like responsibility, confidence, determination and integrity are traits that are developed over time. This relates to my life personally because of the way my parents raised me, I was able to acquire certain traits like responsibility, integrity and honesty. This is the difference between skills and traits. Skills are characteristics and knowledge is learned as life goes on. While with traits, some you are born with, some you obtain, and some you are born with but in little amounts and the capacity of that trait grows as you do. Trait theory is a popular way of defining leadership because it is the easiest for people to describe. In my own philosophy, I believe that it is not who a leader is, but what a leader does. Saying this, traits make followers and leaders group together, but what a leader does is what brings in his or her followers. The actions of a leader bring in followers but the traits are what keep them.
According to Mann, leadership can be measured in four ways: “observe, peer rate, formal selection as criterion, and self-rate”. A good leader will reflect on what he has done, taken the criticism on others, make sense of the feedback and respond. This ties into the point that leadership depends on the situation. If the followers are not as connected as they need to be and hurt the group’s wellbeing, then that leader may have to take an authoritarian leadership role. On the other hand, the followers may be willing to pull their weight and want to help, in this situation, the leader should portray democratic leadership.
While an authoritarian leader may be needed in certain situations, people argue that this is manipulation, which they believe is bad. Manipulation in general has a bad connotation to it and I believe that influence in a greater word. Whether the person is a leader or a follower, anyone has the power to change something’s course. This is manipulation. A path has been changed by the effect of someone doing something. However, do the ends justify the means? As a personal moral belief, I believe that the ends do not justify the means. Even though the objective is for the good, if the path to get there is evil, then so is the objective. I like the quote “Life isn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey”, this follows my belief that the end product is not the main goal. If the means by which you get there are bad, then the objective can never be good, for evil was the path chosen.
Good vs. evil, one thing that I am starting to grasp in the study of leadership is that when studying the effectiveness of a leader, I must throw away my moral values. Even though what a leader might have done was bad; that does not make him a bad leader. My primary example of this is Adolf Hitler. The actions Hitler took as a leader where excruciatingly horrible but when one steps back and looks at him for a leader and not his actions as a leader, they would see how great he was. This leads me to a point that I had not seen until I began my courses in the leadership minor is that a leader cannot be a leader without followers. Yes, Hitler was bad man, but he had millions of followers who acted on his every command.
Management is something people differentiate from leadership. They see that the employees are forced to follow their manager, which does not make him or her a true leader. However if one was to define leadership as having followers, then by all means is management a form of leadership. John P. Kotter said that “most U.S. corporations today are overmanaged and underled.” This reigns true for the perfect way to find a good leader in a business is to have a balance of task orientation and people orientation. A manager must be able to not only please his workers but he must also be stern enough to make sure the job gets done. If a manager is solely on the people side then his workers will be completely happy but his business will fail. On the other hand, if the manager is only task oriented, then his employees will not like him and could rebel against the task, causing it to fail or for them to quit; thus no longer making the manager a leader, for he has lost his followers. That is why a balance of the two is perfect, for not only is a goal being accomplished, but the followers are content.
Overall leadership is a very broad topic that has many interpretations, no answer is right and no answer is wrong. This is why leadership is a theory, it is personal to everyone and can always be proven and disproven in many ways. Leadership is a soft science in the sense that it is abstract with no hard facts. There are many philosophies on leadership; that is why not one single book can be written about leadership, it is like water; it takes the form of whoever is looking at it. There is not one single shape or definition of leadership.
Everyone has a potential to lead. Some lead from the front of the room and call people forward while others lead from the back and push people forward. Leaders are people who understand the situation and know what to do. Whether it be different techniques of leading or to know when to step down and let someone else take the lead. My journey of understanding leadership to this point has been finding my own personal philosophy on leadership and being able to step back and see how others view what leadership is. Seeing how others view leadership is a great way to be a leader. Seeing what others want and demand from those in charge allow me to be a better leader when I need to. Understanding my role and how I can contribute.
Racine's Leadership Experience 