Essay One: Women in Leadership
Women within business leadership have endured hurdles due to culture and unseen barriers, which present unequal opportunities for their participation in business leadership. Individuals within business leadership have often seen their plans to offer equal positions for women to lead frustrated (Ibarra, Robin, and Deborah 8). Organizations hold the perception that women also have a position and role tom play within business leadership, but fail to administer the suggested programs, which can facilitate these good intentions.
The problem regarding women and business leadership has a solution. Women should internalize and assume the leadership traits and develop a sense of serving as leaders. The internalization will enable the women seeking these business leadership positions to exhibit leadership traits. The leadership process in businesses begins by assuming that one can take part (Ibarra, Robin, and Deborah 6). Next, the top managers assign roles, which require leadership to these individuals and the process proceeds. Women in business leadership should move from the perception of potential in leadership to the actual participation in the roles requiring the leadership.
Women seeking business leadership positions should perceive the leadership purposes as compared to how people perceive them in these positions. The attention should change from what CEO`s can do to what they have done and how women can emerge from these circumstances into leadership positions (Ibarra, Robin, and Deborah 5).
Male leadership combined with the leadership from women creates diversity within the organizations. The two genders present different approaches in viewing issues, thus presenting different leadership skills (Ibarra, Robin, and Deborah 7). Leadership requires diversity to facilitate progress and competition. The competition will enable leaders to offer their best or lose these coveted roles. Women seeking business leadership should consider the pacesetters within their industries and consider their steps towards these positions.
Essay Two: Challenges of Contemporary Leadership
Leadership in business requires a variety of skills. Leaders and aspiring leaders may learn some of these skill and others may develop the skills while practicing at managerial levels. Business leadership has seen a change within its nature with the rise in requirements to meet for an individual to have effective leadership within business organizations (Golema 83). Intelligence quotients together with technical skills have served as the basic requirements in business leadership. Individuals with these skills have appeared as the ultimate leaders within modern business organizations. However, emotional intelligence also plays a critical role within modern management.
Emotional intelligence plays its role in business leadership by enabling the leaders in business organizations to understand other individuals working within the same environment. The high intelligence quotient together with the technical skills serves as entry-level skills for individuals to serve as business leaders. Furthermore, from the entry-level skills, business leaders require stable interpersonal skills, which enable them to understand and perceive issues within the organizations differently (Goleman 87). The technical and intelligence quotient skills can develop as the leader studies issues relating to business leadership. The academic training mainly enables the leaders within business scenarios to develop the two skills. However, the emotional intelligence skills develop as leaders gain experience in different leadership avenues. The business leaders cannot pay or subscribe for a course to learn the emotional intelligence skills.
The emotional intelligence skills entail the leader having self-awareness, which enables the leader to know them. The skills also allow the leader to understand their weaknesses and needs along with the issues that drive them and serve as motivation factors. The leader can only achieve greater levels of competence by understanding these issues, which concern them. In the context of this process that is similar to the concept of self-evaluation, leaders should execute the process with truthfulness (Goleman 89). Following the self-evaluation, the leaders should align their motivation with the needs of the organization. The emotional intelligence also means that the leaders have an understanding of their inner frustrations and do not use these as reasons for weak performance. With this nature of awareness, the leaders manage to plan for their organizations with considerations of the weaknesses and strengths.
The skills also enable the leaders to conduct self-regulation, which entails restricting themselves from engaging activities they identify as their weaknesses. Leaders have an advantage in developing the emotional intelligence skills as they develop with the increase in age. Therefore, with increase in leadership experiences, the leaders develop the emotional intelligence skills. In the leadership context, the emotional intelligence serves as the cause of motivation as the leader understands the issues within themselves (Goleman 90). The leader manipulates these issues to develop their skills along with exhibiting the needed skills in business organizations.
Empathy and social skills also develop along with the emotional intelligence skills. The role played by leaders entails building on relationships within their organizations to have an effective leadership process. The challenges within the contemporary leadership process revolve around developing the emotional intelligence skills (Goleman 85). The leaders who manage to develop these skills develop an understanding for the issues, which may hinder their operations in the position of business leadership. The technical and intelligence quotient skills also play a vital role in business leadership and the ultimate leadership entails a combination of these skills.
Essay Three: Modeling the way
Leadership refers to the process and activity of indicating the path to follow and for others to follow. From this perspective, modeling the way in leadership has significance as it defines the role every leader should aim at performing (George 134). Modeling the way also involves modeling the way and following that modeled path as a leader to indicate confidence towards following the path and to motivate individuals who seek to follow the path.
Leaders have the ability to motivate other people verbally or through actions. Their ability to empower and inspire members within their business organizations come after self-devotion to go through personal growth. The devotion enables the business leaders to discover their authentic leadership approaches. Leaders should aspire to develop unique and self-taught skills in the leadership context (George 129). These skills enable the leadership process to take authentic forms. Leaders must begin with leading themselves before taking up the business leadership roles. Success from personal leadership indicates the success towards leading the entire business unit.
Authentic leadership creates a legacy and enables the leaders within businesses to create a lasting value. Leaders need to understand that the authentic leadership only develops after going through self-devotion to understand the points of strength (George 130). The strong points facilitate the development of lasting values from the leadership process.
Authentic leadership also approaches present short-term outcomes for leaders who have engaged in personal development. However, leaders new to this approach in leadership have to go follow the process as stages (George 138). The focus within this approach entails having leadership legacies and molding the way for other individuals within the business to follow. The meaning of authentic leadership only appears after engaging in personal development to set the way.
Works Cited
George, Bill , Peter Sims, and Diana Mayer. "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership." Harvard Business Review 60.2 (2007): 129-138. Print.
Goleman, Daniel. "What Makes a Leader." Harvard Business Review 4.1 (1998): 82-90. Print.
Ibarra, Herminia, Robin Ely, and Deborah Kolb. "Women Rising:The Unseen Barriers." Harvard Business Review 130.1 (2013): 1-8. Print.
