Introduction Robert Bruce Shaw, in his book Leadership Blindspots: How Successful Leaders Identify and Overcome the Weaknesses That Matter (Jossey-Bass, April 2014), explains the most common blindspots he has seen while working as an executive coach for many professionals. Shaw noticed that unseen weaknesses occur in four areas: self, team, company, and markets. In this book, Shaw is trying to help leaders identify weaknesses, threats and other vulnerabilities that can negatively impact a leader 's effectiveness, results, and career. Shaw explains how blindspots work and why they persist, but also provides techniques for identifying them and taking action before they create lasting damage. This book provides some insight into how a clearly good decision made at some time can end up being a killer decision in the end. Shaw shows how good judgment is built on bad judgment, which means that you learn mainly as a result of your mistakes. According to Shaw 's experience, mistakes may happen everywhere within a company or organization, including those made at the top level. Mistakes happen for a variety of reasons, including a lack of adequate information at the time the decision was made and, in the end, simply a wrong choice made by the leader. Shaw identifies as blindspots …show more content…
He suggests at least six types of people, with each type possessing specialized knowledge and expertise in one of the following areas: markets and strategy; technology and innovation; organizations and people; politics; crises management; and personal impact. Although it is challenging for a leader to find individuals who have these types of expertise, Shaw emphasizes that great leaders seek the expertise and honest assessment of other trusted experts who can constructively recognize a leader’s performance gaps and provide advice to close those
The book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick is an in-depth narrative about the 1st platoon, Bravo Company 1-502nd Infantry 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq in 2005. The leadership failures documented in this book range all the way from the general officer level down to the lowest private. LT general Ricardo Sanchez failed to understand the climate his command group was entering as they were deployed into Iraq. From then on the entire leadership failures continued to compound upon each other with improper time to plan. It is customary to have a six month lead time to have a proper battle hand off when preparing to take over an AO from another unit. To compound this problem, the entire time the 502nd was in pre-deployment training, they were preparing for the rigors of urban combat. In reality, they were given six weeks to recon their new area of responsibility and were going to a countryside crafted by the heavens for guerilla warfare. As Colonel Ebel said in the book, “It is not going to be an easy road. They are not even sure of what they have in the area. It just feels bad. We can expect a real fight.”
Power is earned, not given. There are many different types of power that people can earn. Power becomes a problem when it is not questioned or tested. Therefore, the one with the power would have total control over anything or anyone they wanted, or they would feel that way. People with power feel invincible when it is not questioned. Throughout history it has been proven that this creates a problem. For example, Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal is similar to the scandal with Father Flynn in Doubt. Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley, exemplifies an underlying message that unquestioned faith leads to abuse of power. Specifically, shown in Father Flynn’s reputation, cover up, and resignation, which all correlate to Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal.
Black Hearts is a great example of the reality on how severe bad leadership skills can ripple throughout a unit and impact its overall mission. This book serves as a guide for future leaders of America and will set the examples of what not to do in leadership positions. The lessons we can take from these soldiers can help us as potential leaders to become more competent and effective. The fact that this book focused on the hardships, poor decisions and sound judgment of the soldiers it helped emphasize on what was not the best choice of action and leaves a moment for you as the audience to think how you would of done it better. So right or wrong there was a lesson to be learned and the book did a good job including the reader. This book puts you in the shoes of a small group of soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment and gives you an up close and personal take on the experience of the soldiers, from the bottom of the the ranks all the way up to the commander. 502nd Bravo Company 1st platoon deployed in the fall of 2005 into one of the most dangerous battle zones in Iraq known as the “Triangle of Death”. Thrown into the heartland of a growing insurgency, with undefined goals and a shortage of manpower, Bravo Company began piling up casualties at an alarming rate. They suffered many losses, as well as mental anguish. Because of the long and tragic deployment, a collapse in leadership began to unfold causing one of the most tragic, brutal, and infamous deployments in U.S Army history. There were many reasons that caused the deconstruction of leadership, and eventually, the actions of the soldiers accompanied by the lack of control, lead to the rape and murder of an innocent Iraqi girl and her family. This is a story about character...
This discussion will focus on leadership as described by Robert Dees in The Resilience Trilogy, Resilient Leaders text. The points made in the book can be personally related. The three most important concepts learned from chapter 1 and 2 are tribulation, risk management, and selflessness. It is crucial for anyone is seeking to delve into leadership that everything will not happen as planned all the time. After a leader experience failure, knowing the avenues to take to regain a solid footing is also key to successful leadership. Often leaders who are unaware of available resources fold and give up. In the military profession, when someone gets knock down they get up brush themselves off and get back in the fight.
