“Wisdom is knowing what to do next,
skill is knowing how to do it,
and virtue is doing it”
David Starr Jordan
Nowadays organization’s success is becoming more and more dependent on the effective leadership, that is an essential part of its efficient development, but it is often quite difficult to define the qualities of great leader. Moreover, it is unclear in which way an organization can encourage and help people to develop these qualities. There are set of qualities that can be learned and internalized: inspiring actions and commitments, that have unique outlooks, approaches, practices and skill sets. Great leaders should have a deep understanding of their organization (its functionality in general and its separate processes), their employees and what is more important themselves. It is attested that those organizations that support employees in learning, emotional awareness, risk and failure are more prepared to different economic shake-ups and they are more successful in development of strong leaders.
So, what contributes to successful leadership? First of all the great leader should have a clear understanding of the organization’s systems (both internal and external). Modern organizations are quite complex and consists of the variety of “systems” that influence and affect each other. Great leaders should dig deep in order to get an understanding of a particular system by contemplating this system as a whole, but not a separate parts. In order to know how the company operates, effective leader should ask questions, but not give answers; actively participate in dialogues and debates; conduct autopsies, without blame (Collins, 2004).
Secondly, effective leaders should encourage loyalty and trust between employees. According to John C. Maxwell (2005) successful leaders have a notion of the importance of developing credible relations between people who in future will help to realize the leader’s vision and dreams (J. C. Maxwell, 2005). From the point of view of Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee (2004) it is essential to develop supportive and trusting relationships that will make change possible. Scientists highlight, that leaders should build up trusting relationships between employees where they can feel absolutely free to bring new ideas and experiment and with whom they will get helpful feedback about their performance (D. Goleman, R. Boyatzis, and A. McKee, 2004). Effective leader should stimulate commitment and innovation by accepting, temporizing, and even rewarding risk-taking, while fully recognizing that it may lead to failure.
The third feature that defines the successful leadership is vision and authenticity. All the great leaders are authentic. Generally they use their life and working experience and their strengths to lead effectively. Their strength is also reflected in the fact that they are able not only to admit, but also work on their weaknesses. Good-to-Great leaders are discreet about their attaining attributing their successes to external factors, sometimes even citing unexpected luck (Collins, 2004).
In order to become more successful in developing great leaders, organizations can use diverse and specific approaches and actions. For the successful individual development various unique outlooks and practices can be adopted. There are three essential components of a great leader: 1) to have a notion and understanding of the key concepts of systems thinking and diligently explore the systems and structures within which they are operating; 2) focus on building credible and effective relationship with employees; and 3) spare the time and the endeavors that are necessary for developing of their vision and authenticity. Proper use of this Three Faces of Leadership and thorough prop from within the organization, and from highly qualified experts in the certain field, will lead to the authentic leadership.
References
- Maxwell, J. C. (2005). Developing the Leader Within You. New York, NY: Thomas Nelson
- Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., McKee, A. (2004). Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press
- Collins, J. C. (2001) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leapand Others Don't. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.
