My Sister and I

This week I have decided to address a personal anomaly. To do this I have to explain a bit of background. This leadership course, its concepts and theories, have lead me to analyze myself deeply. As some of you already know, I work in a profession that heavily revolves around leadership and leadership experiences permeate my life almost daily. This got me thinking about myself and how I got here. When I decided to pursue law enforcement, I got a lot of puzzled looks in return. “You? Really?” I was a musical theatre kid who loved to sing, got mediocre grades at best and nothing did would ever fall under the definition of ‘structure’. I never stuck to anything for too long and certainly didn’t take myself or much else seriously. On the other hand, my older sister (by 2 years) was quite the opposite. She was a straight A student, a double major with a 4.0 who had the confidence and motivation to travel on her own to different countries as a young woman. She always worked hard and excelled at whatever job she tried and eventually she moved herself across the country where she became a business owner. In a nutshell, I was always a misdirected mess, and she was a goal-oriented achiever.

Fast forward to present day. Both now in our 30’s the field has not only evened out, it has tilted in the other direction. I noticed this shift when my sister started making some very questionable decisions and started leaning on me for emotional support. Somehow I had become her rock. I am now stable, happy, a hard worker and goal oriented. I have a high GPA and I effectively balance my family demands with my professional demands. I think about my professional goals in long terms, I even go to the dentist every 6 months! While her small business is consistent and successful, my sister is unstable and discontented in her personal and professional life. This has resulted in a tumultuous couple of years for her.

This shift in the both of us began me thinking about traits, behaviors, skills and everything in between. I once viewed my sister as one who possesses many leadership skills and myself, definitely a follower. AS I learn the differences between leadership approaches, the innate traits and the capabilities that one can acquire, I realize that this in itself is the biggest difference between us. My sister has a lot of great traits that she can rely on to be successful, but her application of leadership skills and behaviors has faltered. I, on the other hand, do not have a strong amount of leadership traits, but my capabilities to learn new skills has helped me come this far. I believe that the case of her and I provides an interesting comparison of leadership theories.

How do I describe my sister? Simply put, she is an emergent leader. Certain personality traits can build leadership emergence, and emergent leaders become influential within a group without being formally assigned that role (Northouse, 2109). She was consistently viewed by others as being reliable for certain things, especially academically. She showed maturity early through her ability to problem-solve and face new situations head-on. For this, she was usually a teacher’s favorite. In reference to bases of power, as a teenager and young adult I can already identify that my sister showed signs of expert power and referent power (Northouse, 2019) She was likable and an academic role model, and she was analytically bright. What she didn’t know off-hand, she had the ability to figure it out quickly. Other students with like-minded academic goals saw my sister as a successful, competent person and she often took on leadership roles within extracurricular activities. Interestingly, despite her recent setbacks, she still displays these qualities to a degree, as for many years she has been asked to be involved on the board for community events and local politics in her small town. From a personality perspective approach, my sister has it all.

I would not consider myself to be an emergent leader. As previously discussed, I had no capacity of any of the bases of power from a young age. In regards to information, coercive, reward, legitimate, expert or referent (Northouse, 2019) I had little to offer anyone and I didn’t have any motivation or goals in mind to change that. I was perfectly fine flying under the radar. Even though I am not in a leadership position within my department, as an officer I believe I am a kind of assigned leader in my role as a person of authority. I am working to build my leadership skills to eventually become an assigned leader with legitimate power. As assigned leader references those who are appointed to a position that has leadership potential, during which they can develop skills to become a real leader or otherwise be ineffective (Northouse 2019). I believe that while I am not in a position of power within the department, being an effective officer requires the ability to control situations and groups. I have decided to educate myself so that if I am assigned a leader, I can develop the skills to also display expert and referent social power. As an assigned leader, my goal is to be identified as a leader and thought of as approachable and fair. I would like to be reliable in my expertise, so that those who follow me feel comfortable with my competency. This leads us to skills vs. traits.

Northouse (2019) advises that trait theory suggests that leadership traits are what causes groups to identify who had leadership potential. My sister’s peers and supporters are perceiving her leadership role and offering the opportunities for her to fill them. Stogdill, a noted trait approach researcher, specified that while leaders generally possess certain traits, they are not necessarily applicable to all leadership situations (Northouse, 2019). This could explain why my sister can keep leadership momentum in certain situations and not in others. Her business is consistently successful, however she often complains that it is no longer a challenge. She tells me that besides performing her everyday tasks, ordering product, scheduling, promoting the business, the business’s good reputation in her small town allows it to otherwise run smoothly. She chose to stop creating new career goals. Once a motivated and inspired woman has fallen into a bit of a daily grind. My sister, once strong and confident, does not apply leadership behaviors in her personal life. She is now easily intimidated and controlled by others actions and opinions. I know that her leadership traits are still somewhere in there, however, because she is still actively sought out by the community and, as previously mentioned, is often recruited to participate in charity and other social events. This shows that, for some reason, my sister’s leadership traits are not performing as strong in the situation she is in now. It is true that those who possess similar traits consistent with leadership does not mean that they are a shoe-in, the traits should be relevant it the situation (Northouse, 2019). Based on the traits I see, I am coming to the conclusion that my sister, because of her combination of attributes, thrived in structured, academic situations and falters in gray, open ended situations for which there may not be a right or wrong answer.

