When many people think of Kanye West they may think influential, creative, passionate but others may think arrogant, selfish, and a bad influence. Kanye West has been an icon in the music industry whether you’d like to admit it or not. His personality has changed significantly throughout his life and many people would say they like and miss the old Kanye. However, do they say that because of the bold statements and opinions he has that he expresses, or is it because many think he has been dealing with mental illness.
Kanye West grew up on the crappy side of Chicago and his mother was the biggest leader in his life who he looked up to and loved dearly. Kanye did not have many other people in his life and his environment couldn’t have had such a big impact on his behavior since it was such a bad environment he came from. Well, the environment in which Kanye West grew up could have actually positively impacted his career path. He wanted to get out of the slums and pursue a music career in which he did extremely successfully. Mr. West has always been an outspoken member of the music industry but at the same time, he likes to stay reserved and keep his issues to himself. Do these attributes that Kanye West has portray what a good leader is seen as?
The individual attributes described in the Northouse book are general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality. All these attributes can be seen in Kanye West’s personality but do they portray what a good leader is? Let’s take a dive into these attributes and see how they relate to Kanye West’s personally being connecting to a good leader.
The first individual attribute is general cognitive ability which is seen as intelligence within a person. In this case, Kanye West may have been more with tons of intelligence, and his traits surely allowed him to become one of the biggest rappers ever. General reasoning skills and creative and divergent thinking capacities are some of the skills that are shown in general cognitive ability. Kanye West is known for his creative album styles and dress wear that he converted into his own clothing line. Also, “General cognitive ability is sometimes described as fluid intelligence, a type of intelligence that usually grows and expands up through early adulthood and then declines with age” (Northouse, 2019). West’s intelligence grew tremendously throughout his life and he only continued to get smarter and more intelligent from the experiences he has had. Currently, some would say his intelligence is starting to decline because of the bold and questionable statements that he has said. However, Kanye West does have all the necessary skills in the general cognitive ability that would be seen in a good leader.
Next, the crystallized cognitive ability shows the ability of skills that is learned over time and from experiences in your life. . It includes being able to comprehend complex information and learn new skills and information, as well as being able to communicate to others in oral and written forms” (Connelly et al., 2000, p.71). Kanye West has developed many new skills and information to help him become successful in the music industry. He communicates greatly through oral and written forms by writing, singing, and rapping his music which usually portrays his feelings. This attribute of Kanye grew over time and that is how he was able to write and make completely different albums throughout his music career.
Third, motivation is seen throughout Kanye West’s behaviors and traits many times in his career. Kanye has been motivated to make it out of Chicago and have a successful career that many people don’t get to have in the music industry. In these individual attributes, there are three aspects of motivation which are willingness, dominance, and social good. Leaders must be willing to lead and West has displayed that throughout his career by starting his own clothing company. Also, you must have dominance to display your influence onto others and they must take on the responsibility of dominance within their role. In this case, Kanye has taken on the role of influencing his followers and fans to listen to his music, wear his clothing, and believe in his ideas or opinions. Lastly, social good is, “the leader’s willingness to take on the responsibility of trying to advance the overall human good and value of the organization” (Northouse, 2019). All Kanye does is try to achieve success and advancement with his music, clothing brand, and family. He values all three of those aspects of his life and he only wants things to get better.
Lastly, personality is definitely seen by Kanye West, especially in the media. Kanye West’s personality is different than many other rappers and artists in the music industry. He makes outrageous statements and shares his opinions with others that many may disagree with. He is always thinking outside the box and opening people’s eyes to things they may have never thought about. His personality positively impacts his leadership skills in my eyes because he is always willing to take the next step even when people are hesitant to do the same thing. West does what makes him happy and he is never afraid to show his personality off to the world. “Most importantly, it may be important to be less judgmental, less attached to our opinions (and thoughts) that might lead to hypocrisy, and simply be more accepting of others, and oneself” (Berry, 2015). If everyone were to accept Kanye for who he is then they may be able to appreciate his impact on the music industry and unique style to life.
In all, Kanye West’s individual attributes do make him a good leader. Just because not everyone is a fan of his does not make him a bad leader or non-influential person in society. Kanye West is seen more in the media and spotlights than others so everything he does just be justified as bad or good. He possesses all the great qualities of a leader and I see no other reason to not see Kanye West as a good leader in society.
References:
Berry, W. (2015, March 2). The Kanye West In All Of Us. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-second-noble-truth/201503/the-kanye-west-in-all-us.
Hamel, R. (n.d.). Lesson 4: Skills Approach, 2021.
Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Hi Aaron,
I thought that your post was very interesting and did a great job of connecting what we’ve been learning in this course with pop culture and public figures. Personally, I am a fan of Kanye West’s music. I listened to his albums all throughout high school, so when I hear his music now its nostalgic to me. Kanye is also a huge public figure because of his connection to the Kardashians, and for that reason has been in the public spotlight for many years.
I totally agree with you that Kanye’s tough upbringing may have actually motivated him to work so hard at pursuing music and creating a better future for himself. I also agree that Kanye creating his own clothing line allowed him to merge two outlets of creativity and thus showcasing his cognitive ability. Reading about this in your post definitely brought up some of Kanye’s hidden intelligence that I hadn’t thought of before.
I can also fully agree with you that Kanye is highly motivated. Again, this may have been generated from his difficult childhood, and that motivation has helped him find success in fame and fortune. It is true that Kanye is doing things in very unconventional ways. He says things that have the shock-factor but doing this keeps him relevant in the public’s eye. This post made me think about the leadership tactics of other public figures as well. Nice job!
Corinne
Hi Aaron,
Your analysis on Kanye West was really interesting. While I do not personally follow pop culture and know all of Kanye West’s recent happenings, I do listen to his music and enjoy it. Your analysis of Kanye West is spot on, especially your mentioning that a lot of people do not understand him and his comments. Take for example his daughter, North West, a lot of people made fun of the name and thought it was ridiculous. However, I think Kanye West is such a trend setter, exemplified also by his clothing line, that people just weren’t ready to accept it yet. Now a few years later when I think of the name North I find it to be really beautiful, but only a few years ago I thought it was weird. This example shows that all throughout his life he is starting trends and is an icon.
In your analysis you go over Kanye West’s individual attributes and show that he has all of them. All of these individual attributes help Kanye West with his competencies and they all lead to leadership outcomes. The three competencies are: problem-solving skills, social judgement skills, and knowledge. Focusing just on knowledge in particular, we can see that Kanye West is an expert when it comes to the music industry. He has been in the industry for years and he knows how things work. If he was not knowledgeable, he wouldn’t have been able to also be a record producer. This knowledge serves as a base to help him when he engages in problem solving and social judgement.
Best,
Madison