Category: unit 1

Response to Christina unit 1,blog 3, activity 5 servant leadership

October 1, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 0 Comments

Hai Christina!

I have gone through your blog and you have so aptly put forth the description of what actually a servant leader does and expected as well. I strongly agree to the point which you have mentioned that at times leader leaders are taken negatively ,that’s so true because regardless of situation, meeting the ethics without compromising as well reaching the goals is breathtaking for sure.

As your question asked of how can a leader balance without compromising and continuing serving? I think that as we know the leader is bound to be selfless and prioritize others first which is both inclusive of organizations’ goal as well as followers. Leader should definitely focus on the process beneficial two ways. To make it more convincing leader should establish a vision amongst the followers and maintain ideal attitude equally towards each, so that each can be accountable for what ever outcome would be and know what might be the leaders expecting from them. But yes it depends upon the criticality of the situations too.

Eagerly waiting to read more of your posts !!

Georgeena

Response to Christina on Blog 2, activity 4 -UNIT 1

October 1, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 0 Comments

Hai Christina,

I really appreciate your effort that you made it in more legible about assigned and emergent leadership.

In my point of view, as an emergent leader, she has to take leadership due to situational influences. Being a leader, she or he knows how to lead or guide her coworkers according to various situations. So definitely, what I believe is that, an emergent leader might have a capacity to guide their coworkers in creative as well as traditional bureaucratic way, if they give that position to her.

Looking forward to read more of your posts !!

Georgeena

Response to Norm Beange

October 1, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 0 Comments

Hai Norm Beange,

I enjoyed reading your blog and the way you briefly described about the forms of power in a leader. As you have mentioned that, referent and expert power are more effective than the other types because people with those two types of power are usually sought out, appreciated and respected by their followers, I too agree upon your idea but in contradiction to your opinion , I believe the Northouse’s view as the author suggests that leadership is a phenomenon that resides in the context of the interaction between leaders and followers. He contends that leadership is, therefore, available to everyone. To easily answer the question you put forth, I believe even an introvert , nervous person can also be a leader based on situations where he/she becomes an emergent leader. To give an example, I have a friend who was very nervous to do anything, fearful and introvert before her marriage , but after marriage her situations changed her to be more outgoing and she had to take up the responsibility to lead her family, take care of kids , manage finances and other educational needs of her kids . As I believe, leadership is not just leading a big group , a leader evolves even from a small family. Her situation changed her and now she is a secretary of the women’s wing in the community she lives. So I do think anyone can be a leader based on circumstances.

Georgeena

Servant Leadership

September 30, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 1 Comment

Although servant leadership seems contradictory and challenges our traditional beliefs about leadership, it is an approach that offers a unique perspective. Servant leadership focuses on the behaviors that leaders should exhibit to put followers first and to support follower’s personal development. It is concerned with how leaders treat followers. Principles of servant leadership which in my opinion seem easy but is in fact tough to realize in practice are:

Listening: Communication between leaders and followers is an interactive process that includes sending and receiving message. Through listening, servant leaders acknowledge the viewpoint of followers and validate these perspectives. For example, if one of the follower has a totally different take/opinion about a topic, instead of disregarding it just because it is the opinion of just one follower, if the leader opts to put aside his leader status and listens to the opinion of that one follower, the leader will not only gain that particular follower but will instead gradually get more followers.
Empathy: Empathy is “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the world from that person’s point of view. It makes the follower feel unique. For example if there is a difficult situation that one of the follower is undergoing due to which the follower is unable to perform at his or her best, an empathetic leader will not just console the follower but in fact try to improve that situation them self as they too feel the struggle that the follower is undergoing. So they try to change the situation or help them out to come out of it.

Persuasion: Persuasion is clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change. For example, if there is a change that a leader wants to put forth before the followers and requires them to do it, it is of utmost importance that the leader should be able to convey the same effectively without any ill feelings caused to the followers and convince them that such a change is needed for their betterment.

Out of these three principles I personally feel persuasion is the most easy looking but in reality the most challenging principle to adhere to being a leader. Even though traditionally the method of imposing directions by force or coercion was employed by leaders but in servant leadership it is the method of persuasion without force which is widely appreciable and acceptable.

Even then the question remains if this method of leadership is feasible keeping in mind the human nature in general and that of a leader in particular. Can a leader in reality put in practice these methods? Can they remain true to these principles? Will they lose commitment in continuing with these principles in the long run.

References

Peter G. Northouse (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition ,Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE Publications.

