Reflection of Leadership

The complexities of the modern business climate and the importance of human resources in an enterprise require current crop leaders to build flexible practices to address uncertainties, improve outcomes and enable flexibility and retain a highly engaged workforce. As such leaders are supposed to develop a corporate culture that requires a high degree of versatility to react accordingly to unexpected incidents. In addition to attracting and retaining a pool of highly trained, talented and inspired staff or followers to facilitate goals and outcomes. Consequently, most of the current crop of leaders has realized the need to possess certain attributes like authenticity which reflects the aspects of the leader’s inner self. It enables a leader to maintain a constant posture to those they influence or aspire to, without behaving like chameleons according to the prevailing demands of the situation (Goffee, 2006).

Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker illustrates that for one to become successful, they must beware of themselves. Ability to have a deep understanding of oneself will unlock unprecedented opportunity available to all (Drucker, 2005). Smart and ambitious individuals will conquer all the hurdles in whichever profession irrespective of where they started out. In the workplace, employees must carve out their niche and be their own boss in order to take charge of their career and life. Drucker view leadership as something one can cultivate in themselves. As such, an individual needs first to understand their strengths and build on them. Feedback analysis is useful in understanding an individual’s strengths whereby they note every decision they make and the expected results. After a certain period, an individual will compare the results and should concentrate on the strengths rather than trying to work on areas one have little competence (Drucker, 2005).

Secondly, to cultivate leadership from oneself, an individual should have an understanding of which ways they work best. This will enable such a person to know whether work best through working with others or through working alone as well as to whether they function optimally when things get stressful or in a highly predictable environment (Drucker, 2005). Once a person makes this distinction, they will beware of circumstances in which they offer their best. Consequently, offering their best will separate them from the pack and climb the career ladder to the top. Lastly, Drucker states that everyone is guided by certain personal principles that determine their values. In order to effectively apply one’s strengths to offer the best effort, an individual should determine whether the organization’s values rhyme theirs. This will eliminate career frustrations.

One of the most important insights the article articulates is the need for an individual to carve out their space in the workplace. Such individuals will be different from the rest due to their determination and ambitions (Drucker, 2005). I concur with the author because, with the right mindset, ambition, and values, a person can climb all the way to the leadership position regardless of their starting point. Another insight that the article states which I tend to agree with is the need for an individual to work in the right organization (Drucker, 2005). This means the organizations whose values and objective resonate with those of the individual. It will allow an employee to utilize all their strengths for the realization of the organization’s objectives which will consequently lead to their career development.

Managing Authenticity by R. Goffee seeks to enhance the understanding of the relationship between the exercise of leadership and the expression of self. The ability of a leader to manage their authenticity will make them more effective and efficient in motivating and retaining loyal followers (Goffee, 2006). Such a leader remains focused on their plans and they also do not lose focus of where they came from. To apprehend the concerns and expectations of their subordinates, these leaders rely on an instinct innate of determinative and occasionally cruel experiences. About leadership, Goffee points out that, first leaders ought to know how to manage perception. A great leader has to ensure the consistency of their words and deeds. They are obsessive regarding their beliefs. They live to their beliefs every moment of the day.

Secondly, the article argues that should clearly understand themselves and others. Leaders ought to develop an extensive repertoire of roles so as to be different to different people in different conditions. To develop this complexity, a leader needs a particular extent of self- understanding and the ability and the willingness to disclose that self-understanding to others (Goffee, 2006). The way an authentic leader pursues goals and communicates them to followers is intense promoting self-disclosure naturally. Another key point Goffee communicates regarding leadership is using where they came from before rising to a senior leadership position. A great leader will succeed in establishing their genuineness by efficiently handling their connection with their past and their subordinates’ links to their backgrounds. In a bid to establish common ground with their followers, authentic leaders use their personal histories.

For my perspective on leadership, leaders ought to understand how to maintain stability between the cultures in which they function and their uniqueness (Goffee, 2006). Since they recognize that the success of their initiatives for the organization needs a certain introduction to and adaptation of its established social and business relationships. Authentic leaders should first at least minimal acceptance as members of their organization for them to influence others. Secondly, reputation for the authenticity of great leaders requires be thoroughly earned and managed carefully (Goffee, 2006). Authenticity cannot be faked. The expression of a leader’s genuine self is a contrived and complicated deed. Thus, all leaders who are authentic are contrived and complicated.

Barbara Kellerman in What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers puts great emphasis on the understanding the followers. The author acknowledges that for one to lead, there has to be someone or some people to be led (Kellerman, 2007). Thus, it is equally important to acknowledge that followers determine the success of a leader. In the era of the confluence of changes like technological and cultural ones, development of new tools for talent management and approaches, subordinates behaviors and wants have been influenced greatly especially in respect to their ostensible leaders. To understand followers according to Kellerman, first, they ought to be given a level playing ground. Behavior is the appropriate criteria to define followers. To achieve this, all followers should be granted a level playing ground especially those at the bottom of the hierarchy. They usually comply so as not to risk their stature or money. Great leaders in current era ought to offer their followers certain degree of freedom and discretion (Kellerman, 2007). They should be allowed to exercise their discretion in the certain decision-making process so as to cultivate creativity and motivation.

Secondly, leaders should be able to distinguish different types of followers. Leaders with some level of understanding of what drive their followers can be a great help to themselves, their subordinates and their organization. Leader-subordinate relationships are more similar than they are different in various typologies regardless the era, culture or situation which they are embedded (Kellerman, 2007). Grouping followers enable a leader to exert instructions on organizations and groups as well as allowing leaders and followers equally to distinguish who in the organization or group is undertaking which duty and why. The article has enlightened my knowledge regarding the leader-followers relationship. The success of a leader is largely determined by the follower since they are in the perfect position to implement leader’s initiatives. Thus, followers are equally important as leaders. Another insight is superiors and subordinates are attached, undividable and difficult to consider the one in the absence of the other (Kellerman, 2007). As such, the view of leadership should be expanded to include the contribution of followers in the evaluation of leadership of their leader.

In conclusion, the current crop of leaders should cultivate mutual relations with their followers because the success of either of them depends on both of them. The good follower will invest their energy and time in making informed conclusions regarding who their leaders are and what they espouse and consequently, take the suitable action (Goffee, 2006). A good leader should share their plans with their followers and maintain effective channels of communication with them.

References

Drucker, P. F. (2005). Managing oneself. Harvard Business Review, 83(1), 100-109.

Goffee. (2006). Managing authenticity: The paradox of great leadership-Respond. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, 84(5), 151-151.

Kellerman, B. (2007). What every leader needs to know about followers. Harvard Business Review, 85(12), 84-91.