Northouse’s definition of assigned and emergent leaders is that assigned leaders are people who hold a formal position in an organization. In contrast, emergent leaders become leaders because of the way other group members respond to them (Northouse, 2019, p. 8).
Northouse lists two similarities between leader and managers: working with people and concern with effective goal accomplishments. The main differences are that management seeks order and stability, whereas leadership seeks adaptive and constructive change.
Most importantly, the key to the future of any organization’s success lies in the leader. In his book, The Art of Management, Max De Pree introduced a new concept about leaders (1989). While most leadership gurus listed several components of an effective leader, De Pree noted that the most important characteristic of an effective leader is that they have a good understanding of reality.
Some years ago, I was involved in a lay capacity in a large church. Two other lay people and I established an adult Sunday school, which ultimately had 400 adults each Sunday morning. The church assigned our group a leader and, while this person was highly competent, he did not do very well seeing the ‘big picture,’ the long term or reality. We were friends and worked well together but, over a three-year period, I became the emergent leader of the Sunday school.
My question is whether anyone has seen or worked with a leader who is not as effective as he or she could be because they do not have a solid grip on reality?
References
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
De Pree, M. (1989). Leadership Is an Art. New York City, NY: Doubleday Business.
Hi Norm,
I found your comment very interesting about how an effective leader needs to have a good understanding of reality. I would love to know how De Pree defines this in his book.
To answer your question “whether anyone has seen or worked with a leader who is not as effective as he or she could be because they do not have a solid grip on reality?”, I would have to say yes. I do think there are varying degrees just how deep an understanding a leader has on the reality of their organization. I think most new external hire managers probably have a little understanding of the reality of the organization. I have had leaders that had a great understand of the reality of the company’s internal environment, but had a complete lack of knowledge about the external environment. I’ve also had leaders that were too focused on the task at hand, and didn’t have a clear understanding of the bigger picture.
I’m curious, how did you handle working with someone that didn’t have a strong understanding of reality, and given the opportunity to address the situation again, would you do anything differently?
I look forward to hearing you response.
Cheers.
Sarah Jasmins
NORMBEANGE: I enjoyed the reading of this article. was the starting of the Sunday school from a position where you saw the need and the team emerge and developed the class?
about your question, I have seen this quite frequently, where leadership struggles with not only the idea of a solid grip of reality but with staying relevant with the reality.