This paper will discuss three important elements of leadership discussed in Chapters Three and Four of the book “Resilient Leaders” (Dees, 2013). First, integrity is important because it is essential to gaining and maintaining the respect of partners, peers, and employees; thereby impacting the ultimate success of the business. Second, courage that is steered according to integrity is an important skill that enables business leaders to humbly face different types of fear and make difficult business decisions. Finally, worldly wisdom is practical and helpful, but wisdom that comes from God positions leaders to accomplish what appears impossible. Key Words: integrity, wisdom, courage, competence, leadership Courageous Business Leadership The three concepts in this paper are important because they are elements of character, and strong character differentiates good business leaders and extraordinary business leaders. In the …show more content…
An article in the Journal of Business Ethics explained that wisdom is a combination of “superior, experience-driven cognitive and emotional” skills that result in a desire for universal benefits for individuals and organizations (Zacher, Pearce, Rooney, & McKenna, 2014, p. 171). Scripture overflows with words that deepen the definition of wisdom. To highlight a few, wisdom can only come from God (Proverbs 2:6, New American Standard Bible); it should be desired jewels (Proverbs 8:11); and it begins with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10, NASB). Dees provided a comprehensive definition of wisdom when he described it as “the bridge between character and competence” (Dees, Character and Wisdom). It is the essential element, or glue, that guides leaders’ decisions and daily actions, and Christians who are determined to be fruitful for God’s Kingdom should prioritize wisdom in their daily prayer
As I look back on my own experiences, I have determined that there are leadership traits which we must enhance in order to become more effective leaders during irregular threats. I am inclined to choose courage as one of the most important leadership traits to serve as the foundation of effective leadership during an imminent irregular threat. Courage, defined as the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action, is the most important trait.
Leadership is a quality which cannot be acquired by any person from the other but it can be acquired by self-determination of a person. Leadership can best be called the personality of the very highest ability-whether in ruling, thinking, imagining, innovation, warring, or religious influencing. Leadership is practiced not so much in words a it is in attitude and in actions. Their actions leave a long lasting memory in the line of history and lead up to may events that occur today. To be a leader one will need many qualities. Leaders have a purpose and strategies to accomplish that purpose. They are driven and motivated. In the end they should be able to attain good results. These innate talents help to make up a leader that will succeed and be efficient in carrying out tasks. But, the purpose of this paper is determine what truly makes a leader successful. A successful leader should be considered more on their impact rather than their accomplishments of their organizations alone for they are not sufficient in determining the key to their success .
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.
Leadership is derived from the Latin word laedere, which roughly translates as “to show the way” and if someone were to look it up in the dictionary, it would come up as “the position of a leader, the ability to lead, and direction.” However, for some this word can be arguable because everyone thinks differently. Leadership or leader itslef can be described or defined as someone promoting good character, a trustworthy person as well as a person who has dedication and takes responsibility for not only him or herself but also takes responsibility for the people surrounding them.
Leaders is an effective tool for summarizing and inspiring leadership, not in that it teaches tough strategies and manipulations, but that when looking at an overview of its content, Bennis and Nanus are essentially teaching human relations and human decency. All in all, this book highlights strategies for us all to be better in our lives and our everyday interactions.
This discussion will focus on leadership as described by Robert Dees in The Resilience Trilogy, Resilient Leaders text. The points made in the book can be personally related. The three most important concepts learned from chapter 1 and 2 are tribulation, risk management, and selflessness. It is crucial for anyone is seeking to delve into leadership that everything will not happen as planned all the time. After a leader experience failure, knowing the avenues to take to regain a solid footing is also key to successful leadership. Often leaders who are unaware of available resources fold and give up. In the military profession, when someone gets knock down they get up brush themselves off and get back in the fight.
Suddenly, some companies become extremely successful, while rest of them unfortunately remains a failure. There can be off-course a lot of reasons for this failure but one of the main reasons is lack of leadership qualities. There are many s...
Contemporary organizations expect advantageous styles of leadership to lead and facilitate operations as we move forward into the 21st century. This need requires leaders and organizations to instill a style of leadership advantageous to supporting and leading a culture towards organizational effectiveness and connecting to support and uphold organizational strategies. Thus, the success of an organization usually contains successful leaders who understand and support the needs of the employees. The characteristics of successful leaders include selflessness, mentoring, empowerment, influence, support and empathy among other positive traits (Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo & Sutton, 2011; Karakitapoglu-Aygun & Gumusluoglu, 2013; Sabir, Sohail & Khan, 2011; Shankers & Sayeed, 2012).
