Tag Archives: Leadership Research

Leadership

Engineering Your Leadership

Creating a multidimensional approach for successful leadership development is increasingly becoming a challenge in industries facing significant change. In my healthcare career, I have seen a great deal of shrinkage in the services healthcare centers and facilities offer. Just as consistent, administrative teams are reducing the expenditures of programs surrounding areas of staff development, both in a professional approach (such as for leadership) and a skills approach (OJTs). Leadership development is being left to minimal involvement with a growing focus on books, webinars, websites, assessments and articles. These things are great, so long as they are structured in a manner that strategically develops leaders.

When considering the topics of leadership development, there are a few core areas that should be reviewed. First, and foundationally, is leadership research. The focus and study of leadership research reveals a history of evolution of thought and approaches to leadership development. This includes strengthened assessments and models over time, as well as analyses on what successful and effective leaders have regarding traits, skills and behaviors.

As leadership research is broken down, the study of leadership styles can provide leaders with a great deal of information as they analyze their own leadership styles while considering the characteristics of other styles. This opens up expanded views and provides education to the leader on how to expand their own style. A lot of focus in leadership styles is centered on answering the question of ‘what style makes the most effective and successful leader’. Frankly, there isn’t a magic bullet style; it’s situational and individually based, which flows naturally into the next element of study in leadership development. Effective leaders have the finely tuned ability to apply situational leadership and contingency approaches, based on the situation, environmental variables, followers and tasks. The models in this area provide leaders with a pragmatic approach to the various situations that are frequently faced.

The next critical area of review for leadership development is understanding followers and employees. The key is to be able to identify follower and employee types, as well as understanding what traits, behaviors and characteristics that effective employees and followers possess. Understanding these items is like looking into a crystal ball; you can more accurately predict the likely success and struggles of an employee and/or group of employees.

The last, most critical, element is the alignment and optimization of the leader with the variables above. If a leader is able to develop the skills, traits, characteristics and behaviors of effective leaders while also developing their own leadership style, the leader’s development is immensely advanced. Stepping beyond these items, applying situational leadership gives the leader an entirely new level of transformative leadership through the ability to respond and effectively lead in rapidly changing environments. When you couple this with the understanding of individual follower and employee dynamics, the leader becomes deeply aligned with an effective leadership approach that is applicable in any environment. A great tool to address these areas is The Optimized Leader, as it is developed around these very topics, strategically structured to answer the challenges leaders face with a key approach: it applies to all leaders, individually more than (versus) all leaders, collectively.

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Leadership

Leadership Attributes, Leadership Traits, and Transformational Leadership Research

My doctoral dissertation leadership research primarily focused on the impact and relationship between leadership and adversity. However, a material additional component of my leadership was to evoke from the sixteen prominent leader’s descriptions their concepts of leadership, as well as their styles of leadership, including transformational leadership.

The sixteen prominent leader / research participants each had their own unique life journey in dealing with adversity and then working to become a successful and accomplished leader. One common theme is that obstacles or adversity in the early lives of the participants, such as the loss of a parent, poverty, discrimination, or even being a Holocaust victim, was not the seminal or most important event in their lives. They each grew through the experiences that came with increasing responsibilities in their careers, or through significant career changes. Successfully overcoming the obstacles in their adult lives helped them to grow. The encouragement, guidance, and examples from mentors played a significant part in their lives.

My in depth Doctoral dissertation research into leadership and adversity has shown me that a mentor, especially a servant-leader mentor, can teach a person how to overcome the obstacles and adversities of life. Enlightened mentors or servant-leader mentors are a classic example of someone who uses transformation leadership techniques and skills in the life.

The leader I interviewed commented on the importance of being the enlightened and caring mentor can guide from their own personal experiences with adversity. They are some who has been there and has successfully overcome the difficult problem or major adversity. In some cases, mentors may teach mentees which way to go based on their experience of taking a wrong path and having learned a better way. The mentor may have experienced and overcome some other, even more horrendous, difficulty in his or her life’s journey that could inspire the mentee to higher heights.

The sixteen prominent leaders that I personally interviewed identified nine important qualities of a leader. Many of these leadership traits, including though usually associated with transformational leadership, are found in the lst from my leadership research:

1. Honesty or integrity
2. A high level of people skills
3. Initiative, assertiveness, drive, or determination
4. Excellent communication skills or willingness to speak up, take a position, or take charge
5. Vision (being forward-looking)
6. Desire or passion to lead and inspire
7. Positive attitude and self-confidence; charisma
8. Knowledge of the business and/or group task at hand; competence
9. The ability to overcome adversity or obstacles

The sixteen prominent leaders that I interviewed for my Doctoral dissertation research into leadership and adversity specifically identified an additional four important qualities that are not commonly found in the academic leadership literature.
10. Being a Servant-Leader, serving people, and especially being humble
11. Having both religious faith and strong family ties
12. Framing or recognizing the worst adversity as an opportunity
13. Having a mentor or mentors in their development as leaders (Haller, 2008, pp. 116-117)

Several of my leadership research participants acknowledged the refining nature of adversity, but it was not really a “transformational leadership traits,” but rather a comment on their experience with overcoming adversity, obstacles, abuse, discrimination, death of a parent, or in one case the Nazi Holocaust.

