Introduction
The leader on whom I choose to write is one who is engaged in the social sector. He is currently working with a company headquartered in Bethesda, USA and is heading a social project promoting maternal health across the continents of India and Nigeria.
The big five personality dimensions
The big five personality dimensions model proposes that an effective leader is one who displays the five attributes of being neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness and openness. One of the dominant personality dimensions displayed by this leader is that he is an excellent orator. This translates to the fact that he is extrovert and sociable. This trait is essentially required in the social sector as one needs to socialize with several individuals in order to work for a particular cause that promotes social welfare. This also implies that he displays an agreeable conduct as he needs to interact with people. Furthermore, he is one who displays transparency in systems and processes. This helps in promoting a culture of openness and trust. He is highly vigilant and this can be found in the manner in which he pays detailed attention the finances of the firm. He takes steps to ensure that the finances are transparent so as to ensure that the company has sound practices. He is a leader who displays positivity in his work. This is opposed to the conduct of neuroticism as he motivates followers to achieve goals within set timelines. In the event of failure he takes the blame on himself and motivates followers to strive in meeting goals (Judge et al. 2006).
Values and attitudes
Values and attitudes also shape effective leaders and help organizations to grow. The values of honesty, trust, courage and emotional intelligence are some of the traits depicted by leaders (Khoreva, 2016). Mr. Livesley displayed the above mentioned qualities and helped the firm to grow. He displays excellent communication and negotiation skills and helps in motivating staff to achieve goals. Hence, the above mentioned qualities have helped the firm to grow and prosper in Nigeria.
Charismatic, transformational leadership
One of the qualities depicted by Mr. Livesley is that he is an excellent orator. He excelled himself in motivating followers as well as negotiating with government health officials. This is an example of charismatic leadership. He participated and was often called to be a guest speaker in several platforms of social health and reform across nations. He also depicted the skills of a leader who supported innovation and believed in empowering subordinates in order to meet desired objectives. Hence, subordinates found it easy to embrace innovative practices that helped to reform the health of the disadvantaged group across the regions in which they were working. He was highly flexible and this also helped subordinates to think out of the box and provide solutions that displayed a blend of changing the attitudes of the disadvantaged segment as well as improve the facilities provided by the government. Women of a particular community believed that the delivery of babies were conducted by male doctors. This prevented women to visit the facilities. He helped staff to develop several systems and policies that encouraged subordinates to devise innovative manners for pregnant women to go to the hospitals for delivery. He personally met the doctors and nurses and persuaded them to allow the women to meet them as well as the operation theatre in which delivery of babies were conducted. This helped in boosting the women and they went to the hospital for delivery. His timely intervention helped in achieving objectives within the stated period. Thus, he displayed the qualities of inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, idealized influence and intellectual stimulation (Harrison, 2011).
Independent thinking and open-mindedness
Leading with love
The construct of leading with love not only entails in having a satisfied life, but also means that one can achieve goodness in engaging in the welfare of individuals so as to attain wealth in the long term. The social sector itself entails in serving the society and promoting social welfare. Mr. Livesley has aptly helped in meeting the set targets by motivating staff and thereby has helped in promoting the welfare of the society. Hence, he is an example of a leader who has led with love as he has ensured that the entire staff has contributed to the welfare of the society by meeting certain objectives within set deadlines (Byrant, 2010).
Moral leadership and moral courage
Servant leadership
Coined by Robert Greenleaf, servant leadership is a relatively new construct that defines the quality of an individual to help the followers to grow. The servant leader sets examples for the followers so as to promote the followers’ wellbeing as compared with the wellbeing of the organization (Dierendonck, 2011). Mr. Livesley did not display this quality. He, being a transformational leader displayed skills that helped in attaining organizational objectives and targets within set deadlines by empowering and motivating followers. This was evident because when the project came to a closure, he restructured the entire process that led most staff to be redundant. Hence, only 10 percent of the staff were retained in the organization.
Leader’s role in developing effective followers
One of the main functions of leadership is to ensure that followers are efficient. This is highly true of Mr. Livesley. He recruited and evaluated staff for an initial period of three months to find out their efficiency. The contract of the new staff would be extended only if he found their performance to be satisfactory after the completion of three months in the organization. Hence, those who remained were highly efficient as they had clear understanding of the objectives that they had to meet within stated deadlines. Mr. Livesley emphasized not only on meeting goals but to follow timelines and he empowered and delegated staff to follow innovative paths to meet objectives.
Conclusion
Overall Mr. Livesley depicted most of the qualities that are needed for effective leadership. He became the Country Director for a regional office in Nigeria and led the organization to spread and establish its wings in Nigeria. USAID ASSIST was the first project that the parent organization, University Research Company had acquired in Nigeria. Although, the project was short – lived, he attained the desired objectives. This made USAID to offer more projects aimed to promote social welfare in Nigeria to the parent company. By making an evaluation of the above qualities, it can be concluded that Mr. Livesley took all the steps required to ensure growth and success of the organization.
References
Byrant, J.H. (2010). Leading with love in a fear-based world. Leader to Leader, 56, 32 – 38.
Dierendonck, D.V. (2011). Servant leadership: a review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37 (4), 1228 – 1261.
Harrison, L.M. (2011). Transformational leadership, integrity, and power. New Directions for Student Services, 135, 45 – 52.
Judge, T., Woolf, E.F., Hurst, C. & Livingston, B. (2006). Charismatic and transformational leadership. Organizations Psychology, 24 (4), 203 – 214.
Khoreva, V. (2016). Leadership development practices as drivers of employee attitudes. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31 (2), 537 – 551.
