Add category

Trying to Navigate Loss: Exploring the Role of the Organization in Grief

February 2, 2014 by aem5562

In my last post I discussed the influence of recurrent and prolonged exposure to death and grief as a function of profession, specifically from the paradigm of funeral workers. It is important to remember that mortality salience, worldview defense and compassion fatigue can impact professionals in a variety of career fields such as the medical professions, particularly those that treat conditions with poor prognoses, emergency service personnel and employees of mental health fields. The underlying connection between these fields is their unique familiarity with reminders of death and grief that afford a certain amount of watchfulness to recognize the potential emotional and behavioral impact potential of such an intimacy with death. There is another side to this intersection of death and grief from the perspective of the employer-employee relationship. Grief, in the aftermath of a personal loss is an incredibly common occurrence, affecting millions of workers each year. Exclusive of professions that have a unique relationship with death, there is little preparation to train workers and managers, leaders and followers, in addressing death, terminal illness and other existential crises. Of the people grieving losses of varying personal impacts, many of them are part of the workforce and their grief, from a social perspective, will impact their interactions and performance at work, yet there are few mentions of this phenomenon in bereavement theories or in practical application, such as management training.

Grief is the natural human response to loss. It can occur following many types of traumatic experiences, but it is most often associated with death. Grief is the time period following the loss-event that is used to adjust to the way life has changed in response to the loss. Grief has different customs and patterns between cultures, but despite variations in presentation, it is essentially a universal human response. Grief was first explored by Freud (1957) who framed grief as a process, referred to as “hypercathexis”, which began by withdrawing energy from social encounters, instead turning that energy on to the loss and onto the memories of their lost loved one (pp. 237-240). Eventually, the energy is again redirected to social relationships, or “decath”; completing the grieving process (Berzoff, 2011). Directly related to Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective of grief, is the way the topic is approached by the Object Relations Theory which places relationships as central components to the primary sources for explaining the motivations of human behavior (Sturgeon, 2005). From this perspective, comes the idea of the grief narrative, which is the idea that when we are experiencing grief we tell and retell the story of our loss in an attempt to form a new relationship the deceased (Berzoff, 2011). Attachment theory accounts for grief as a function of the dissolution of the attachment bonds (Bowlby, 1980). This permanent severing of an attachment bond causes anxiety and fear, followed by yearning and mournful expression of sorrow, then despair and grief before the eventual release of the lost bond and renewed hope for life (Siegler, 2011). Finally, from a physiological perspective, grief is seen a complex set of reactions that occur in our bodies in the aftermath of loss that may explain the physical symptoms that are experienced frequently as a symptom of grief due to the presence of a specific type of protein that is associated with stress , called “pro-inflammatory cytokines” (O’Connor, Irwin, & Wellisch, 2009). Grief may result in a highly emotional state where intense feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety and irritability are constantly lingering below the surface. These symptoms may physical, mental and emotional and may include a physical sensation of exhaustion, chronic fatigue, trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, decreased problem solving ability, and problems with memory. You can follow this link to explore more symptoms of grief.

The whole time period I am going to relate seems like a bad dream. The details are blurry in my mind, but at the same time, I can feel the pain of my loss scratching at every memory. I was very focused on honing my restorative art skills in the embalming room when I found out that I was expecting my second child. I was disappointed that I would not be able to continue my effort due to the dangers of chemical exposure to my unborn child, but I was also very excited! I made the change back to “front of house” duties and things seemed to be going well. Then, my daughter was born at 28 weeks gestation. She lived for a few short hours and then she was picked up from the hospital by a colleague. The next day I went to work to prepare her body for burial. We arranged to have my grandmother’s grave opened so my child could be interred there with her. Over the next several weeks, I tried to “get back to normal,” but I found the task impossible. I ended up taking a leave of absence and embracing a pattern of self-destruction. I returned to tending bar to pay my bills and I withdrew from my friends and family. The isolation that I felt was so profound. I was spiraling further and faster toward ruin. The distance I built coupled with the social stigma that surrounds death, especially the death of a child, made me unapproachable by my social support system. No one wanted to “bother” me, but I needed someone to bother me and drag me out of the tomb I had built myself. I have wondered so many times over the years why it was so easy for me to give up and why it was so hard for anyone to step in. I have had many theories that have defined me as the exception, but I was not an exception.

