Contribution to leadership

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Contribution to leadership

How will your study relate to the School of Advanced Studies mission statement?

The mission of the School of Advanced Studies is to develop leaders who will create new models that explain, predict, and improve organizational performance. These leaders are scholar-practitioners who conduct research as a foundation for creative action, influence policy decisions, and guide diverse organizations through effective decision making.
Furthermore, the assignment must, at a minimum, describe the representation of the following criteria of the dissertation in the intended study:

a. Creative and critical thought
b. Significance and substance
c. Contribution to leadership
d. Movement from academic passion to scholarly opinion
e. What problem will be solved
f. What methodology will guide the study
g. How data will be collected and analyzed

Creative and critical thought

Professor Danica Purg of the School of Business and Economics, the University of Exeter, in her interview with Morgen Witel (2006), an EBF Editor, says that all across Europe leadership deficit is plaguing both public and private sector.

The same symptom is plaguing countries across the globe because countries are adopting each other’s policies.

Many leaders fail because, she says, they have been appointed to the leadership position only because they are young, energetic, enthusiastic, and risk takers. However, she claims, they are lack of knowledge and skills. They are very focus and this has a bearing to the leaders’ ability to succeed

Therefore, leaders or future leaders should not be focus minded. They need to expand their views and perspectives.

They need to be creative and develop a pattern of critical thinking and this requires training. Ellen White (1999) encourages leaders not to stop learning but make learning as a continuous life’s process.

It is very imperative to bring a change in the organization and only successful leaders can bring this change in their organization and their team. Effective leaders have always a positive impact on their organization’s business and culture through their efficient leading style to bring prominent changes. An effective leader is well aware of leadership concepts and practices.

An effective leader honors his employee, give them credit on their hard work, learns from mistakes and try to change and overcome, never teases or criticizes his employee and try to develop a positive environment in which all work in a collaborative manner.

b. Significance and substance

The field of a leader to earn knowledge is the sky is the limit. However, this could have been achieved if they are not focus oriented. If leaders are too focused, they cannot see beyond the sphere (Simmons, 2005). They tend to become shortsighted. They cannot see the right alternatives. A preacher once said, “If we are too focused, we are blinded by the impacts of our decisions. We are blinded by the injustice of our decisions, and we are blinded by the sufferings of the people in our surroundings.” In fact, when they are too focused, they tend to be misdirected.

c. Contribution to leadership

To become a good leader one needs to go through leadership development process because the skills of leadership don’t come overnight or are not possessed as born. They are developed as a process stated Boulding. It requires training and experience to become leaders who can come up with good ideas about which direction the organization should take, is able to decide on course of action, what goals to be achieved, and which direction they should take. It requires training and experience for leaders to be able to exert their influence or control over the people who are under their supervision to move in the direction they should go.

A successful leader is always productive, he must think and behave as a leader for positive impact on employee, staff and organization. A leader is always aware of his strengths and weaknesses and keeps striving for his leadership role. The most important point is that before bringing any change in the organization and putting a positive impact on it, a leader must himself show by his deeds those positive attitudes and traits that he would like to implement in his organization.

An effective leader is always honest and trustworthy. He always deals honestly with others and develops trust with his employees and staff. He credits everyone. He admits their mistakes and tries to change and improve it rather than just blaming them for their errors. Honoring others is a very crucial point in his team leadership role. “Respect others if you want to be get respected,” is a key point in his team role. He is always the one who harmonizes his actions with his words.

An effective leader is always determined, persuasive and work for their best. It is well understood by them that there is always a room for improvement. Excellence is what they want to achieve and whatever they do. They have a strong desire to do their best and perform outstandingly. The workforce they create is organized, unified, disciplined, cooperative and very productive. They keep setting new standards and carve new ways to improve and bring change.

Effective leader always make others feel honored and valued. He does not use his power to devalue others, never make them feel bad for their mistakes, and never makes criticism. He brings changes only with optimistic thinking, positive attitude and words. He is always committed to help others.

Leader is always an example for his employee and p lays a role model for them. He tells others to do what he himself shows by his deeds. He is always a positive role model for others.

Leader always work for others and willing to serve them. Doing this he never feels inferior or secondary. Serving others gains respect. Helping out others gain their respect and admiration. Otherwise, employee will feel frustrated. Employees can’t be isolated and they should be helped and encouraged. Employees make the workforce of an organization; failing to motivate them and help them could result in failure of an organization on the whole. They are interconnected and help each other outside their specific roles rather than denying to assists if the task does not comply with their job description.

