Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

A Government of Leaders?

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When watching the Democratic debate last night (Sunday January 17, 2016) it became apparent that leadership is something our politicians are failing at.  In response to a comment made by Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton fired back stating “there should be no bank too big to fail and no individual too powerful to jail.”  Even more, Clinton’s campaign tweeted her comment proudly with hopes to gain public support.  Unfortunately for Clinton, the overwhelming response was one of awe, anger, and frustration as people were left in disbelief about her current legal issues involving her handling and storage of classified emails.  Our political leaders need to understand that leadership is not a God-given right nor is taken by force but rather leadership is earned through one’s actions with the success of a leader depending on the strength and loyalty of their followers.

Regardless of what leadership theory one aligns themselves with or how they truly assess leaders, integrity is a trait that will always work itself into the definition.  According to Northouse (2015), integrity is the ability to “adhere to a strong set of principles and take responsibility for their actions” (p. 25). Whether you are a captain of your sports team, manager of your department, CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or President of the United States of America, integrity should be an integral part of your character.  Integrity is the backbone of leadership as followers need to be able to trust their leader, and know that they are truly loyal to their cause.

Political issues are things that I usually shy away from due to their inherent shielding of the truth or misguided “promises”.  Whether you find yourself on either the far left or far right side of our political system, or somewhere in the middle like me, it is hard to understand the direction our “leaders” seem to be taking.  Don’t get me wrong, Hillary Clinton is not the only Presidential candidate who is struggling with integrity issues, but her comment last night only shines the limelight even brighter on her shortcomings.  Leadership is a quality that is earned by your actions everyday and it seems as though our government has forgotten what it takes to truly lead a nation.  With all that has happened thus far during our electoral process, it has me asking the question of whether or not our “leaders” truly know how to lead?

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2015).  Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.).  Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.

Situational Leadership: Don’t Sell Your Integrity, Be the Change!

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I read two really interesting articles this week on situational leadership, the focus of Chapter 5 in Northouse (2013).  The first article, entitled, Leadership is Situational, Integrity is Not, raised one very good point that we must all remember.  While we may need to adjust our leadership styles depending upon our followers and the circumstances we are in, we do not—and must not—adjust our values (Kane, 2014).

This is an important take away.  As leaders, our behaviors must be adaptable.  If we have a certain follower that needs additional help, we must be coaching or directing.  If we have followers that are highly competent, we can be delegating or supporting.  However, we must not change who we are at our core.  According to Kane (2014), integrity is an important trait to keep consistent:  our integrity is not for sale.  Remembering that sticking to our values and principles is paramount; sometimes we have to deal with followers and out-groups that can test our patience and resolve.

The second article, 5 tactics to promote situational leadership skills, describes five techniques that we can use to ensure our followers truly understand situational leadership.  Adjusting styles can be confusing (hence the previous article on modifying behaviors, not values).  However, there are five ways in which a leader can set his/her team up for success when using a situational leadership approach:

  1. Educate your team
  2. Provide structure
  3. Lead by example
  4. Encourage your followers
  5. Give rewards when due

The two most effective ways to reinforce positive situational leadership (in my humble opinion) are leading by example and rewarding your followers.  Walsh (2015) even indicated that the single best way to support adopting situational leadership is leading by example.  This reminds me of the quote, “Be the change you want to see.” Be the situational leadership you want to see!

While I understand that not everyone is motivated by rewards, many people are.  It feels good to know that your leadership is acknowledging your progress and views it as beneficial to the organization.  Rewards don’t have to be monetary in nature, but can be something as simple as a letter demonstrating success, which can then come in handy come promotion time.

What do you think?  Is it tricky to practice situational leadership?  Which method is the most effective?

 

Kane, N. (2014). Leadership is Situational, Integrity is Not. Tech.co [Article]. Retrieved from http://tech.co/leadership-situational-integrity-2014-04.

Walsh, P. (2015). 5 tactics to promote situational leadership skills. Examiner [Article]. Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/5-tactics-to-promote-situational-leadership-skills.

 

Why Southwest Airlines has the best CEO AKA “leader”

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Everyone knows the Airline Southwest and it is known for it’s cheap fairs and extremely happy employees.  But many do not understand why this airline has such happy employees and booming profits while others have sky-high prices and sad looking employees.  It’s all due to their CEO and leader Gary Kelly.  Kelly has many of the traits that a good leader has.  According to Northhouse (2013) leaders have traits such as intelligence, integrity, and sociability.