As Western cultures continue to homogenize and secularize, the social support structures that were once accustomed to comforting the grief-stricken are changing. When my grandmother was young, her father died. As was customary within the context of her cultural identity, her and her mother and sisters donned the black garments of mourning for the traditional period of a year and a day. A black wreath adorned the entranceway of their home, signaling the loss to the community. These customs, once a unifying force within groups of people that served as the foundation of individual identities. Considering the loss of these traditional cultural identities and the increased connection between success and money, people have turned to their professions as the main way of defining themselves (Bauer, 2011). Not only do we tend to identify with our roles as professionals, but we are also prone to actually shaping ourselves to complement the archetypal traits associated with a vocation or an organization (Petriglieri & Stein, 2012). This commitment is, in reality, an attachment bond and the tendency will be to depend on this relationship for a variety of needs (Riketta & Van Dick, 2005).

Although there may be a very real need for emotional support in the workplace following a loss, there are some important considerations to address. In the workplace, there is a prevailing notion that there should be a strict divide between a person’s private and professional identities (Lobb, Monterosso, Halkett, Davies, & Kristjanson, 2010). Grief within the working environment is disenfranchised by nature, as the emotional detachment that is customary is the workplace minimizes supportive experiences. There are many reasons why this may occur including a persistent human need to avoid death, a conflict between the goals of a profit-driven industry and the perceived conflict with attending to the needs of a grieving employee, and also individual factors surrounding certain types of deaths that have the added burden of being socially stigmatized (Hazen, 2003). Sometimes, colleagues and supervisors don’t know what to say and they say things that are insensitive or they avoid a grieving coworker entirely. This type of marginalizing behavior is a predictor for delayed grieving and complicated grief. When grief symptoms persist until they become a hindrance to daily life, it is said to be complicated grief or a pathological variety of bereavement that involves prolonged grieving and increased severity of symptoms (Lobb, Monterosso, Halkett, Davies, & Kristjanson, 2010). Organizational leaders who lack the ability to see to the emotional needs of bereaved employees and foster supportive workplaces directly impact the long term effects of grief. In the workplace, the potential for grief to develop into complicated grief should not be taken lightly as it increases the risk of undesirable work behaviors including substance abuse issues and absenteeism (Hazen, 2003).

Organizational oversight of the emotional needs of its workers decreases the overall ability of the company. Grief can be transformative, starting in the pain of loss, but leaving behind a person who is changed. Attending to employee’s emotional needs is mutually beneficial, mitigating risk of complicated grief and disharmonious consequences to the working environment. Also, by reinforcing the bonds of attachment with the organization, provides the added utility of increasing the commitment felt and expressed by the employee (Riketta & Van Dick, 2005). Obviously not every loss is going to forge a leader or impart some great wisdom, but it is not only a period of meaningless suffering. For me, having experienced grief and loss in the context of my professional identity, I can’t say that my grief was made worse by my perception of inadequate support, but I do know that I needed people to acknowledge my loss and the way that it had started to consume me. I needed someone to pull me back from the edge because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no models of what trying to go back to work following a devastating loss was supposed to look like and I didn’t know I was in troubled waters until it was too late to change the course of my sorrow.

Almost eight years went by before I really faced my grief. During those years between loss and healing, I experienced a sort of numbness. Then, I found out that I was pregnant again and the old feelings of emptiness and shame and devastation came rushing back, with a renewed fury. I spent some time focusing on my grief, I reached out for help and I started to really go through it all and I found myself rearranged; renewed in the process. Maybe the changes I made in my life were just the natural path I was on, but maybe my complicated grief was the catalyst.

– Annemargaret M.

References

Bauer, J. C. (2011). Working through Grief: Tensions, Tales and Taboos in How Working People Experience Personal Loss. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Pubishing.

Berzoff, J. (2011). The Transformative Nature of Grief and Bereavement. Journal of Clinical Social Work, Vol. 39, 262-269.

