The following paper is a summary review of part five of Heifetz 's The Practice of Adaptive Leadership entitled “Deploy Yourself."
Quite often organizational leaders are faced with the day-to-day challenge of addressing every changing environments and evolving problems that develop that test their ethics and moral character. At the core of every organizational leaders heart is how important is the service they are attempting to provide. Depending on the overall objective, many leaders find themselves, operating well outside the parameters of their own comfort zone and experience. Can you lead your organization from your own emotional reservoir? What are the risks vs. gains? Will your directives and taskings injury you or others? Does
…show more content…
That said, another example I always reflect upon can be found in a 1984 film entitled “A Soldier’s Story” Produced and Directed by Norman Jewison . In the film, a black military officer named Captain Davenport is sent to investigate the murder of a black sergeant in Louisiana near the end of World War II during the Jim Crow era. Needless to say Captain Davenport played by the late Howard Rollins Jr., is openly ridiculed by white officers and threaten, but never once loses sight of his overall goal; instead he continued to engage courageously demonstrating that the physical risks involved was well worth the moral physical SACRFICE IN ORDER TO determining who killed one the regiments Black soldiers.
Chapter Twenty-One,
The overall theme of this chapter is about learning to inspire people, learning where the heart of the people within your organization resides and how to express your true feelings as you share your intimate thoughts with them. Leaders who inspire also must become great listeners. Often it is not what has been said, but what has not been said that will indicate the ebb and flow of what may devlp from an important dialogue or meeting.
Chapter
…show more content…
When you approach leadership with the mindset that leading involves a great deal of experimentation, a leader that understands this concept will now look at the implementation of change within the organization as nothing more than an attempt or test. This process is most effective when the leader takes more risks than normal, frequently exceeds the boundaries of their authority, instigates heated discussion by turnings up the heat on problematic issues while at the same time identifying their own personal contributions to the difficulties and
The chapter “Clarify What’s Important to you” introduces several successful leaders and many praiseworthy values to me. Although each leader comes from different environments and possesses different characters, all of them keep their precious values in mind and persist in chasing their ideal lives. Even if each value can be interpreted by different meanings, they all lead encourage individuals to become better.
A solid theoretical foundation is required to lead and manage change. For efficient and effective change to take place it must be intentional. Leadership set the tone and the direction of an organization allowing it or hindering it to change and adapt. Leader can use tactics and skills to create an organic change environment with the right change models and interventions when the organization is most ready for change.
With this mindset in place change can happen without any problems. Having transformational leaders being viewed as change agents, the culture within an organization should transform smoothly. Effective leadership is enhanced when leaders can inspire their followers to accept change by communicating a compelling vision of the future and motivating willingness to work in the new manner (Jones & Rudd, 2008).
“Transformational leadership builds on top of transactional leadership and produces levels of follower effort and performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone” (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 419). Since a transformational leader applauds resourcefulness, I aspire toward this leadership. Although the Fielder contingency model was “the first comprehensive contingency model for leadership” (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 392), “Fielder has reconceptualized his original theory” (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 395). In Fielder’s original theory decisions were based on context and changed according to the situation (Fischer). Interestingly, his advanced theory, cognitive resource theory, asserts “it’s the level of stress
The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner (2007) is the result of twenty years of research on the factors that influence and create great leadership. Through studies and stories from leaders with various backgrounds throughout the world, the practices and characteristics that create great leadership are delineated. Leadership is viewed not as a group of inherent characteristics, but as learned behavior that anyone can achieve. The goal of Kouzes and Posner’s book is to inspire and educate leaders through transformational leadership. As such, leadership is about mobilizing others to become and do extraordinary things.