ASSIGNED AND EMERGENT LEADERSHIP

September 30, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 0 Comments

Everyone has to be a leader at any corner of their life to succeed in the life or to travel out of the comfort zone. As per Northouse, Some people are leaders because of their formal position in an organization, whereas others are leaders because of the way other group members respond to them. These two common forms of leadership are called assigned leadership and emergent leadership.

Assigned leaders hold the position provided by the management of any organization to run the existing system and in such cases academic qualifications or career excellence might have more importance as a criteria than his/her influence/acceptance in the team. While emerged leaders have more acceptance in the team and have true followers. Unity in the team and contribution of each team member are important factors to achieve the common desired goal and in fact emerged leaders have the emotional advantage as he/she is accepted by all the team members thereby the end result would be more positive than assigned leaders. Sometimes, targets set by assigned leader can give a feel of headache while such targets made by emerged leader can make a feel of need of the hour. It all depends up on the emotional attachment to the leader and the destiny of the team by each member of a team.

Many people go through at least on time as a minimum in their life through any emergency situation where they have to take up the ownership to overcome the situation. Here I recall an instance where I feel proud of being a Nurse and could do something by taking the responsibility to save one life. I felt I was emerged to lead many of the situations when I was working as a staff nurse in casualty department at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, India, though I wasn’t a senior nurse, but my profession has molded me as leader when I was advocating, giving suggestions, health education , and guiding the patient and family.

The primary functions of management, as first identified by Fayol (1916), were planning, organizing, staffing and controlling. Due to continual industrial development and global standardization, any of the organization which wants to grow eventually would always have a pre-planned system to follow. Above said activities like planning, organizing, staffing and controlling would fall in this system. Managers handle these activities by siting efficiency of the team, consistency of the organization and smooth running of the system. However leaders are careless about the factors like consistency, efficiency and system while they target adaptive and constructive changes in their work and they are courageous to go out of the exiting path. Management is about seeking order and stability; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change. Managers alone cannot lead the organization to prosperity as their vision and style may become bureaucratic at some point and likewise leaders without proper management would be misdirected like aimless arrow. Therefore, as far as the prosperity of any organization is concerned, contribution from managers and leaders are required together. Even though, the practical possibility need to be checked, can it become controversial at any stage?

References

Peter G. Northouse(2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition .Chapter 1, Introduction, Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE Publications.

Defining Leadership

September 30, 2018 / georgeena alphine / 0 Comments

Northouse defines leadership as “a complex process having multiple dimensions” (p.1) and a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 5).

There are few components of leadership which actually makes a leader. They are, process, power, influence, group context and goal attainment.

As mentioned above, Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group. So, for a leader, it is unavoidable to avoid the component “process” in leadership. This process involves planning, assumptions, analyzing risk factors and methods to eliminate them to achieve a certain goal. This process may be very brief or may even last several years depending on the goal.

Power in leadership doesn’t refer to the power of a leader to order the group. It is the power that should be within to influence the group or followers. It is the power to give enthusiasm and motivation, the power to enhance the capability of the group to work for and achieve the goal.

Being Influential is so important in leadership that, without influence, leadership does not exist. The power to influence the audience is one of the basic qualities a leader should have. A leader failing to influence his audience is not actually a good leader. The type and degree of influence is dependent on the leader’s style, objective, and the audience.

Groups are the content in which leadership takes place. A group is often made up of followers. When there is no group to be lead, there isn’t a purpose of leader. So group is an essential part of leadership. Often this is a group of people with common interests and sometimes not. At times there is an elitist attitude when discussing leaders and followers as the former has a degree of power, and the latter have less. A leader is not above followers or better than followers. It’s just that, one takes the responsibility to lead. They are part of the same process and must be understood in relation to each other. It is an integral part of being a leader to know his or her group well and is responsible to guide them to achieve the common goal.

Leadership includes goals attainment. And in fact, certain goals are the actual reasons for the formation of a leader. Leaders are primarily to work for effective way in utilizing a group effectively to achieve certain targets and goals. This means that, the leader must use his or her influence, power and capability to lead the group to achieve the set goals.

Leadership is an interactive process between the individual exerting the influence and those receiving the influence. As such, a leader touches and is touched by followers. The tide of power can be fluid shift from the leader to the followers and vice versa. Leadership is not a formality that follows a prescribed routine. Some leadership styles will approach this, but none will ever be so set in stone that there is not some degree of elasticity. I don’t be judgmental on the role of each leader. Everyone in one way or the other is influencing an individual positively or negatively.

When you come across any leader in any field ,do you judge on all these criteria or just consider them to have their own individual preference on being a leader?Is this all about leadership in brief? Or, if you have any further inputs and suggestions, it’s all welcome.

Reference

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice, Eight Edition. Contingency theory. (Chapter 6) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.