According to Northhouse (2013) you need to have intelligence to be a good leader but you shouldn’t be to much smarter than the people following you.  Mr. Kelly hits that nail right on the head.  He started at Southwest as their controller in 1986 then working his way up to Principle Accounting officer in 1989.  Many people didn’t believe that someone like him could do it.  Making Southwest one of the most profitable Airlines in the U.S.  One of his best (and smartest) moves was buying large bulks of oil before prices sky rocketed.  Many other airlines had to furlough and raise their ticket prices while Southwest flourished.  Another smart move is only having one type of aircraft; the 737.  Mechanics only have to learn one type of aircraft and only need to buy parts for one aircraft while many airlines (such as the one I work for) have to buy many parts and have extras in case something breaks.

Integrity is in having people follow you.  Southwest employees trust Kelly.  It’s as simple as this quote “You put your employees first and if you take care of them, then they will take good care of you,” Herb Kelleher, the airline’s chairman, said this (cbs.com, 2007).  I think everyone can relate to this.  Your employees need to have faith in you.  If you have happy employees you will have happy customers which in turn you have less employee turnover and many repeat customers.  What employer doesn’t want that?

Lastly you need sociability.  All this means is that you get out from behind your desk and meet people!  What a concept!  I have personally never met my supervisor or spoken to her.  Normally if you need to talk to her that means trouble so I am thankful for that but what if you could work for a company where you would actually want to meet your supervisor or CEO and thank them for being able to work at such a great company?  What a wonderful job that would be!  Every year Southwest has an employee appreciation party.  I went to one in Las Vegas and let me tell you they know how to throw a party!  By how extravagant that everything was you know that they really appreciate their employees and their employees families.  Mr. Kelly was even there thanking everyone who came.

I’m not saying that to have a great CEO or work experience I need a pat on the back everytime that I go to work.  But to feel appreciated while at work and being able to have fun while I am there now, that is a company that I would want to work for.

References:

B, N. (2012, June 18). Southwest Airlines: The secrets of Southwest’s continued success | The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/06/southwest-airlines

Gary Kelly: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek. (n.d.). Retrieved September 7, 2014, from http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=187856&ticker=LUV

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Pate, S. (2010). CEO of the Year (Again!): Gary Kelly of Southwest Airlines – D Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2010/december/dallas-ceo-of-the-year-2010-gary-kelly-of-southwest-airlines

Something Special About Southwest Airlines – CBS News. (2007, August 30). Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/something-special-about-southwest-airlines/

Expectations of Integrity and Morality

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The definition of leader has been studied and refined over the decades. Northouse (2013) has a simple definition, “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 5). This gives a skeletal framework for recognizing leadership but what exactly does it look like. What are the nuances? “Consider the following leaders: Hammurabi, Cyrus the Great, Pericles, Asoka…Adolf Hitler…Indira Gandhi, Idi Amin, and Fidel Castro” (Simonton, 2010, p. 630). Great leaders both kind and cruel, all defined by the same common attributes. We can see the pieces of the definition of leadership in their reign of power. The common goal is what the leader envisioned (good or bad), the group described the people who followed willingly or not, and all of these leaders exhibited influence over a time, growing and refining their message. It begs the question, when we have examples throughout history of both good and bad, why are people surprised when our modern leaders fall from grace.

Trait theory is the study of personality attributes in an attempt to determine what is unique about leaders. Why are some individuals catapulted to fame or infamy and others contribute but are never acknowledged? Is there a secret formula that if recreated, could produce the next great leader? It has been shown there are traits in these leaders they all have in common. “His [Ralph Stogdill] results showed that a person who holds a position of leadership surpasses the average member of the group in several ways, including intelligence, scholarship, dependability, and sociability” (Wynn, 2006, 1029).

Leaders have always been in the news and there is usually a scandal behind their shine in the spotlight. Just recently we have seen the Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, who admitted smoking crack, the former chief-of-staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander, Ryan Loskarn, charged with possessing child pornography, Anthony Weiner, and Gov. Chris Christie. As leaders, they all seemingly possessed the same traits, “intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability” (Northouse, p. 23). One precipitous event befalls them and they are delivering an apology scripted by their speechwriter. What if we have wrongly attributed morality and integrity amongst the other good attributes and this scandalous persona is the real individual?  “Although evidence was found for the genetic transfer of intelligence and life span, morality and leadership was more subject to role modeling effects” (Simonton, 2010, p. 636).