Adaptive leadership is becoming widespread in the United States Army amongst junior officers in leadership positions that require quick thinking and innovation. Leonard Wong discusses how the versatile and unpredictable enemy and situations in Iraq produces adaptable junior officers. These officers are learning to make decisions under chaotic conditions and are becoming more mentally agile. The Army is changing. The Army is transforming its capabilities in the war in Iraq to be effective and successful. General Schoomaker states that we will not accomplish our goals as a nation in the 21st century unless our Army becomes much more agile but with the capacity for long term, sustained level of conflict. The Army is in the process of eliminating its old ways of war, it has to become somewhat of a decathlete. Trained for multiple events across a broad spectrum not just one event like a track athlete.
Change is a double-edged sword (Fullan, 2001). Change is a word that might inspire or put fear into people. Leadership is challenging when it comes to dealing with change and how individuals react within the organization to the change. Marzano, McNulty, and Waters (2005) discuss two orders of change in their book School Leadership that Works; first and second. Fullan (2001) also adds to the discussion in his book Leading in a Culture of Change, with regard to understanding change. In Change Leadership, Keagan and Wagner (2006) discuss many factors of change and the systematic approach to change. Change affects people in different ways. Leaders need to be able to respond to the individuals throughout the change process.
In order to explain the adaptive leadership in the case of Mihailovic I will briefly review the essence of adaptation and adaptive leadership.
As an emerging leader whose desire is to see progress in his/her organization change is inevitable and necessary. Although change is an important component of moving forward and growing a lot of people resist change, this resistance can be contributed to our fear of the unknown which is what change represent to many people. Hence, when it comes to implementing change it would be best to start off by recognizing and identify what needs to be change ad how to bring about that change. You can’t convince others to go on a journey if you are not aware where you are going.
Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge is an organizational management book written by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus for those who aim to become better leaders. The authors emphasize that having executive positions or being a manager does not automatically make one a leader. A leader is one who inspires his staff, help them find purpose in their work, and effectively implement their plans. They separate the book not quite into chapters on different topics, but rather by four strategies that they have determined are vital for any leader to take on. The strategies are effectively concluded as attention through vision, meaning through communication, trust through positioning, and the deployment of self. A prominent feature of Leaders is the various
Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.
Although there are many outstanding, albeit necessary qualities of a good leader, it is the leader’s beliefs in which greatness is given its first breath, fostered by action, and spread throughout the institution. A great leader believes in encouraging, not destroying; in setting the precedence instead of yielding to prominence ; in collaboration, not division; in giving, not taking; and in having high standards and volunteering to be the first of many to be held to them. A great leader does not take advantage of the people being lead, but instead, creates an advantage for the people by giving them the opportunities to lead. Only when people take ownership of an institution will passion be cultivated, action be taken, and greatness be achieved.
Challenge the Process – leader seek unusual ways of enhancing the organization by taking risk and experimenting, thus embracing the unpreventable disappointments as learning opportunities.
Transformational Leadership and Adaptive Leadership theory will be discussed in relation to IT governance. De Haes, Van Grembergen and Debreceny (2013) formulate the main ideas of IT governance have only been around 20 years, but, the amount of literature is copious and is still providing a prolific amounts of current documentation. Both Transformational Leadership and Adaptive Leadership represent appropriate and critical leadership styles for organizations that strive to keep the pace of continuous technological advancements and that are focused on the rapid adoption of new business concepts and process improvements (Xenikou & Simosi, 2006). The specific benefits and problems associated with each leadership style have organizational opportunities and difficulties. The timing of each leadership style when applied requires timing and cooperation. Yet they both have similar operational goals, to improve the processes of IT governance using the innate strengths of each leadership style for the betterment of the organization. Knowing the strengths of each leadership style facilitate implementation, mastering the pitfalls of each leadership style improves metacognitive understanding of the risks and weaknesses involved in the process.
The person who desires to develop his or her ability to influence others in leadership will benefit from reading this book. It offers many suggestions and tips for improving relationship skills. The discussion about “Five Ways You Want Others to Treat You” was very interesting. Maxwell stated, “The happiest people are those who have...