Bonanno, G., Wortman, C. B., Lehman, D., Tweed, R., Haring, M., Sonnega, J., et al. (2002). Resilience to Loss and
Chronic Grief: A prospective study from preloss to 18-month postloss. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 83, No. 5, 1150-1164.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss: Sadness and depression. In J. Bowlby, Attachment and loss, volume III (pp. 27-50). London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and Melancholia. (J. Strachey, Ed.) Standard Edition, Vol. 14, 237-258.

Hazen, M. A. (2003). Societal and workplace responses to perinatal loss: Disenfranchised grief or healing connection. Human Relations, Vol. 56, No. 2, 147.

Lobb, E. A., Monterosso, L., Halkett, G., Davies, A., & Kristjanson, L. (2010). PREDICTORS OF COMPLICATED GRIEF: A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies. Death Studies, 34, 673–698.

Mowday, R., Steers, R., & Porter, L. (1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 14, 224–247.

O’Connor, M. F., Irwin, M., & Wellisch, D. (2009). When grief heats up: Pro-inflammatory cytokinespredict regional brain activation. NeuroImage Volume 47, Issue 3, 891-896.

Petriglieri, G., & Stein, M. (2012). The Unwanted Self: Identification in Leaders’ Identity Work. Organization Studies vol. 33 no. 9, 1217-1235.

Riketta, M., & Van Dick, R. (2005). Foci of attachment in organizations: A meta-analytic comparison of the strength and correlates of workgroup versus organizational identification and commitment . Journal of Vocational Science, Vol. 67, Issue 3, 490-510.

Siegler, R. J. (2011). How Children Develop. In R. J. Siegler, Attachment to Others and Development of Self (pp. 424-448 ). New York: Worth Publishers.

Sturgeon, S. (2005). Object relations as a predictor of conjugal bereavement adjustment. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering.

Worden, J. W. (1991). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. New York: Springer.

Marx, Engels, Jung, Myers and Briggs

February 1, 2014 by Olivia K Lewis

Leadership keeps popping up as the big buzz word in the workplace. It is an occurrence that cycles around on a predictable basis. That rotation goes like this: Workplace is at a steady state. All employees feel valued and are content. The surroundings begin to cool off and the true conditions of the workplace begin to rise up. The divide between those with power and those without begins to expand to a gaping chasm. The discontent settles in and all of the higher-ups jump to attention. They decide the best way to appease the masses is to help them feel empowered and part of the work organism. Everyone is called a leader, given training (usually by way of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ©), and for a while the conditions are again at a steady state.

The recurring issue of employee discontent is described first by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848/1963). The Communist Manifesto (1848/1963) described the phenomenon between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie identifying the nature of their relationship as that which perpetuated the clash. This may seem extreme but the underlying ideas are relevant; it is about the haves and the have nots. Today’s workplace is much the same; those higher-ups who have and those on the front line who have not. I can say that my work experience has clearly shown this relationship. The back and forth tugging results in exactly the cycle I described above.

I have been part of the proletariat all of my working life. I have experienced the range of disgruntlement, I have stayed silent and at times, I too have risen up in protest. The administration’s trick up the sleeve in response to the disgruntled proletariat is always training. I have been analyzed and tagged as one particular type or another many times. Carl Jung in the 1920s classified individuals by personality types. The four overarching dimensions these personality types come from are the way an individual gathers information, the way an individual derives energy, the way an individual makes decisions, and whether an individual plans ahead or lives off the cuff (Northouse, 2013, p. 330). The sixteen personality types that come from these four dimensions is the impetus for how administration or management can give employees the sense of autonomy and leadership.

I have often been called a natural leader. I have been praised for my demeanor and my ability to get others to work together. Personally I do not see myself as they do but I can see results. The management sees my strengths as stemming from my ISFP or ISTP personality, with my close score on the decision-making dimension another asset. The values associated with those types do describe me and are useful in the workplace, efficiency and cooperation (Northouse, 2013, p. 335). Administration/management praise my pragmatic, proficient, flexible synergy (Northouse, 2013, p. 335) as a rare gift and demonstrative of my natural leadership skills. During the release phase of the employee discontent cycle, I am praised and artificially given power by leadership. The realization of the artificiality begins the degradation to unhappiness.

