Leadership - The Power of Influence
I have dealt with this situation far too often in many organizations (school, work, sports, religious, etc., non-profit) and that I thought I would address the issue and see what your opinion is on the matter.
As many of you know organizations (as is society) are usually divided up in a hierarchy based on position of authority or experience. Individuals who have been there for a long time or of higher authority are usually esteemed over people of little experience in the area and/or people with less power. That’s just the common norm in society.
Now pretend you are the boss, coach, president, etc. of an organization. Given the following two scenarios which way would you think would be most effective way to manage/lead the individuals’ in your organization?
A) You value performance of the individuals and the organization; and only the members of the organization that have shown greatness should be focused on. Therefore, you only know the names of the top performers or the ones who have brought in the most money, clientele or medals. You are too busy and only have a limited amount of resources; therefore you focus on the top performers and neglect/don’t get to know the other individuals until they prove themselves to you. For example, in sports the leader would focus only the medal winners and overlook the accomplishments of the other athletes. When you think of the Olympics, usually only the Gold medal winners are focused on (maybe sometimes Silver or Bronze) but you rarely hear of non-medal winners. Why is that??? Aren’t they important??
B) Even though the leader is busy, they believe the success of the organization involves including and praising the accomplishments of all the individuals and the team as a whole. They would do this by getting to know everyone involved and realizing that everyone’s role is important and necessary to the organization’s success. They would focus on the treating the new ones with respect and listening to their ideas as much as the people that have been there a long time.
Which leadership style do you think is more effective???
In my experience, most organizations differ in their definition of success. Some leaders believe that having one or two “successful” people is what is important. Other leaders believe that having a successful organization involves focusing on the entire operation and the value of everyone involved. I think way too many leaders are stuck on the individual levels and need to focus on the entire structure and everyone involved. As the saying goes there is no “I” in team. Society needs to start their shift, as Free the Children would say, from “Me to We”.
Thank you for reading and your presence at this beach retreat. You Rock! I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comment section below.
See you at the beach!