When one walks in integrity one will always need to know when one must need to assess the current situation in make the right decision for oneself and the company or organization that one works for. A leader will always “feel that gut-wrenching, darker side of human behavior whether it concerns plagiarism, dishonesty, cheating, bias and apathy, one will and is not immune.” (Cipriano, 2015, p. #). As a leader one must still use good judgement on the decisions that we make as leaders, there is a scripture that says “and of perfect men is the strong food, who because of the use are having the senses exercised, unto the discernment both of good and of evil.” (YLT Hebrews 5:14) When we walk in integrity we lead by example. When we are honest as leader’s others will follow. For example, a lady while working as a contract worker for a hospital was one day asked to go to lunch with one of her co-workers, and while going to lunch she said, “hey let’s have a drink, we are at lunch no one will know.” Although this may have been true if she would have yielded and said yes she later could have affected not only her position at work but also her patients. Walking in integrity as a leader not only edifies one’s self but also everyone who is connected to him or
As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.
Leadership is defined as a process by which an individual influences others to obtain goals. There are three aspects that should be addressed when explaining leadership. One aspect is that leadership is a social influence process; leadership could not exist without a leader and one or more followers. Another leadership aspect is compliance; all of the leader’s directions must be complied with voluntarily. Compliance is what separates leadership from other influence-based formal authority. Finally, leadership results in the followers’ behavior, that is purposeful and goal-directed which must be in some organized setting (Leadership Theories and Studies, 2009).
Leadership can be shown through any person in any type of situation. In a classroom discussion, on the playing field, or in public a sign of a leader is evident. A person is born a leader. Certain humans know what to do when the time calls for it. Many people in positions can be entitled a leader such as basketball players. Even a famous movie star can be given this title. These people are not true leaders. True leaders are the belaboring teachers and the intellectual speakers. These are the people who show that leadership is an action, not a position.
Leaders will no matter what have an influence on our world. They have missions, dreams and ambition, and with these things they are bound to go far. For leaders, what makes these dreams come true is having strong qualities such as leadership practices, values and strengths. If developed and learned how to use correctly, these are what take leaders to the next level and accomplish great things. In the following paper I will talk about leadership in our ever-changing world, explore my leadership practices, values and strengths as well as elaborate on the goals I have made to challenge myself as a leader.
In leadership, the words and actions of leaders are in the spotlight of followers, moral failures often precede the loss of integrity; however, integrity can also be lost by failing to do the simple things such as following through on a promise or dodging a commitment (Stewart, 2003). Jesus requires integrity in leadership even in small matters; thus, when it comes to integrity, small matters can also be huge ones in Christian leadership (Stewart, 2003). Outside the confines of Christian leadership, one challenge to secular leadership is the ego of the leader; hence, the ego of a business executive can be a very destructive force and can prevent a good company from becoming a great company (Kleinman, 2004). Businesses that are termed successful have leaders with ambition but no ego; therefore, those leaders with ambition but no ego, ultimately place the business or institution above themselves (Kleinman, 2004). Ego comes at a great cost to leadership because of pride, in the end, pride leads to blindness in decision making and unavoidable future regret. My own view on the biggest challenge to leadership is developing management effectiveness. Management is frequently defined in terms of being a systematic process that controls people and resources; thus, with an overlap between leadership and management, many leaders greatly need
Leaders of the future will be faced with many challenges. As the world changes, we must adapt the ways in which we face these challenges, and in turn grow as leaders. A leader is not merely someone which commands a group or organization. A good leader exhibits the ability to take an average team of individuals and achieve greatness. Leadership is not supervision or leading. It is the ability to inspire or influence others towards the end goal. As Barendsen and Gardner stated (2006), “the best leaders are individuals who, in their work, exhibit three distinct meanings of good: (1) an excellent technical and professional quality and competence, (2) an ethical orientation, and (3) a completely engaged sense of fulfillment and meaningfulness” (p. 266). Good leaders must utilize all of these traits in order to meet the challenges of the future. A few emerging challenges that future