Leader always take interest in his staff members and always listen to them and their suggestions. He always motivates them to help and grow the organization. He is very tough but sincere in his dealings and this is what he expects from his employee. Employee should feel as an important part of their organization only then output will reach excellence. This is what effective leader aims at.

d. Movement from academic passion to scholarly opinion

Americans are addicted to practical knowledge, says Alexis Tocqueville in his America in Democracy. If people are becoming practical, they abandon theory but theory informs good application and good implementation (Tompkins, 2005).

Leaders’ knowledge can project organizational success. If you have leaders who are lack of knowledge, it is like sailing in the open ocean without a compass. This requires training through a learning process but learning through experience is not quite the best foundation for an organization to be successful.

In business, as people become more practical, and when things are standardized, things become routine. When things become routine and focus, it is very difficult to break the habit. Sometimes, people are dwelling on doing things the wrong way because it has become their habits. Through advance studies, people can be guided to break this habit, to get out and explore more knowledge. By expanding their knowledge, they will become more creative because focus and standardization have killed their creativity.

Alexis Tocqueville also encourages that people should adopt the scholarly learning or should go through this learning process otherwise they would lose their capacity. Ellen White (1999) also suggests them to not only learn but also apply them in their field of work.

Leaders play a pivotal role in the success of an organization. They inspire and motivate others to commit for success. They win hearts and mind and direct people to a success lead always with their own example.

They build strong relationships to establish a team to work for good and good they attain is on the whole for entire team. Their way of communication is very effective and persuasive with a personal touch. Thinking optimistically and being enthusiastic is their integral part. The great leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Jack Welch and Bill Marriot have shown with their attitude how they put positive impact on their organization. Their powerful role resulted not only in their successful career, but high-quality for all people and flourishing turnaround of the organization.

They were not perfect that they never made a mistake, but they learned from those mistakes to move forward. Instead of taking setbacks as disadvantages, they think, workout a solution to make new policies for the organization. They always work for a change. Only such outstanding managers and leaders have positive impact on their organization. As what Ronald Reagan once said, "What I'd really like to do is go down in history as the President who made Americans believe in themselves again." Effective leaders are inspiring and have impression on their people to make difference.

e. What problem will be solved

Problems can easily be solved if the leaders have the intellectual capacity. Without this capacity, things that are simple often become complicated. In our public leadership, the politicization makes simple issues become problematic and complicated.

Leadership styles of different leaders always differ with respect to their motives and their interaction with their organizations. Not only that traits of leadership are important but how the leaders should cope according to the situation, his environment, motivates his employee and apply his visions to have fruitful results counts a lot. In this paper different leadership styles of different leaders will be discussed who came in different eras.

There is not just one single trait that defines a leader but there are many core characteristics that’s integration is must for being a successful leader.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the great leaders of USA in early 20th century. He was a Charismatic Leader and succeeded his way by his personal inspirational qualities. He is also regarded as transforming leader as he did so to develop his smooth relationship with the public. He possessed the qualities of optimism, positive thinking, politeness, and courage to inspire people and gain their support. He was so enthusiastic and had so much charm that he was able to beat his competitor Hoover in presidential election in 1932 by seven million votes. In spite of the fact that he contracted poliomyelitis in 1921 and was struck by infantile paralysis, he struggled through this hard time and regained his position.

Then in 1933 he faced many crisises in handling American government, such as increased in unemployment, failures of banks and businesses, factory closures and farm closures, all occurred during his time. Through his intelligence and skills he worked through it and initiated a New Deal program to cover all these loses. Soon banks reopened and relief programs were carried to provide income to millions and save them from going into extreme poverty.

Transforming leaders always seek to bring change and improvement in his organization. People need respect and attention and this is what a true leader does. He carefully listens to the people and work for their good.

Leader of 1990

In contrast to this if we compare an early 20th century with today’s leader of a small organization for example, Steven Paul Job, CEO of Apple Computers. He has become a leading person in computer industry. He’s one the most strong and motivated person who had highly practical visions. He successfully developed a multinational company of Apple computers. He is able to run a world class computer company by his ability to motivate his employees and create an environment for successful progression of his organization. He completely revolutionized the software and hardware industry of computers.

