Last Week's Leadership Definition:
Leadership is something that someone has inside of them that they can choose to use or not use, OR it can exist without their awareness, that can be good or bad. It depends on the situation and it motivates and inspires other people to do or not do things. People don't try to be a leader all of the time because sometimes just having followers makes a leader.
Leadership involves being able to step outside of the situation and look at the big picture. In life, a million things are all happening at once that affect a million more things, and there is a lot that is outside of our control. Someone who is acting as a leader in a situation realizes this and does their best to assess every situation from many viewpoints, especially that of their followers. It's important to do this because we need to remove ourselves (and along with that our emotional connection to anything in the situation) to see it for what it really is. Sometime our own world view clouds our perception of what is going on, so we need to be able to "get on the balcony". I've also learned that there are many different ways in which we can be a leader, both good and bad. Some focus more on relationships and some focus more on results. They all have their good and bad qualities but according to Coleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, being a visionary leader can't really be a bad thing.
New Leadership Definition:
Regardless of if someone is trying to be a leader or not, they need other people (followers) to ever be considered a leader. I already had this belief from watching the video of the dance catching on to a bunch of people, but the "Interacting in Teams and Groups" article reinforced this notion. Any interaction with more than one other person can technically be described as a group. I've learned the basic stages of a group (forming, storming, norming, and performing) and these are true no matter what the group's purpose or culture is.
Analysis:
I always find it interesting to read articles in which they categorize types of people or behaviors, because I like to see what I am. I definitely realized that I am an opinion giver. I likee to share my feelings and opinions, and I already knew that this can be both a blessing and a curse. It was interesting to read about how I can use this information I have about myself to cultivate my leadership skills. This week's unit really drove the point home of needing to have other people (and therefore relationships with other people) to be a leader. I never really realized how much you needed to know about other people to be a leader, I thought it was mostly going to be learning about myself.
Bibliography:
Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T. R. (1998). "Interacting in Teams and Groups." Exploring Leadership: For College Students who want to make a difference (pp. 165-194). San Francisco: Jossey Bass
Leave a comment