On Becoming a Leader Essay

The book I chose to review is On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis. At the crux of this book is a search to note how crestership argon do. end-to-end the book, the reason tries to prove through polls and observations, that attractors ar not born but argon made through a conspiracy of nature and nurture. Leaders who excel tend to seduce similar characteristics which pass been developed by a series of experiences in their lives (these include cover mis contemplates, taking risks and get winding from adversity).Another idea discussed in the book is that of the role of education in devising attractions. Bennis notes a number of qualities and abilities that are cat valium amongst the leaders he interacts with. Some of those are relating well to others, deponeing others and in turn being trustworthy, the ability to motivate the great unwashed and to not flip over up, inspiration and competence in the job. However, he claims that a major bother in business & lead ing is the societal illness of our sequence (as said by Norman Lear to him) short term thinking.He highlights end-to-end the book that this form of thinking is not beneficial to ecesiss and that a true(p) leader should be cap equal to(p) to look further and not fall through the short term too much importance. At i distributor point he claims that short term thinking is what kills one of the most all most-valuable(predicate) attributes a leader essential have innovation. The author mentions that leaders are grave to an organization since they are of paramount importance to the operational get alongance, stableness and integrity of the organization.To this end, Warren Bennis presents in a systematic manner miscellaneous attributes that are required of a leader to be able to perform well. The first attribute discussed is the ability to Master the context. In this chapter, the author discusses the circumstance that a leader must be able to attend the reasons and outcome s of several(predicate) situations. Only once he has managed this, forget he be able to act in the best possible way for his organization. This is in line with what we have learned throughout our course regarding improving ones self-awareness as well as the 4 perspectives of organizational imprintiveness.A leader must be able to study the context of bring in and respond by being aware that he needs to look after assorted perspectives of people and systems related to the organization. The second thing discussed is consciousness the basics, which is quite similar to mastering the context. In this, Warren Bennis explains that leaders need to discover the underlying concepts at work before qualification decisions. He lists a series of attributes that can be found in most leaders including self-knowledge, passion, vision and trust.He argues that most of the leaders are not born with these attributes but life experiences and a desire to lead people enables them to develop a effe ctual appreciation of this. Their attempt to arrive and learn are much higher than on average and they actively pursue these mounts while taking risks and placing littleer importance on their drive for safety. In this he also discusses the difference amongst managing people and confidential information them. We have gone through various depicted objects related directly to this effect in class.According to me, one of the strongest drives an exclusive has is the drive to safety. An individual would be much much than comfortable if they can trust their leader. The ability to understand the thought process of their leader and their belief/trust in him helps edge up their drive for safety. Across cultures, people tend to avoid hesitation and if a leader is able to, through knowledge and an understanding, provide people with an image of consistency it goes a long way in cave in people and reducing stress. The third lesson is knowing yourself.Warren Bennis argues that in re vision to lead others, one must fully understand themselves. To be able to trust your decisions/inner find outings is extremely important for leading people and making correct choices. The author goes on to highlight 4 lessons that enable an individual to understand themselves. They are you are your own best teacher, judge responsibility, you can learn anything you want to learn and true understanding comes from reflecting on your own experience. All these lessons are at the snapper of organizational behavior as we have learnt.These 4 lessons can keep even so to organizations as well as being useful for individuals. Self-concept is an important part of an individuals firebrand up and to feed that we must be able to reflect on our past experiences to learn from them. cordial learning, learning through reinforcement and learning through experience are discussed as important factors of learning in organizations in our course. I desire this same applies to individuals as they ar e able to develop their affectionate identicalness and self-concept through these lessons.Next, the author discusses Knowing the world. This wees a similar bridle-path to the previous subject of knowing yourself, while developing a great scope to the understanding. Cultural understanding is an extremely important attribute in a leader. In an change magnitudely diverse workforce coupled with increasing globalization, a leader must have the ability to and desire to understand various cultures and behaviors. Values and behavior are very different for different cultures, and a lot of organizations have failed due to the incompatible understanding of their leaders.The HP-Compaq spinal fusion was a major case where while it was beneficial financially and operationally for the companies to merge, their leaders were not able to fully adapt the two accompanys cultures properly, causing the merger to have not performed anywhere get on expectations. angiotensin-converting enzyme poin t that I found particularly interesting and mat up that was very important was the need for a person to find a mentor who can help them enhance and shape their cultural understanding. The social learning aspect discusses similar concepts, where a person learns from someone whom they purpose to be.Being able to find a mentor who has an in erudition understanding of cultures, or at least has a desire to learn cultural differences can help an individual become a more complete leader. The beside thought discussed by the author is Operating on instinct. This interchange focuses on the fact that a good leader should be able to believe in himself and should be able to take decisions from his gut feeling. More often than not a leader and even individuals will have to make decisions without knowing all the details they would want to know.The presence of incomplete information should not make the leader less likely to make a decision. A good leader will have developed enough self-awaren ess and through self-evaluation and verification be able to rely on his instinct to make the right choice. This enables the leader to be able to quickly and decisively contemplate and decide issues. The next discussion is based on Deploying yourself. In this the author talks about the fact that a successful leader is a person who is willing to take on challenges even though he might have failed in earlier challenges.The drive to learn and acquire are, I feel, major contributors to this topic. A good leader will be able to reflect on his past experiences and learn from them and this gives them confidence to continually drive for newer challenges and tasks. Another topic discussed is Moving through chaos. In this chapter, Warren Bennis describes the difference between all individuals and leaders. He points out that everyone faces problems and issues in their career, but that leaders study these problems and tend to learn from these.Conflict resolution can take umteen forms through t hird-party conflict resolution or negotiation. Leaders reflect on their conflicts and develop an understanding of how to overcome those challenges. Getting people on your view is the next topic covered. The main point of this discussion, and a very important learning for me personally, is the ability of the leader to be trustworthy. To be trusted, a leader must display consistency in his actions, congruity meaning what they say, authentic to their followers and have a strong integrity. This once again gravitates towards the drive for safety individuals have.To be lead by someone, an individual must trust them to act on their behalf and be able to predict to a plastered extent what their leaders will do for them. The concept of romanticizing leadership is mountain to this ability of leaders. If a leader is able to bring their employees/followers on their side, the leaders ability to work through tasks and challenges is increased. Even mistakes made by them will be viewed in a po sitive light, enable them to continue taking risks. Organizations can help or hinder is the next topic that is discussed.This focuses on the fact different organizations will have different expectations from their leaders. The culture at an organization will dictate how well a leader will be able to lead the organization. A good leader will be able to understand the context of the organization and will try to devise strategies he can implement to make changes. The author also mentions that the leader should try and develop organizational characteristics that are in line with their culture. This also transposes into the last discussion of Forging the incoming.The impediments faced by leaders in an organization can be very hard, but a good leader will be able to develop his own culture and characteristics to move the organization forward. One major issue I had with this book was that while the author continually refers to short term thinking as a societal disease he himself to a cer tain extent subscribes to that notion. His interaction with the leaders seems comparatively very short term. Throughout the statements made in the book, it felt that the interviews were more about successful past rather than forward looking.I understand that one of the major attributes is to learn from experiences but the Id choose if the author also focused equally on the leaders thoughts about the future. Secondly I felt that there was quite a bit of political commentary in the book. I knew that it was going to have some after reading the reviews while selecting the book, but the political leadership aspect seemed to be a comparatively one sided. I feel that the author could have refrained from making this political and focused instead on the corporate leadership aspect.