Leadership Legacy free essay sample

Many people believe that leadership is simply being the first, biggest or most powerful. In January 2007, J. Lee Whittington presented the lecture on â€Å"Leadership legacy†, at a video tutoring session at University of Dallas. Leadership is an intentional influence. A leader is interpreted as someone who sets direction in an effort and influences people to follow that direction. Leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources for achieving organizational or societal goals. There are different styles of leadership but great leadership depends on vision, motive, and involvement of people in decision making process. J. Lee’s leadership style consists of a leader who inspires followers to share a common vision, encourages people to achieve the vision, and provides necessary resources for the development of personal potential. In general, this leadership style is more than the fulfillment of self-interest or provision of rewards. On the other hand, looking at my government’s leadership style, leadership is more like fulfillment of self-interest and does not share common vision. We will write a custom essay sample on Leadership Legacy or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This style is more on controlling people and giving out orders. Leaders, who adapt this type of leadership, tend to make use of their authority to reward or penalize people under them. Leaders tend to focus on asserting power, pointing out errors and disciplining subordinates with poor performance. In general, the qualities of J. Lee’s leadership style are opposite to my government style of leadership. Leader, who uses J. Lee’s leadership paradigm, serves as a role model, brings commitment, and supports optimism. Great leadership also depends on the motives of a leader. It question leaders; are they doing so that other can shine and reach their potential? Or do they just have a personal agenda? J. Lee’s style of leadership sees a leader’s motive as outristic, where the motive of a leader is to use his power for the betterment of an organization or help the people to succeed. This kind of leadership motive helps building healthy inter-dependence relationship rather than dependent relationship. Here, the goal of the leadership is to prepare others to lead independently. In government leadership style, which is more like an egotistic motive pattern; a leader uses his power to promote himself. Here, a leader uses relations to advance him. This kind of leadership motive builds dependent relationship and treats people as a servant. Egotistic motive is all about one’s personal achievement. Hence, leadership, who uses outristic motive, helps in leading the people to groom them and to make them autonomous, independent, and wiser, so they can reach their full potential. In J. Lee’s style of leadership, although a leader will make the final decision, but he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. By doing this, team members feel in control of their own destiny, so they are motivated by more than just a financial reward to work hard. Here, the subordinates have the right to voice out their ideas and thoughts, which they think would be helpful for the leader in making the final decision. On the other hand, in government leadership style, a leader exerts high levels of power over his or her team members. People within the team are given few opportunities for making suggestions, even if these are in the teams interest. Also, the teams output does not benefit from the creativity and experience of all team members, so many of the benefits of teamwork are lost. As participation takes time, J. Lee’s style can lead to things happening more slowly than government leadership style approach, but often the end result is better. It can be most suitable where team working is essential, and where quality is more important than speed to productivity. In conclusion, great leadership depends on vision, motive, and involvement of people in decision making process. Leadership, who uses their power for the betterment of people to succeed them, and invites people to contribute in decision-making process, actually makes people to realize their self-direction and self-actualization.