We are predominantly a Christian society which puts that set of values on top of the characteristics we have come to expect of our leaders. This is ingrained into our psyche by religious leaders and politicians alike. Arnold Ludwig’s (2002) study of 20th century heads of state showed, “that the individual’s type of leadership could be discriminated according to such variables as scholastic performance…sexual profligacy…courage or bravery in battle…mania, anxiety, paranoia and cognitive impairment” (Simonton, 2010, p. 635). Further, Ludwig’s (2002) seven predictors of leadership are, “dominance, contrariness, presence, agent of change, vanity, courage, and wary unease” (Simonton, 2010, p. 635). One could make the argument that while we expect morality and integrity, in reality, those in power have always and will always have the immoral person just under the mask of good.

We see that leaders and leadership are both good and bad and share many of the same characteristics. We have been shown that the moral attributes of a leader are not genetic but as a result of modeling. This role modeling has a long history of immoral leaders from which to learn how to lead. Despite the multitude of immoral examples throughout history, our predominantly Christian society expects moral and pious behavior. This incongruous set of expectations gives us leaders like President Bill Clinton who was caught lying about an immoral act, retained his presidency and has gone on to remain a prominent member of society. Morality and integrity are essential to building trust and creating a welcoming environment. With so many examples exhibiting the contrary, perhaps the world isn’t ready to give up pillaging and plundering that catapulted individuals to power and ruined societies in the not so distant past. It may be pure morality and integrity is not within us at this time and our expectations should be shifted to an area that can truly make a difference.

— O. Lewis

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Publications, Inc.

Simonton, D. K. (2010). Personality and Leadership. In R. A. Couto (Ed.), Political and Civic Leadership (pp. 630-40). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Wynn, S. R. (2006). Trait Theory. In Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration. Ed. (pp. 1029-30). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Integrity Leads

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According to John Maxwell, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” (Maxwell, 2010). I, honestly, did not believe this statement before I began my new job at a car dealership in January. For the previous 8 years, I had worked for a company that was led by a man that could be the poster child for “Do as I say, not as I do.” He appeared to know the way because he insisted his employees did it, but he fell very short on going the way himself and showing us the path. After 8 years of his leadership, I honestly believed that all leaders were evil and could not be trusted. My view was completely changed by my new leader, Mr. Synder (pseudonym), within 48 hours of starting my new job.

It was 9:35 on a Tuesday morning. From my office, I heard someone screaming in the showroom, demanding to speak to the man in charge. As I stood there, mouth agape, Mr. Synder  the “man in charge” stepped in quickly to resolve the problem. The customer then proceeded to call him a colorful variety of names and terms. Mr. Synder very calmly led the customer into his office and closed the door. Within five minutes, the angry customer left the dealership not only happy, but laughing and apologizing to Mr. Synder for the way he had acted. It turned out that the customer was upset over the fact that they thought they were supposed to have a truck cover for their recently purchased Ford Escape. Mr. Synder took them directly to the parts department and got the cover for them, even though it wasn’t included in the model of the Escape that they had purchased. When I asked him later why he gave the customer something they had not paid for, he reminded me gently that “Susan, our customers are all we’ve got. If they’re not here, neither are we.”

After this incident, I found myself doubting my belief that all leaders were not to be trusted.  By settling this customer’s complaints in a professional manner, Mr. Synder had put his integrity on display for the whole world to see. According to Northouse, Mr. Synder’s ability to take the blame for the customer’s problem and strive to fix it immediately displays his integrity (Northouse, 2013, Pp.25). By taking the action of not only listening to what the customer’s problem was, but also resolving the problem as promised, Mr. Synder showed his integrity not only to the customer, but also to all of his team members.  By seeing Mr. Synder’s behavior, it made me want to work harder for him because he truly believes in the vision that he reminded me of on my second day of work. By him “showing” me the way, I wanted to go the way. His vision of customer satisfaction and determination to make it happen became my own.

Beyond that, by seeing Mr. Synder’s willingness and effort to help a customer, someone he had never met before, I knew that he would do anything within his power to fulfill any promise he made to me.

References:

Maxwell, J.C. (2010). The Right to Lead: Learning Leadership Through Character and
Courage. New York: Thomas Nelson.

Northouse, P.G. (2013).  Leadership: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

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