Employees at all levels can have their personality types evaluated. They can be given training to fill in the gaps according to their place in the work environment. As much as organizations work at this, what remains consistent is the lack of attention to “the culture of the organization, its structure, and the particular kinds of challenges and tasks it faces” (Northouse, 2013, p. 340). Not to mention the fact that the psychodynamic approach cannot change the fundamental nature of an individual. Where does that leave the workplace? The identification of personality type is beneficial but it is those little caveats like situation that aren’t able to be factored into the leadership equation. I wonder if in Marx and Engles time they had Jung’s personality tools, would it have made the class struggle a mere blip in history?

–O. Lewis

References:

Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1963). The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Retreived from http://www.heinonline.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.cow/comanif0001&id=1&collection=cow&index=cow/comanif#1 (Original work published 1848)

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Image retrieved from: http://www.niagarainflatables.com/index.php/products/tug-of-war-rope

Image retrieved from: http://phys.org/news/2011-05-ivory-tower-myth.html

Leadership vs. Management

January 27, 2014 by Matthew David Barnes

The subject of effective leadership is a topic that has been swirling through my head a lot lately. Over the course of many years, I have had very vast and varied positions of leadership, all of which required a somewhat altered approach to the ones that came before. Some tactics worked from position to position, others didn’t. I believe this truly speaks to the varied nature of leadership positions. There is no right or wrong answer to the question “what does leadership mean,” which we have analyzed previously. The essay from a week ago just may have been one of the items that have had me so focused on thinking about leadership recently. As a reaction to the thoughts of leadership, I looked for videos or talks that I could view that would shine some light on what makes a good leader. Results were varied but a recent TED talks I watched with Simon Sinek posed one interesting point early; all great leaders think the same way, and it is the opposite of everyone else (Sinek, Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action). Considering this, I analyzed how I look at leadership and made a few discoveries about how I confused the ideas of leadership and management.

I recently made a career change that was not completely motivated by choice. In recent years, I have worked for a series of retail companies that have targeted customers that were either of a different age than me or a different target life situation. And, naturally, the employees and training of those employees differ greatly due to the varied nature of the customer basis. As a leader, I have found myself altering my style often to make myself a better manager. Northouse has alluded to the fact that leadership and management are very similar but are simultaneously different. While both involve working with people to achieve goals the functions of the two are very different. Kotter (1990, as cited in Northouse, 2013) implied that the function of management is to establish order and keep an organization level, whereas leadership is about producing change and movement. In other words, “Management is about seeking order and stability; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change” (Northouse, 2013, pg. 13). The analysis presented of the differences between leadership and management had me considering how I have portrayed myself in the past.

Far too often, I believe that I have played the role of a manager but not a leader. In my last position (previous to the career change), I was a Store Manager for a younger retail clothing company. In a position like that, being a manager is not necessarily a bad thing. A manger, as explained by Kotter, is about keeping everything in order and operating smooth. With a staff of younger employees that do not intend to be lifelong retail salespeople, this is an important element. Could I have been better if I attempted to integrate leadership? Possibly. Leadership may have allowed me to integrate further with my staff and relate to them, despite differences in age and perception. If being a leader is about seeking changes that are shaped to constantly changing problems, perhaps this approach could work with a generation that is adapted to constant change.

I also considered past positions that I have held to analyze it from the opposite side. For a number of years, I was a volunteer football coach. As a football coach, I believe I exhibited more leadership skills than management skills. The environments of a football team and football game are constantly changing and shaping themselves around the play of the game or the attitude of the team. You must be on your toes and able to meet constant change head-on. Could I have been better integrating more management skills though? While not a father, I understand that being a parent is about setting constants; this is done then, that is done later, and so on. Consistency is important in reaching and keeping relationships with children or teens. If more of a management style had been integrated along with leadership skills, perhaps a better environment could have been created.

In both cases, I wanted to be a better leader. Results were there for me but change was needed to be better. In the case of the career change, I moved to another employer and have changed up my repertoire to better integrate the theories of leadership that I felt were missing. When I was a coach, I changed by moving to a higher age range where I could work with a different group and refine my approach to be a manager, as well as a leader. While constant change is not always a positive, the ability to adapt to it is the trait of a leader after all.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Sinek, S. (Performer). (2010, MAY 04). Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4

Leaders of the world – know yourselves

January 23, 2014 by Fernando Ribeiro

by Fernando Ribeiro

In my work experience to develop leaders and teams, quite often I come across people questioning me how they can become more effective leaders by separating emotions from rationality.

