Strengths Based Leadership

What? Every person who is in a leadership position today has a unique set of strengths that they use to their advantage in order to be successful in their work environment. In Strengths Based Leadership, there are four main domains of leadership strength. Each of these areas list a set of traits that leaders may have and use to be successful in their position. Wendy Kopp and Mervyn Davies are two examples of executing and relationship building domains that are found in Strengths Based Leadership. Personally I fall under both executing and relationship building according to the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment test and can relate to both of these successful leaders.

So What? By using their strengths to their advantage,
both Wendy and Mervyn have made created corporations and made substantial  changes to existing ones to make them more successful than before. For example Mervyn is the CEO of Standard Chartered. Here he used his relationship building strengths to fix the relationships between coworkers and make them work more efficiently as a team. In doing so he created a positive work environment for his employees which in turn made his company provide better services for their clients and become more profitable.

Now What? These traits are essential to successful leadership and businesses. Without them many leaders today would not be as successful as they are today. Through reading this text, I can use both Mervyn Davies and Wendy Kopp as role models for how I should be a leader now and in my future jobs. Although my specific leadership strengths are not the same as both of these successful leaders, I can make my own leadership methods that are unique to me and the situations that I might be in. All in all, I would recommend reading Strengths Based Leadership to anyone who wants to strengthen their leadership skills and how they can be an effective leader in their lives.

Do You Conform to Groupthink?

What? Working in groups is very beneficial to learning, businesses, and other aspects of life. Without working together, organizations would not be as efficient as they are today. Although they are very efficient, there are many problems that could occur while working in groups. One of the many reasons why working in groups often fails is because they succumb to  groupthink. Groupthink is when the group is under pressure to conform to the majority. This often occurs because members of the group want to avoid conflict or risk being isolated or cast out for their decisions. I have found that groupthink often occurs during group projects or decisions in college classes.
 

So What? Irving Janis, a pyschologist, came up with 8 indicators that groupthink may be occurring. The eight indicators of groupthink outline the most common characteristics a group which is experiencing groupthink might have such as, the illusion of invulnerability or the illusion of unanimity. Through my own experiences and from reading The Art of Leadership, I have seen these two indicators while participating in groups in my classes. For example, while working on a project my group felt like we could accomplish our project very quickly and therefore put it off until it was almost due. Unfortunately our group had the illusion of invulnerability and came to see the that we had made the mistake of believing that all of our decisions were going to be automatically successful.
 
Now What? Although groupthink often does occur, there are precautionary measures that can be taken to prevent groupthink from occurring. Many of the precautionary measures involve the leader of the group taking a step back and assigning members of the group tasks to ensure that all views are seen and any doubts or hesitations are discussed. I think that if the leader of my group that experienced the illusion of invulnerability took a step back and assigned each of the members a job to evaluate each of our decisions we would have not experienced groupthink. Instead I believe that we would have determined we needed to put more time and effort into our project which would have then made us seen exactly how much work we had to do for it. Since then I have learned how to avoid groupthink while working in groups and in doing made the groups that I participate in more successful.

Are You Empowered?

What? There are many key elements to running a successful business. Empowerment of the people that take part in a buisness or corporation is one of most important elements. It can determine the overall success or failure of a company.As an example, Fred Smith, the chairman of Federal Express, stated "empowering people is the single most important element in managing our organization". This goes to show that many leaders value empowerment in their organizations. On the other hand some leaders and business owners do not empower the people who work for them. Unfortunately I have experienced working for a business owner who did not empower his employees.

So What? Employees that are empowered are able to identify problems and fix them without going through many levels of authorization. Empowered workplaces have seven key characteristics that allow them to function successfully. For example, since my coworkers were not empowered, they were unable to do anything on their own without asking permission from a higher authority. This decreased the productivity and efficiency of the business and caused chaos to occur at times. Work policies were also unheeded because employees were not included in the policy making. Along with that policies were constantly changing and employees were often unaware of what policies were in effect and which ones were not. This caused employees to be unable to work together well and as a result there work performance decreased significantly.

Now What? By following the principles of an empowered workplace, leaders can effectively empower others in the buisness. These principles include: trust in people, invest in people, recognize accomplishments, decentralize decision making, and view work as a cooperative effort. Also by following the principles the business will also have the seven characteristics of an empowered workplace that I have stated above. If the workplace that I was employed at followed these principles, our service, efficiency, and work environment would have improved dramatically.  It is critical for a successful business or organization to be empowered because without empowerment they will not be able to succeed.

Do You Have a Vision?

What? An important aspect of being a good leader is to have a vision. Everyday leaders and even leaders who are widely known, all have visions. In The Art of Leadership, three main points are emphasized as to why visions are so important to a successful leader. These main points are: vision is necessary for effective leadership, a leader can develop a vision for any project, work group, or organization, and many leaders fail because they do not have a vision. One leader who has greatly influenced my view of how visions make leadership successful is Ellen Degeneres. Her vision is to influence people to accept and embrace themselves for who they are. She spreads the word of her vision through her t.v. show, The Ellen Degeneres Show.

So What? Without visions, confusion occurs. Followers do not have a clear picture as to what part they are supposed to playing. Instead they only focus on functioning on a day to day basis and in doing so, hurt the vision of their leader. In order to ensure that the vision you want to pass on to other people is seen, there are eight essential steps that should be taken. For example, Ellen "walks the walk and talks the talk". She provides herself as an example as to how she wants others to act. She shows her followers that its okay to accept themselves for who they are and be proud of it. Ellen also seeks the involvement of her followers in her quest to achieve her vision. She encourages people to speak their minds and have an open mind to other people who may be different from them.

Now What? By successfully following the steps to convey her vision to her followers, Ellen has successfully influenced many people today. She has raised awareness about many important issues and has provided alternative view in which she encourages people to open up and accept who they are and who other people around them are. Through her process of sharing her vision, she has followed the primary visioning process principles that are outlined in The Art of Leadership. As one of Ellen Degeneres' followers, I have been influenced by her vision and the techniques she uses to successfully make people aware of that particular vision. Since I have seen a real life example, that I can relate to, of how a leader successfully conveys a vision to their followers, I can take what I have learned and apply it to my everyday leadership in school, the workplace, and in sports. In doing so I can extend my visions to other people more effectively

Leaderless Jobs

What? Many managers or bosses consider themselves leaders but sometimes they are the farthest thing from it. Many issues arise from managers and bosses who do not have leadership traits. From trust issues between fellow employees to lack of motivation of employees to do their jobs are some of the major problems that are ever present in a day to day job. I personally experienced this at one of the jobs I used to work at.

So What? In the work place leaders are crucial to to making a business operate smoothly. As I stated above, I learned first hand the disasters of not having a leader in a work environment.Without leadership, a work place can become complete chaos. It can create a negative work environment that makes their employees often feel alienated and low levels of job satisfication as stated by Julian Barling. Being a manager and being a leader are two completely different things according to Dianne Walker's article Effective Leadership in the Workplace. Leadership traits are the foundation of providing
a productive and good work environment within a buisness.

Now What?  Through a variety of ways, people have come to realize that working in an environment with a manager instead of a leader is detrimental to the business, themselves, customers, and fellow employees. Instead if their is a leader, employees are actually more likely to support the leaders decisions, follow their directions, and be more productive. Not only that they are also able to provide a better work environment not only for the employees but also the customers and other people they interact with daily. Needless to say I no longer work at the company that failed to provide a leader. I've come to find that working at a job with a good leader makes all the difference in the world and aspire to potentially become a effective workplace leader!