Leadership Attributes or Traits, and Transformational Leadership
I have found from my personal leadership experience and my doctoral research in the area of leadership foundations, that transformational leadership especially important in the “real application” of leadership. Starting back in the 1980s there was a resurgence of researchers updating the academic literature with their findings, repackaging, and comments leadership trait theory. Many of the leadership scholars focused there framing on leadership traits in the context of discussing transformational leadership.

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Leadership

Defining Leadership – Trying to Understand

You can ask ten different people what their definition of leadership is and you will probably get ten different answers. Leadership doesn’t have a specific definition. By giving it a definition, you are putting restrictions and limitations on the word and the true value of leadership. Leadership is something that is complicated to explain and understand. It is formless; it doesn’t take on a particular shape or form, nor does it go in one particular direction. A great leader can adjust to any situation at any given time, under any circumstance, and still come out successful.

Leadership is something that can’t be measured or tested by science or technology. Leadership theories are based on an opinion of an individual, i.e., human factors, and no two humans are the same. Although it can’t be measured by science, it is considered a soft science, because you really can’t base it off of experimental data. No one can prove what it is, but they can show what it does. It is like fine art, it crafts in a formless way that tends to go in many different directions at any given time. Leadership is rational and emotional; it involves both sides of human experience, which can include your “firmness, fairness, dignity and compassion.”

Some people believe that being a leader is either in one’s genes or not; others believe that life experiences mold the individual, and no one is born a leader, hence the saying “Leaders are made, not born.” Who’s to say which is right? This saying has been an ongoing debate for years and always will be. But in a sense, they both are right and they both are wrong. “Both views are right in the sense that innate factors, as well as formative experiences, influence many sorts of behavior, including leadership. Yet, both views are wrong to the extent they imply leadership is either innate or acquired” (Hughes, 2006). What matters most is how well a leader makes these factors interact with one another.

Leadership can be created from inspiration and a leader must have a true passion to lead. A true leader understands that leadership is continuous and is a constant learning process. He also understands that leadership is a process and not a position. There are great leaders, but there are not perfect leaders. A great leader must have failed at something in order to succeed. If you have never failed at anything, you can never appreciate the true value of success.

A good leader is someone who utilizes effective leadership skills in dealing with people. They are someone who respects their subordinates as well as their leaders. In reality, a leader is a servant for his subordinates; he works for them just as much as they work for him. A leader must work to make sure that his subordinates are taken care of to the best of his ability by utilizing all of his leadership skills. In turn, his subordinates will take care of him.

Subordinates expect leaders to show them the standard and train them to reach it. They expect leaders to lead by example. Additionally, they expect leaders to keep them informed and not withhold the truth. Leaders may have to ask others to make extraordinary sacrifices to achieve goals. Leaders may have to call on them to do things that seem impossible. “If leaders have trained their people to standard, inspired their willingness, and consistently looked after their interests, they will be prepared to accomplish any goal, anytime, anywhere” (Reeves, 2004).

In reality, most subordinates are leaders. A lot of them just haven’t exercised their true ability to lead. Not to mention the exemplary subordinate who is a self-leader per say. Like a good leader, he can adjust to any situation at any given time. He is very independent and can be depended on. This type of subordinate can help a good leader become better.

Many believe that leadership implies power, but it shouldn’t imply power, it should influence the ability to apply powerful leadership. Power is something that isn’t measured by a position or billet; it is merely a function of the leader, the subordinates, and the situation. Leaders have the potential to influence their subordinates’ behavior, attitude, and growth.

“Leadership allows leaders to have different styles of interaction styles when dealing with individual followers” (Hughes, 2006), hence one of the reasons why leadership will always be open to many different opinions and debates. Study after study has been done on leadership and no one still knows what it is and what makes a true leader. Even those with the most extensive knowledge in leadership research can be poor leaders, which proves, it is not about how much research or studying you do, it’s what you do with it that can make you a success.

In conclusion, we can spend five lifetimes trying to figure out what leadership really is, where it comes from, and which is right or wrong. But it’s not about defining it (it can never be defined, just shown). It’s not about where it comes from, and it’s not about which is right or wrong. It’s about continuous learning, trying to understand it, and which style to use at the right time.

Hughes, R.L., Ginnett, R.C., & Curphy, G.J. (2006). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Reeves, R. (2004). Changing Your Style. In Leadership.. Retrieved December 12, 2006, from United States Marine Corps Web site: http://www.usmc.mil

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