What is Great Leadership

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View "What is Great Leadership" by Dr. Richard Boyatzis. Dr. Boyatzis explains the impact most effective leaders can have on you. Stop the video when he asks you to complete his exercise. Complete the exercise and then watch the rest of the video. Finally, write up your results as a reflection blog. 

Leadership can be associated with making crucial decisions and driving others to achieve a desired end-state. In other words, they serve as the main source of knowledge, expertise, and decision making. While this may be the case in specific situations or environments that are non-complex, this is not necessarily the case in today’s global and dynamic environment. Indeed, yesterday’s perception of leadership has significantly evolved as social, cultural, and business environments have increased in complexity and rely on key relationships. According to Dr. Richard Boyatzis (2012), “Leadership is a relationship. By definition, you can’t be a leader unless there are followers” (0:18). Reflecting on this important point and determining what is great leadership, I have identified two leaders; one that brought out the best in me and one that had the opposite effect.

The first leader is someone I hold in high esteem because of their ability to inspire and motivate me, personally and professionally. In fact, prior to working for this senior military leader, I spoke with others that have worked with or for this leader and all expressed personal accounts of how this leader directly influenced and empowered them at one point. This leader had a very good reputation in my field and having been selected to work directly for this person was considered an honor. This sentiment held true having had the pleasure of working for this leader for over a year. This leader had an uncanny ability to relate with others and show genuine concern for everyone he engaged. His messages were further enhanced by his positivity and focus. Through my daily interaction and having witnessed first-hand on many occasions, I noted how effortlessly he was able to evaluate a situation, those around him, and build rapport by delivering the appropriate communication approach. According to Boyatzis & McKee (2005), “Great leaders are awake, aware, and attuned to themselves, to others, and to the world around them” (p. 3). As a young leader, this was very inspiring. Not only did he make me feel like I was a part of something meaningful by personally mentoring and developing me, but he made others feel empowered through compassion and belonging. Moreover, one of the most effective leadership quality I learned was how he held everyone, including me, accountable for their actions. Being a senior military leader, there are many tools he had available to address deficiencies. Instead of taking the role of “superior and subordinate” as his primary method of correction, his approach was more of mentorship and development. Thus, this forced those whom fell short, including me, to quickly address any shortcomings and work harder to put their best foot forward. In fact, this leader showed me that not all situations require a “0-60 mph” corrective approach with people. Indeed, I still feel this is true.

The second leader is someone I believe is in clear contrast to the first leader. This senior military leader had quite the opposite relationship approach and results; thus, causing polarization. Although I did not have the same daily interaction with this leader, as a senior leader within my rating chain, there was a consistent level of interactions. Through these interactions, I perceived this leader to gain compliance through positional power alone. In fact, while conversing with this leader, I found her attempts to be involved or show concern to be disingenuous and shallow due to the lack of sincerity. Furthermore, much of the feedback or comments from this leader seemed to focus on petty things that had little to do with mission effectiveness or leadership. I took from these interactions that we as subordinates were required to “feel out and adjust” to the situation as she perceived it. This resulted, in my view, the widening of the gap between reality and her perception; thus, being out of touch with her subordinate leaders. In the military, this is not uncommon. In fact, one learns how to deal with this by carefully shaping communication with the out of touch leader to feed their appetite and then move on to what really matters. According to Boyatzis and McKee (2005), “Many organizations overvalue certain kinds of destructive behavior and tolerate discord and mediocre leadership for a very long time, especially if a person appears to produce results” (p. 5). In this situation, this leader created the organizational value of blind compliance from other leaders and emphasized how likeable you were to her. This point is highlighted by Boyatzis and McKee (2005) as they note that “dissonant leaders wreak havoc. They are at the mercy of volatile emotions and reactivity. They drive people too hard, for the wrong reasons, and in the wrong directions” (p. 6). Needless to say, I found myself going out of my way to avoid interacting with this leader. This was a challenge, again she was in my rating chain, but I always did my best to display the proper customs and courtesies during these interactions and tried to move on as soon as I could. I am sure this was obvious at some point, as she was used to others going out of their way to acquiesce to her every word. Trying to look at this situation on a positive note, I use this leader’s examples of “what not to do.”

Reference

Boyatzis, R. (2012). Resonant Leadership. UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/

Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership (5^th ed.). Harvard Business Press.