Kellerman, B. (2004). Bad Leadership: What it is, How it Happens, Why it Matters. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press.
Assessment tools can be a good start for individuals to assess their leadership characteristics and skills, such as Grossman and Valiga’s Leadership Characteristcs and Skills Assessment (Grossman and Valiga, 2013). These tools may be helpful but its accuracy is questionable. The assessment can overestimate or underestimate an individual’s skills since it is a self-subjective administered assessment that is biased towards the taker. An overconfident person may perceive their skills highly and an under confident person may have low results.
First when a leader focuses on the strengths of the employees the odds of the employee being engaged will increase dramatically. This compares to chapter one of our text book in that it says an effective leader is one who helps group members attain productivity. The second key is that the most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people and maximize their team. The book suggest when leaders try to be good at everything they will not be great at anything. Although it is often preached to be well-rounded this results in mediocrity. So instead trying to be good at everything, find and know your strengths and hone those skills to be a more effective leader. The authors say there are four domains of leadership with thirty-four themes that break-down under the domains and these explain the actual strengths of the leader. The domains are executing, influencing, relationship building and strategic thinking. In our text book all but influencing are listed as one of the ten roles of leadership. ...
Transformational leadership also integrates well with a biblical worldview because both advocate valuing followers as well as leaders, the importance of ethical behavior, the need to forgive and learn from mistakes, and the value of a high moral example. Kouzes and Posner advocate leaders having a “moral authority to lead” (2007, p. 41), practicing personal accountability and working to improve all aspects of their follower’s lives. This others-centered leadership approach fits well in the Christ centered atmosphere of a Christian school.
The mission to carry out a considerable quantity of evaluations and hypothetical discussions to encounter specific styles or features inclined towards a lucrative approach to implement leadership styles in an organization (Oliver, 2006). As stated by Adair in the year 1998, learning from theories does not make an individual a successful leader, however, his own will and personal motivation leads him to become a successful leader and get your hands on the expertise firmly (Adair , 1998).
When it comes to management and leadership within any organization, there are fundamental components to consider, of which, managers of all backgrounds embody. One way to briefly assess these foundations is through Personal Assessment of Management Skills (PAMS), allowing examination of skill competencies from a number of strengths and weaknesses that can be brought to attention. This analysis will briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the PAMS examination results and analyze the skill competencies and how they impact the role as an ethical leader. For the purpose of this examination, strengths will be assumed to be topics where the quality is in abundance. This comes with the assumption that while their importance may
“On leadership” was written by John W. Gardner (The Free Press, New York, 1990). He used seventeen chapters to explain and describe essential components for the leadership should be in a successful organization. This book not only has significant influence now, but also for the future. Below are my understanding about this book, which was divided into two parts. For the first part, I will pick up some perspectives which influence me most from this book. For the second part, which is my comments and critique about this book.
Morgan, T. (2007). Overpower Weak Leaders. Business Journal (Central New York), Vol. 21 Issue 16, p26-26. Retrieved from EBSCOhost
Cultivating a taste for failure and chaos Schmidt encourages it: “Please fail very quickly—so that you can try again.. he had praised an executive who made a several-million-dollar blunder: “‘I’m so glad you made this mistake. Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.’”
Skills are a basic requirement, but traits are essential in leadership. Traits are unique in defining an individual’s character. A combination of strong skills and traits that include emotional intelligence and knowledge of leadership behaviors become critical factors for a leader to lead effectively. It is important for a leader to possess “effective managerial skills at some level” (Kreitner 465). On the other hand, a leader will be equipped to turn a “…vision into actionable items and successful implementation” (465) by possessing traits that are needed to achieve results.
Many people associate leadership with a specific job title or form of power within an organization. However, through personal experience, I have concluded that leadership can come in many forms and position as well as from multiple sources of roles and job titles both with and without power. Based on the definition of leadership, anyone can be considered a leader as long as they have the ability to influence people to achieve a particular result or goal which benefits the organization or group as a whole. Individuals with a secure sense of self and understanding, acceptance of diversity within an organization tend to be the strongest leaders that not only make others want to follow, but they also encourage other leaders to gravitate to their