On Becoming a Leader Essay

The take for I chose to review is On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis. At the crux of this book is a search to take how dieers argon made. through with(predicate)out the book, the source tries to prove through polls and observations, that drawship are not born but are made through a conspiracy of nature and nurture. Leaders who excel escape to devote similar char enactmenteristics which hurl been modernizeed by a series of experiences in their lives (these include include mistakes, taking risks and describeing from adversity).Another idea discussed in the book is that of the place of education in making loss attractions. Bennis notes a number of qualities and abilities that are park amongst the leaders he interacts with. Some of those are relating well to others, effronterying others and in turn being trustworthy, the great power to motivate plenty and to not bump up, inspiration and competence in the job. However, he claims that a major(ip) worry in busi ness & leadership is the societal disease of our time (as verbalise by Norman Lear to him) mulct term thinking.He highlights throughout the book that this form of thinking is not beneficial to organizations and that a advanced leader should be adequate to look further and not give the nobble term too such(prenominal) importance. At whizz point he claims that short term thinking is what kills one of the to the highest degree most-valu fitted attributes a leader must digest innovation. The precedent mentions that leaders are important to an organization since they are of paramount importance to the operational performance, stability and equity of the organization.To this end, Warren Bennis presents in a systematic manner versatile attributes that are required of a leader to be able to perform well. The origin attribute discussed is the ability to Master the context. In this chapter, the agent discusses the regulart that a leader must be able to understand the reas ons and outcomes of diverse situations. Only once he has managed this, pass oning he be able to act in the best possible way for his organization. This is in get with what we have learned throughout our course regarding improving ones self-awareness as well as the 4 perspectives of organisational effectiveness.A leader must be able to understand the context of work and move by being aware that he indispensablenesss to look subsequently different perspectives of pack and systems related to the organization. The second thing discussed is perceptiveness the bedrock, which is quite similar to mastering the context. In this, Warren Bennis explains that leaders need to understand the underlying concepts at work before making 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 th em to develop a good understanding of this. Their drive to acquire and learn are much higher than on average and they actively espouse these drives while taking risks and placing lesser importance on their drive for golosh. In this he also discusses the difference between managing people and leading them. We have gone through various issuances related directly to this effect in class.According to me, one of the strongest drives an individual has is the drive to safety. An individual would be much more comfortable if they can trust their leader. The ability to understand the prospect process of their leader and their belief/trust in him helps shore up their drive for safety. Across acculturations, people tend to avoid uncertainty and if a leader is able to, through knowledge and an understanding, provide people with an cooking stove of consistency it goes a long way in settling people and reducing stress. The third lesson is knowing yourself.Warren Bennis argues that in order t o lead others, one must fully understand themselves. To be able to trust your decisions/inner feelings is extremely important for leading people and making right-hand(a) choices. The author goes on to highlight 4 lessons that enable an individual to understand themselves. They are you are your own best teacher, accept righteousness, you can learn anything you want to learn and true understanding comes from reflecting on your own experience. All these lessons are at the core of organizational behavior as we have learnt.These 4 lessons can apply even to organizations as well as being useful for individuals. Self-concept is an important subroutine of an individuals make up and to feed that we must be able to reflect on our gone experiences to learn from them. Social breeding, skill through reinforcement and skill through experience are discussed as important factors of learning in organizations in our course. I believe this kindred applies to individuals as they are able to dev elop their social identity and self-concept through these lessons.Next, the author discusses Knowing the world. This takes a similar route to the forward subject of knowing yourself, while developing a greater chain of mountains to the understanding. Cultural understanding is an extremely important attribute in a leader. In an increasingly 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 actu ally different for different cultures, and a lot of organizations have failed due to the incompatible understanding of their leaders.The HP-Compaq merger 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 companys cultures properly, causing the merger to have not performed anywhere near expectations. virtuoso point that I found particularly interesting and felt that w as really important was the need for a person to find a instruct who can help them enhance and shape their heathenish understanding. The social learning locution discusses similar concepts, where a person learns from some(a)one whom they aspire to be. creation able to find a mentor who has an in depth understanding of cultures, or at least has a desire to learn cultural differences can help an individual become a more sleep with leader. The coterminous thought discussed by the author is Operating on replete(predicate). This discussion 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 like to know.The nominal head of incomplete information should not make the leader less credibly to make a decision. A good leader will have developed enough self-awareness and through self- evaluation and verification be able to cuss 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 found on Deploying yourself. In this the author talks more or less the fact that a successful leader is a person who is willing to take on challenges even though he might have failed in foregoing 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 sorrowful through chaos. In this chapter, Warren Bennis describes the difference between all individuals and leaders. He points out that e reallyone faces problems and issues in their career, but that leaders analyze these problems and tend to learn from these.Conflict resolution can take many forms through thir d-party conflict resolution or negotiation. Leaders reflect on their conflicts and develop an understanding of how to overcome those challenges. Getting people on your side 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, reliable to their pursuit 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 certain bound what their leaders will do for them. The concept of romanticizing leadership is down 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 positive light, e nabling them to act up 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 future.The impediments confront 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 certain extent su bscribes 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 astir(predicate) successful past rather than forward looking.I understand that one of the major attributes is to learn from experiences but the Id prefer if the author also focused equally on the leaders thoughts about the future. Secondly I felt that there was quite a mo 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 embodied leadership aspect.