There have been countless books, lectures, and and trainings, and retreats constructed around the idea of cultivating leadership in an individual. However, cultivating individuals’ ability to follow great leadership has received far less attention. Who are these people leading if each person within an organization is being trained to be a leader? The word follower has negative connotations, evoking the images of a weak, uncreative, milquetoast personality. However, Jimmy Collins, in his book, “Creative Followership: In the Shadow of Greatness”, suggests that the ability to be led brings as much creativity, consciousness, and indeed leadership to an organization or team as the leader himself. Great followership is a reflection of great …show more content…
Collin’s speech on Thursday, April 3, 2014, he highlighted a few of the most imperative principles of the thirty-five principles outlined in his “Creative Followership”. Collins suggested that through application of these principles, any individual has the potential to be passionately committed and deeply involved in their organization or project - and even in their personal life. All of this without having fashion his or her self into the next Andrew Carnegie. His or her contribution does not have to be as leader to be immeasurably valuable and be recognized as …show more content…
This is the real-time application of the age old canard, “There is no problem that we cannot solve together.”, and thus, the heart of this principle. There may be setbacks, but there is absolutely no unfixable problem. Missteps are always learning devices and life-training tools. This attitude is invaluable. This idea is not just important in Creative Followership, but is a theme emphasized in every work ever written by powerful leaders dating back to the writings of the Roman general and emperor Marcus Aurelius. Positivity and resilience are always put forth as the the precursors for
The topic of leadership has been explored and written about by thousands of authors who are considerably more qualified than I am to write about the subject. However, I’ve always maintained that developing, evolving and articulating one’s own leadership philosophy is an essential part of a professional’s growth. Through academics and experience, I’ve concluded that leadership is a “soft” skill, more art than science, and that leadership principles can be universally applied. As a topic of discussion, leadership can be ambiguous and seldom does everyone agree on a single definition. Organizations and the people they consist of crave leadership, even if not overtly. Undeniably, strong leadership is essential to achieving
Denisco & Barker, (2016) discusses the foundation of leadership and the four conceptual pillars that comprise it. Understanding the leadership is a responsibility of an APN, the following final question was posed to Ms. Gordner. “Of the four pillars of leadership; professionalism, inspirational motivation, interpersonal relationships, and business skills, do you feel that one is more important than another, and why?” She responded,
In order for us to look at these principles we must first learn about some of the leaders talked about in this book. We first look at ...
Sixthly, John Gardner’s goal is not to prop up institutions or “merely” deliver excellent products and services; it is The Release of Human Possibilities. That release requires positive attitudes toward the future through tough-minded optimism even in the most troubled of times, delivered with confidence, great expectations and powered by the will to act.
It seems self-evident that one cannot be a leader unless he or she has followers; put differently, one cannot hold a leadership role unless others are prepared to hold followership roles. These roles are more or less symbiotic - done effectively, each role can support and benefit the other. Nevertheless, the term “follower” has acquired a negative connotation, and leadership is generally considered to be the pinnacle to which we should all strive in our working lives, if not our personal lives as well. However, thanks to the work of authors such as Robert E. Kinney, who introduced the concept of followership, the characteristics, roles and paths of followers now receive increased attention. Kinney’s groundbreaking article, “In Praise of Followers”, appears along with the work of other authors on followership in The Leaders Companion.
In this book, the authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie examine the question “What are the keys to being an effective leader?” To answer this question they had a team that reviewed data collected from Gallup polls. The data came from interviews from 20,000 senior leaders, over a million teams and more than fifty years of Gallup Polls of the most admired leaders in the world. The authors then had the team do a study of more than 10,000 followers to find out why they follow the influential leaders in their life.
“A manager manages using authority-or the right to get others to do things by virtue of their positional power. While a leader leads through the ability to influence other people to do things using a certain degree of personal power or charisma” (McLean, 2005, p. 16). By definition, leadership is about influence. Therefore, it is impossible to discuss the theme of leadership without including followers or to try to explain the idea of team building without explaining the influence of a leader. While each concept is unique, both have a direct affect on the other. A leader is not a leader without someone following him or her and a team will always develop a leader whether indirectly or directly appointed. However, leadership and team building are much like the preverbal chicken and egg; and many theories have developed over several years trying to explain the influence on each other and the successful development of teams and leaders.
A penny saved may be a penny earned, just as a penny spent may begin to better the world. Andrew Carnegie, a man known for his wealth, certainly knew the value of a dollar. His successful business ventures in the railroad industry, steel business, and in communications earned him his multimillion-dollar fortune. Much the opposite of greedy, Carnegie made sure he had what he needed to live a comfortable life, and put what remained of his fortune toward assistance for the general public and the betterment of their communities. He stressed the idea that generosity is superior to arrogance. Carnegie believes that for the wealthy to be generous to their community, rather than live an ostentatious lifestyle proves that they are truly rich in wealth and in heart. He also emphasized that money is most powerful in the hands of the earner, and not anyone else. In his retirement, Carnegie not only spent a great deal of time enriching his life by giving back; but also often wrote about business, money, and his stance on the importance of world peace. His essay “Wealth” presents what he believes are three common ways in which the wealthy typically distribute their money throughout their life and after death. Throughout his essay “Wealth”, Andrew Carnegie appeals to logos as he defines “rich” as having a great deal of wealth not only in materialistic terms, but also in leading an active philanthropic lifestyle. He solidifies this definition in his appeals to ethos and pathos with an emphasis on the rewards of philanthropy to the mind and body.
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.
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.
At last, I want to quote my favorite part in this article, which the following, Leadership is not a science. It’s not a recipe. It’s not the five rules about this or the six effective habits of that. It’s an art, and as Georges Braque wrote, the only thing that matters in art is the part that can’t be explained.” The only reason that I like this part is that I don’t need to apply any leadership theory here.
With that interview, I have learnt a lot of leadership styles and motivational theories, which I studied in my University lectures from Mr. John. This paper is the reflection of what I learnt from him.
James MacGregor Burns has defined leadership as “leaders inducing the followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and the motivations – the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations – of both leaders and followers” (Burns 1978. p.19.)
Many leadership researchers and scholars have stated that leaders do not exist without followers. Leadership has been described as the process of influencing, in which a person can enlist the support of others to accomplish a task or goal (Nye, 2010 and Oc & Bashshur, 2013). A leader is one whom others agree to follow, but a follower must be willing to be led. In developing leaderships styles and theories, the traits and behavior of the leaders were considered by Bass (2008). Bass described these styles as transactional and transformational leadership (2008). For the purposes of this short essay, I will discuss two leadership styles, the types of followers, and the autocratic style being used by this organization’s new VP.
It is very common in this day and age to become discontent with where you are at in leadership. One of the reasons for this discontentment can be because influencing all of those around us is not an easy thing to do. If we are to not only stay content, but also excel in leadership we must keep in mind that ninety-nine percent of leadership does not come from the top of any given organization, but the middle. John C. Maxwell, author of The 360-Degree Leader, speaks to us about the principles that leaders can use to bring value and influence to any organization from any level within the organization, enabling them to do, what John C. Maxwell describes as leading up, leading across, and leading down.