I wish there was some Cartesian view of the human body and mind in which things are separate and divisible; each operating in its own realm. Unfortunately, life is not like that; a human body is not like that; leadership is not like that. In reality, humans are not purely rational (Bloom, 2008; Pinker, 1997; Tversky & Kahneman, 1986), utilitarian beings as some economists argue; thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are an intricate triad tied in a feedback loop (Peterson, 2006; Beck, 1967); emotions and how we frame problems impact our decisions (Tversky & Kahneman, 1986). In light of these points, it is crucial for leaders to understand their own biases and prejudices, their mental models (Kofman, 2006), their gut reactions, their behavior tendencies, and, henceforth, the initial step in becoming better leaders inevitably will involve self-awareness and the capacity to transform the subjective into objective (Kegan, 1982). Leaders of the world, get to know yourselves.

And knowing yourself starts by knowing how some aspects of psychology permeate human beings in general. We are not as rational as we think we are.

First, without emotions humans cannot prioritize tasks; humans cannot engage in relationships; humans do not have the drive to satiate their hunger to remain alive (Bloom, 2008; Pinker, 1997). Cognition (thoughts), feelings (physiological responses and emotions), and behaviors work together and feed back each other (Peterson, 2006; Beck, 1967). Current research on emotions shows that the cognitive label that we give to a certain stimulus and physical reaction determines the emotion we experience (Schachter & Singer, 1962). Emotions influence our decisions. Anger, for instance, leads to “more optimistic risk estimates and choices, whereas fear leads to more pessimistic risk estimates and choices” (Lerner & Keltner, 2001 as in Ming-Hong & Young, 2010, p 963). Emotions inform us of what is more important, what to prioritize, what to do.

How come? That is impossible, you might say. “I am so rational; I am always able to separate my emotions to make an informed decision.” If you think like that, think and feel again. Thought, feelings, and behavior constitute an intricate feedback loop, which is my second point.

The triad – thoughts, feelings, and behaviors – feedback loop – adapted from Peterson (2006)

To make it clear, imagine yourself lying on your bed at 3 A.M. in the morning when you hear a strange sound. If you happen to have a dog and attribute the sound to a movement of your dog inside the house, chances are that you will feel calm and relaxed, thinking, “oh, it is just the dog”, and will turn on your belly and get back to sleep. If, however, you attribute the sound to someone being inside your house, a burglar maybe, chances are that you will feel fear and will likely get your body ready for a fight or flight response. Without emotions, there is not behavioral response and deciding whether to fight or flee becomes a daunting task. It is the cognitive label addressed to a specific situation that generates an emotion, which in turns prepares a behavioral response (Beck, 1967). Thoughts, however, are not alone in determining the reaction chain of feelings and behaviors. Changing behaviors and body posture can have a major influence of how you perceive yourself and how you feel about yourself (Cuddy, 2012). In the end, the three components – thoughts, feelings, and emotions – walk together and separating them is as effective as separating the circulatory system of a human body, i.e. apart from studying and understanding how they interact, in practical terms we cannot separate them or the consequences will be grim to say the least.

Third, if humans were that rational as some economists argue, equivalent decisions would be taken equally regardless of the way the problem was framed and presented. In a study that awarded Kahneman the Nobel Prize of 2002, Tversky & Kahneman (1986) showed that the framing of choices had a tremendous impact on decision making even when alternatives were equivalent. We are more averse to losses than we are prone to gains. Putting it in another way, our personal biases influence the decisions we make. In a way, we all wear glasses that we use to look at the world around us (Kofman, 2006) and such glasses define the reality we see. The problem is that most of the time we are not even aware of the glasses that we are wearing. Humans tend to interpret evidence in partial ways, conforming to existing beliefs, expectations, and hypotheses (Nickerson, 1998). If that is true, how can leaders be rational and take impartial decisions? Is it possible at all?

