My view and attitude towards leadership has changed
tremendously with time. Especially in
these last two years since embarking on this journey of higher education. As a youth, growing up playing sports my
initial impressions were that leaders were basically people chosen to tell
others what to do based on their given set skill. I was usually a captain or co-captain of my
soccer teams due to my playing ability, however that did not translate to good
leadership skills. I figured if I told
my teammates what to do and when to do it, that they would simply follow. Little did I know that true leadership was
about being selfless and striving to make others better for the benefit of the
team.
Now that I am working professional I have a better understanding
of what leadership is, its demands, responsibilities, and the importance of inspiring
others. Strong leaders should have the
ability to effectively solve problems, set goal for others and themselves, be
role models, be task oriented, innovative, willing to take risks, and able to
perform under pressure. My
organizational leader exhibits these traits and I feel fortunate to be able to
learn from her. She is forthright with
us when she does not have an answer and she always makes the effort to get us
answers to questions she may not have. I
admire her for the manner in conducts herself, her openness, and willingness to
assist our team with our tasks. She has
been instrumental in my development and I have been fortunate to have a leader
that genuinely cares about what we do, how we do it, and what we can do
collectively to become better. She is a
great motivator. In my most recent
performance evaluation she challenged me to improve in some areas that I was
not aware that I was lacking in. Ever
since our meeting I have focused on her constructive criticism and made some
significant improvements in those areas in my contributions to our team
efforts. As a leader, she saw an area for
me to make improvement in. We all see
ourselves in a certain way and I assumed the job I was doing was good but I
realized thanks to her feedback, that I could do better. Obolensky (2014) wrote “Leadership in any
form cannot produce results without a context within which to exist. And the context within which we live today is
in many ways unique to the history of our species. The changes in technology and knock-on social
changes are the most dramatic ever seen.
Yet our leadership assumptions are still relatively stuck” (p. 5).
The attitudes towards today’s leadership I believe have
significantly changed from the views that my grandparents, my parents, and even
myself have held. Obolensky (2014) wrote
“Many bemoan the fact that the ‘younger generation’ seem to have less respect
towards authority than the older” (p. 3).
I would agree with that assessment.
There are several departments within my organization. In the last year I got to know an individual
that I did not work with directly. His
department is on the same floor as mine.
This individual is in his mid-twenties.
After he was hired (he began as a student assistant) he became very
vocal about the direction of the leadership within his department. He never had anything positive to say about
his manager and I got a sense from him that he felt he could do a better job
than her. He recently left for a new job
opportunity because he was unhappy and for him I think that was the right
decision. His manager has been with our
company for over ten years. It is my
assumption that she must be doing something right. But in this case, here is a millennial that
seems to think he has all the answers and that his more experienced manager had
no clue how to do her job. Generations have
their own differences and are influenced by the events, ideas, and culture of
their respective eras. There seems to be
a great disconnect between how one generation relates to leadership as opposed
to another. Is communication to
blame? Shah (2011) wrote “The
experiences, knowledge and cultural familiarity that each generation carries
can be best delivered through social learning. It is not simply about mentoring
between older people who have more experience in their line of business, but
also learning from other peers in other areas and younger folks the how things
may work differently in different environments” (pg. 3, para. 4). This might be a consideration for
organizations to proactively consider.
Since different generations relate to authority and leadership roles in
such varied manners, why not have a conversation about it and get the
perspectives of these individuals? Somewhere
along the line I believe certain values are being lost. I never would have spoken out of line with my
father because I knew the consequences. I
think that there is a problem today with discipline. Both administering it and teaching it. It is our responsibility to teach our
children that authority is to be respected.
If we can teach the value of respect for positions of leadership and the
context for which leadership roles play, we can change the trend with some of
the younger generational groups that might not be as open to trusting or
accepting of leaders within our organizations.
Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing
paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Gower.
Shah, R. (2011). Working With Five Generations In The Workplace.
Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2011/04/20/working-with-five-generations-in-the-workplace/3/
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