Philosophy on Leadership: A Student’s Perspective
Leadership is a topic that has been discussed and talked about widely in today’s society yet is still an ambiguous concept that has not been thoroughly and empirically studied enough. These times are filled with corporate misfortunes and CEO blunders. These mistakes come from leadership and affect people and businesses all over the world, poor and rich. Although, the idea of leadership has been around for centuries, it first began with the great man theories: that leaders are born and not made, and later evolved into Fred Fielder’s contingency of leadership which states that a person’s leadership style is related to the favorableness of the situation; and then into several other forms of leadership styles and practices: authentic leadership, directive leadership, authoritative vs. democratic leadership. The list of styles goes on. With the evolution of dozens of theories on leadership, it’s a sign that we are getting somewhere; putting certainty into this elusive construct. It is a concept that since the beginning of its study has been dynamic and not static. The following discourse is a philosophy of leadership from a college student’s perspective, filled with definitions, real life examples, implications and suggestions for how we can develop ourselves into “self-leaders”.
DEFINED
First, before I go into Philosophy. I want to operationally and literally define leadership as I see it. It’s a “ship” in that, being a leader is not just a title or position, but “a state of being”. You are being and acting as a leader. A leader is someone who mentors, teaches, facilitates and guides. A person, who can establish a following, must be doing something positive in the eyes of the followers. They believe in something that the leader is doing and stands for, they believe in it enough to follow. Once people start following you, you become a leader. A leader is one who has a positive relationship with followers, guiding them towards a common goal. Therefore one who engages in the art of leadership, in this perspective, is in a state of being in a positive relationship with followers, guiding them towards a common goal; in which the common goal is a positive change of some sort. Positive change of course is subjective but they are changing something whether it’s their drinking habits, a law or pursuing higher-learning.
One last thing on definition; earlier mentioned was the word “art.” The art of leadership… why is leadership not a science? Why is it being referred to as an art? Science is more of an objective and systematic concept that does not have much, if any, wiggle room. For example, the science behind 2+2 = 4; that’s fact and there is no way around it. Two apples added to two more apples will give you a grand total of four apples. The art application is more subjective, creative and imaginative. Well, what if you have two 10 pound apples (20 pounds total) and added those two apples to two one pound apples? You still have 4 apples but there are 10 one pound apples in each of those two bigger apples so really you have a possible total of 22 one pound apples! So, the point I’m trying to make is that leadership is an art in that it is a subjective idea and is perceived differently from everyone. Leadership is like a painting that can be constantly transformed, analyzed and interpreted differently by anyone. For instance, some feel Hitler was a leader. His German people thought he was engaging in positive change for Germany. Then there’s Martin Luther King, MLK traveled all over the U.S speaking with political figures and audiences in major cities. In Chicago, he wanted social change, however, MLK had a tour schedule and had three days or so, to strike a peace deal with the Mayor, Richard Daley in Chicago. Mayor Daley needed to win an election and wasn’t to fond of blacks, yet, if he got MLK’s people to vote for him, he could win, MLK needed peace, Daley needed votes, what a great trade. In the end Daley got his votes, MLK got his picture and headlines shaking Daley’s hands, symbolizing peace. However, the black citizens of Chicago remained in their same impoverished, oppressed situation. There are three sides to every story, his side, her side, and the truth, so these leadership situations are subjective to the beliefs and perspective of what others think is real. If there was a science behind leadership, then we could all follow the same formula and lead the same way. Leadership is an art, we’ve got to be creative in the way we engage and guide/ facilitate others.
PHILOSOPHY
Now that a definition and a few examples have been discussed, we can move into my philosophy of leadership. Like the concept itself, my philosophy has been dynamic and changing. Leadership and followership is a reciprocal relationship; like a seesaw. Where leaders and followers lift each other up and support one another when the other is down. It’s a process where leading involves inspiring others through the alignment of thoughts with actions, being enabling, encouraging and challenging the status-quo; all in pursuit of a shared vision with the common goal of creating positive change. A leader is not a leader if there is no one following. If no one is following you, your actions and ideas, then what are you possibly leading; yourself? Leadership starts with leading yourself before you can guide and lead others. It starts with caring about yourself before you can even care about others. You would think that people put themselves first before others right? Some would argue “no” saying that humans are not completely selfish and that we humans are capable of doing unselfish acts. If giving your time, money and energy to a not-for-profit or feeding the hungry is considered an unselfish act, I beg to differ. You go beyond yourself, helping others, in order to put meaning into your life, it makes us feel good and fulfilled; and there’s nothing wrong with that. So, as for leading self before others goes, one must align their thoughts with their actions and hold true to themselves. Others will see the authenticity and genuineness in your actions. They will see how real, not fake, of a person you are. The actions themselves will inspire others to follow. In a nutshell, leadership starts with leading yourself, caring for yourself, believing in yourself, and this must happen first before others can genuinely believe, care and follow you and align their thoughts, goals and actions with yours. As stated before, if you don’t care about yourself, how can you ever care about others? Your potential followers will see that you can’t lead or care for yourself, and will not trust in your ability to do the same for them.