Maybe not, but it is never impossible to realize our own biases, our own motivations, our own drives, our own tendencies. And that is why is so important to understand and look at ourselves. As Kegan (1982) offers, personal development involves being able to emerge from our “embeddedness” – to realize the assumptions that surround us most of the time, as if were fish in water getting away from it for the first time to realize we are wet (Funder, 2012) – transforming what is subjective and unseen into something objective and seen – then, and only then, can we start working on the things we need to work on. By gaining self-awareness and better understanding our predispositions and biases, we can then own our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. No longer are we they, but rather we now have them in a transitory possession. The leader who is self-aware no longer will be the decision she makes, but rather will have an opinion about a topic. Under this new light, of self-knowledge and self-awareness, criticism becomes lighter; mistakes become chances to learn; emotions become part of the decision process rather than a tumor to be extirpated. No longer am I my mistakes; I make them. No longer am I my opinion; I have it.

Not surprisingly, the trait approach to leadership puts integrity – the responsibility for one’s actions – as one of the main characteristics of leaders (Northouse, 2013). Only when I own something can I be responsible for it; only when I realize what is going on with me can I start working on such a thing.

If there is one thing I can offer you – and for being an offer, you can either accept or refuse it – this is it: the initial step in becoming a better leader involves knowing yourself. Regardless of theoretical orientation and whether you think leaders are born or made, if you become self-aware you cut loose from a fixed mindset and put yourself in a growing mindset (Dweck, 2006 as in Chase, 2010), i.e. you look at yourself not as a static being or leader, but rather as someone who is capable to use nature and nurture to adapt and change. There is no better or worse trait that makes a leader as long as you remain aware of the glasses you wear and question those around you about the glasses they wear. The better you know your emotions and biases, the easier you can make effective decisions.

References

Bloom, P. (2008). Evolution, emotion, and reason: Emotions, part I [Yale Open Course. ITunes U. Web. June 2012]. Retrieved from http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110>

Chase, M. (2010). Should coaches believe in innate ability? The importance of leadership mindset. Quest, 62(3), 296-307. Retrieved from dx.doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2010.10483650

Cuddy, A. (2012). Your body language shapes who you are [ Video on TED.com]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html

Funder, D. C. (2012). Personality puzzle. S.l.: W W Norton.

Kofman, F. (2006). Conscious business: How to build value through values. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

Ming-Hong, T., & Young, M. J. (2010). Anger, fear, and escalation of commitment. Cognition & Emotion, 24(6), 962-973. doi:10.1080/02699930903050631

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220.

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.

Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York: Norton.

Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379-399. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0046234

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1986). Rational choice and the framing of decisions. The Journal of Business, 59(4), s251-s278.

Oprah Winfrey – Charismatic Leader

November 17, 2013 by nbg5031

(photo credit www.quoteswave.com)

Oprah Winfrey is known to and beloved by many Americans. Her story is impressive: she was the first female African-American news anchor in Nashville, followed up by a turn as a morning talk-show host before creating the infamous and iconic Oprah Winfrey Show (Oprah Winfrey). She notoriously overcame a tumultuous and abusive childhood to become the living legend that she is today. She is known as a great leader, utilizing a charismatic leadership style that draws people to her and keeps them captivated.

Charismatic leaders have many attributes; they are described as having a strong sense of moral values, self-confidence, having a dominant personality and a fierce desire to influence others (Northouse, 2013). Oprah’s leadership style fits with this definition; she is self-confident, dominant, and most definitely influences others. Her “Oprah’s Favorite Things” episodes, which aired annually on her Oprah Winfrey Show and listed her favorite products, were the most watched of all of her shows (Oprah’s Favorite, 2013). The audience at home was always dying to find out what Oprah recommended as the “must have”… the cream of the crop. I am guilty of being an Oprah junky too – the “Favorite Things” episodes were almost my favorite! This just proves how strong her influence was – she could sell out a product in minutes by mentioning it on her show.

There are probably many leadership styles that could apply to Oprah: Transformational, Authentic, and possibly even the Trait Theory, but in my opinion, it is her charisma that helped put her at the top of the entertainment industry. She continues to defy the odds by developing her own television programming as the head of OWN, her television network, and continues to exhibit the kind of charismatic leadership style that has served her so well.

References

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Oprah’s Favorite Things. (2013, September 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:25, November 17, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oprah%27s_Favorite_Things&oldid=572988098

Oprah Winfrey. (n.d.). In People. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/oprah_winfrey/biography/