If we examine the most recent trait-based research, there are many traits listed that can apply to my sister. She has cognitive abilities, she is extraverted, motivated, self-monitoring intelligent, and she is problem-solving (Northouse, 2019). She shows some forms of conscientiousness in her professional life, but not her personal life. Even at work her moments of inspiring a followership are fleeting. My sister is very social, controlled and decisive in her work, but with her personal relationships she tends to be very judgmental and does not always give positive energy. The inconsistency between my sister’s traits and her actual leadership may be best explained by her high neuroticism. Low neuroticism is associated with leadership (Northouse, 2019). When we look at what traits make up neuroticism, we could practically put a picture of my sister over the past few years next to it. She has been extremely depressed, anxious, insecure, vulnerable and hostile. Some leadership researchers point out the importance that emotional intelligence plays in leadership. One requires emotional intelligence to meet life challenges. In order to lead, one must have a presence of confidence, self-regulation and self-awareness (Northouse, 2019). My sister lets emotional hurdles get the best of her, during which she seemingly cannot gather the strength to overcome these hurdles for weeks, months and even years. Because her community is very small, my sister doesn’t have much of a choice for blending her personal life with her professional life. The capacity at which her friends, staff and associates intermingle doesn’t leave much room for privacy. She has expressed to me that she cannot seem to escape the aftermath of a dramatic relationship termination, a large reason for parts of her recent neuroticism. This has spiraled into several years of neurotic traits and emotional instability permeating her life, possibly causing her to be an ineffective leader.

While I thought I had traits consistent with leadership, we have also learned that traits are inate. If this theory has merit, then as previously discussed, I did not display any leadership qualities until well into my late 20’s. At best, I was a problem-solver, a trait distinguished by researchers Zaccaro, Kemp and Bader (Northouse, 2019). Even at my most misguided moments I was resourceful and I worked through new challenges mostly on my own. I got by. According to what we have learned so far, this makes me not an emergent leader but an assigned leader, who learns leadership through skill development. Even assigned leaders need to possess the traits required to develop skills, and we know that some traits and skills overlap. Northouse (2019) specifically advises that openness, ambiguity and curiosity are traits upon which skills can be built. These traits I do have. These traits, combined with my problem-solving abilities, which is both a trait and a skill that I can improve upon, have created a pathway to success. As I matured and created new academic goals I first began to build my cognitive abilities of information processing, reasoning, creative thinking and memory skills (Northouse, 2019). This helped me develop my capabilities for problem-solving and social judgement. These two skills especially have helped me be successful at work. In law enforcement we navigate problems every day, especially using cause-goal analysis, planning, constraint analysis and forecasting. Social perceptiveness and perspective-taking allows me to understand how my contacts and my coworkers, so that I can properly apply solutions based on goals and need (Northouse, 2019).

Our each unique combinations of traits and skills effects our leadership styles which could further explain our unexpected paths. My sister, based on her aforementioned limitations of stalled work goals and neuroticism, advises that she doesn’t have to be involved in her business like she used to be, expect to keep it stable. She often expresses frustration with non-committal and unskilled employees which leads me to believe that her leadership style is borderline impoverished, but in between impoverished and middle-of-the-road. She seems indifferent and apathetic to her staff (Northouse, 2019). She still shows glimmers of balance in her style, sometimes showing interest in staff. She performs lower-level job tasks when they are short staffed, sometimes she shows special interest in those staff members who show motivation to improve. While I would like to think that, especially after taking this class, I have the awareness to develop the skills necessary for team management, the ideal leadership style that shows a concern for people and a concern for results, I believe I fall between it and country-club management (Northouse, 2019). If I were to apply leadership roles to my personal life management and to my work with the public, I believe that I am especially thoughtful in considering people’s needs.  I do have a high concern for interpersonal relationships. I recently evaluated myself using the Fielder LPC measure (Northouse, 2007) and was very much a high LPC individual. I tend to default to agreeableness and neutrality in the face of confrontation. I intent to build on my skills so that I can incorporate for firm behaviors into my leadership style. This way, I can be trusted by followers to recognize and resolve issues, and be decisive and confident. Being aware that I need to make these changes shows that I can attain leadership from an opportunism approach. I can shift my behaviors in an adaptable and strategic way to reach my goals (Northouse, 2019). My sister, however, seems to have stagnated in her development.

A lot more could be said as I compare the two of us, but I believe that would extend into theories and psychology that extends beyond the parameters of leadership. Ultimately, I believe that this compare and contrast between us, our personality types and our journeys shows that leadership opportunities are available to someone, no matter what stage of life they are in. We may unexpectedly find ourselves in situations where we view ourselves as having leadership potential, and in situations where what worked before no longer works. The challenge is the ability to be able to adapt one’s style (Northouse, 2019). Where I need to work on my directive leadership, my sister needs to focus on her supportive approach. This evolution in our relationship made me think about a lot of things, how someone who I aspired to be like, and never thought I could be, is now heavily leaning on me for support. When thinking about leadership and what this means to me, and what happened along my sisters journey, I hope that I can offer her even better support to turn things around and be the strong, inspiring woman that I know she can be. Because her example is a large part of why I found the strength to be where I am today.

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Contingency Theory. In Leadership: Theory and Practice (pp. 113–126). Sage Publications.

Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (Eighth Edition). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.