What is leadership?
My basic definition over the past few weeks has not changed much but instead I have added more theories of what are the styles of leadership and there make-ups. How is leeadership defined, what does it mean to be a leader? Oxford defines leadership as a "the action of leading a group of people" (Leadership, n.d.). While my time in the military service, I have seen a trend of leadership, those that have "it", those that perceive that they have "it" and finally those that don't have "it." What is "it"? But what does this mean, how is it applied to modern leadership. Winston and Patterson's (2006) describe an in depth constructive definition of leadership that focuses on the influence of the followers and their gifts (strengths/weakness) to move the organization, while Northhouse (2015) it as a process of influence. Eisenhower describe leadership as "the art of getting someone to do something because he wants to it" (Chatham, 2016). A quick search of leadership in the Hunt Library and each time the definition changes only slightly; common themes appear art, influence and motivation.
I believe that leadership is “the behavior of a person to influence and inspire a follower to accomplish an idea of investment, through one’s own commitment and self-actualization.” An old supervisor of mine once said “negative behavior does not move a mountain, but does carve a canyon.” It was not till years later did I learn the hard way what that meant. The behavior of a person can have great influence on the perceived or assigned followers ability to reconcile his/hers own opinion of themselves and the task at hand. Meaning that a single individual’s behavior can motivate me to find ownership in the process through my own lens. That person I will either follow or ignore. Will I be committed to the idea because I have reached the highest point accordingly to Maslow? To illustrate the point, a person (leader) asked (not told) me to develop a new weapon system, because they understood that this is something that I can do (and enjoy) and that their approach angle used would motivate me to reach my own peaks. This was an exploitation of my reactions to their behaviors. All the right things are said that drove me to commit myself to the idea. Sometimes my wife does that to me "honey will you take the trash, or would you like to take the trash out for me."
This is the balance of leadership, push too far and the follower will never move, push to aggressively and the follower will only carve internal dilemmas that not repairable. This is where this course has helped me understand leadership theories like a follower-lead approach like path-goal theory (Northouse, 2016). This theory leads the follower and leader to motivated the follower to reach their own commitment to the idea or the project. My own leadership is directly reflected on my troops in path-goa; what am I doing to help them reach their goal. I can use this theory in my own definition of leadership. It was my superiors's and my follower that helped shaped me into who I am today and my behavior that influenced me, did they treat me with respect, and did they understand my strengths and weakness even when I did not; therefore am I orientating my followers the right way. I intend to use this program to understand to become a better well rounded leader that understand genuine and authentic empathy and sympathy toward their blight and help my followers and subordinated reach their goals.
Leadership is a difficult to understand and more difficult to define. There are hundreds of thousands of articles on how people, scholars and professionals define it. Northouse has given us a brief synopsis of several theories throughout the past few weeks we have explored several, I intend to use these skills to learn more and to become a better well-rounded leader. There is so many definitions out there that all center on several themes, influence, art and motivation. In my attempt to define leadership in my own way, I found that the behavior of a person can motivate me to reach my own commitment to the idea or the project, and when that is self-sustained I found that I am better follower.
References
BusinessPundit: 51 ways to define leadership (2016). . Chatham: Newstex. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1824373430?accountid=27203
Leadership (Def 1) (n.d.) In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved 11 January, 2016 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leadership
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing.
Winston, B. E., & Patterson, K. (2006). An Integrative Definition of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1, 6-66.