“Though he is not an engineer, he felt his greatest talent had been spearheading development of new products. Jobs also recalled with special pride that he had helped introduce personal computers into education.” [Utal, 1985, p. 119]

However, in contrast to the Roosevelt, Steve does not posses the same charm as Roosevelt gave to his people. Steve Jobs has been characterized as very tough man. Probably, the demand of his work and current expectations has led him to be strict with his employees.

“Jobs has been criticized as America's roughest, toughest, most intimidating bosses. Ever since Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer when he was 21, the meditating computer mogul was known as the terrible infant of Silicon Valley. Now, as head of NextStep, the 38-year-old Jobs is no longer an infant, but according to those who have worked with him, he still is terrible.” (Dumaine, 1993, p. 40 cited in Steve Paul Jobs)

With his new venture of NeXTStep computers, his progress is a bit slow as he has not been able to much cope with employee with respect. He tried to pressurized the vice managers and employee to enhance their work.

But as it has been stated earlier that leadership is not the result of just one trait but it depends on different unique qualities and the determination of a person. Never has been in history two leaders being a like. Every leader uses his own talent to work according to the environment in he lives and tries to bring changes according to his power and determination.

Steve Jobs gained extraordinary good results with a wise plan and his extraordinary intelligence and a unique leadership style. His services are extended to his customers and, business partners with a commitment to execute something to reach outside his business limits. And with his other leadership traits he has been able to bring his organization to the top.

“The heart of leadership is as simple as that: It is a matter of choice and determination. It is equally true, however, that no two leaders are exactly alike.” (Pandya et al, 2004)

f. What methodology will guide the study

The methodology applied in higher learning should take considerations of the age of the participants and their level of experience. In undergraduate level, too often students are abused because they lack experience and their level of knowledge is lower. This is not the case in higher-level learning. Many of the participants are professionals in their fields. In reality, it is easy to teach the professionals in the higher learning than those of the generation X. Their level of understanding problems and their level of critical and analytical ability are higher and they require less supervision. Like in the working world, you give them a job and they get it done.

In undergraduate, students are encouraged to work in groups. In higher learning, though it works better than in undergraduate because adult students are more attentive to learning and professionalism rather than simply focus on grade. Most importantly, for group work in higher learning, two individuals per group is the best because when you have too much individuals in a group, like in the undergraduate level, there is still the tendency of imbalance workload. Nevertheless, they tend to be self-directed.

Not many people have writing abilities. Some people can write easily, others write poorly even though they are professional in the workplace. In providing writing services, the participants of higher learning can be trained by continuous practice. They say, “Practice make perfect.” If the writing practice is started from the beginning and reinforced in each subject, as the participants progress from one subject to another, by the time they complete their program, they have, at least, master the technique of writing and when it comes to writing their thesis or dissertation, they need less writing guidance.

g. How data will be collected and analyzed

Many people go to work as a routine. Consequently, they miss many things they meet along the way. Shafritz & Russell (2000), Simmons (2006) and White (1999) state that the field of leaders to study is the sky is the limit. Everywhere they go is their field of study. Professionals and adults who enter into this field of training would find it more enjoyable and have more passion to study if the methods of collecting and analyzing data are more related to their experience.

For example, social science research is emphasized on survey as the methodology of quantitative research. Besides quantitative, there is also qualitative which includes literature study. In the workplace, these processes have been eliminated and replaced by polling. However, polling is a fashion and its result is non-reliable because if one changes the wording, the answer is automatically changed. Research and study results should be reliable and cannot change as the poll whose result last as long as the news last.

In early research methodology, field observation or placement and writing is one strongest method of research for the higher learning. This method has been abandoned at the time education institutions emphasize learning to be theoretical sound. This method should be re-applied because during this process, participants or candidates can develop their expertise in the field they are investigating. At the same time, it opens an opportunity for them to self-train and eases their process to reenter job market because they have had direct experience in the field. This makes the cost of retraining for organization is less. You don’t trained a person with higher degree learning the way you train high school or undergrads because it is an insult to their capacity. In the end, they run away.

References

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Simmons, Annette (2001). The Story Factor. Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling. New York: Basic Books

Tompkins, Jonathan (2005). Organizational Theory and Public Management. Australia: Thomson Wadsworth

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White, Ellen G. (1999). The Ministry of Healing. Altamont, TN: Harvestime Books

Witell, Morgen (2004, Spring). Leadership. EBF, 24. Retrieved October 16, 2006 from EBSCO Business Source Premier

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Steve Paul Jobs. Retrieved http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Jobs.html

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