ISMs
The following is an interestingly weird idea I’ve come up with. As one of my favorite movie characters states, “Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself.” – Ferris Bueller. I had to include that quote. An ism is a doctrine, a theory. I understand where Mr. Bueller is coming from. Don’t believe in what others theorize but believe in what you feel is right. But, you could still have an “ism, a theory that I believe in myself and my own theory’s; Self-ism perhaps?” However, I also see leadership as an “ism” (although we don’t say “leadershipism”)…..but an “ism” is a system of beliefs, theories and practices and in this case, a leader has a systematic (a set of interdependent components: shared visions and goals) relationship with followers where they are engaged in a state of being one who leads others. Although it was stated that leadership is an art and not a science (full of objective systematic concepts and ways of doing things), leadershipism is then a subjective art and a systematic art? No, but an individual leader has a way, a dynamic systematic way of dealing with themselves, others and situations. Meaning a leader believes in their way, their own system of doing things. Just like an artist has a systematic approach to their art. I recently watched an interview with a music artist; the musician mentioned they do well making music in a studio, or on the road in a touring bus. The process of making music has a system of recording, cutting, pasting, dubbing and looping tracks, put the way it’s done, and where and why, is the artistic part. There’s an objective systematic way of doing our subjective art. This is the way I lead, that’s the way you lead; my system of leading is subjective to my isms (beliefs) and so forth. We all have isms.
CHARACTERISTICS
Leadership is something that can be taught. People can learn leadership practices, styles and behaviors. Our beliefs are subjective to our thoughts on leadership, which in turn, are reflected via our actions. People are not genetically engineered and born as leaders. It’s also not a position that’s hierarchical in that the leader is always at the top, however, is instead at the bottom. Leaders lift up followers and vice versa. A leader is one who has integrity, is genuine and authentic. A leader is a person who is open-minded and willing to listen; one who is knowledgeable, wise and realistic. As a result, the leader is charismatic, confident, yet knows when to be humble. Humility is important because it allows us to relate to others at their level. We were once followers, we were once not leaders and in someone else’s shoes, in their position. A leader who is humble is able to see things through the lenses of others and realize they too were once not the best. For example, I’ve excelled significantly fast in the short time that I’ve been fencing. I’ve met fencers who have been engaged in competitions for over five years and still are at or below the same rating as I am, a “D.” Yet I have to be humble when I teach others and realize that I too was once at their level as a beginner, not getting things right but trying to do the right thing. Even when I was a salesman, some of the best salesmen had “snooty attitudes” because they were not able to see thing from another person’s perspective and realize they too were once a novice salesmen and could not sell in the beginning. They always made the worst managers, usually the authoritative type of manager. A person who can stop and listen, and then empathize, fosters understanding which breeds humility. That is a characteristic or quality of a leader.
LDR vs. MGMT
Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing. – Warren Bennis
A leader must have followers. Without followers or anyone following you, then who or what are you leading? Managers to need to be leaders in order to manage; however, leaders need to know how to manage people, situations and themselves. Managers have subordinates who will come work for your money; leaders have followers who come give you their blood sweat and tears because they have “ism’s” that parallel yours. I use to thing the study of leadership was a joke and many of my friends still do. But then I’ll raise the question, if your manager or boss quite tomorrow, would you follow them? The answer is always no. Well the, you are just a subordinate and not a follower. A follower is a leader’s helper, and subordinate is a manager’s worker. I like the idea of leaders and followers helping each other out of intrinsic motivation, not managers and subordinates who work for each other for external financial incentives. This is why leadership is important, leaders need to be able to manage others and situations as well as lead; managers need to do that too, minus the leading part. So I tell my friends, Imagine you had a manger that you followed, that manager would then be a leader because they have at least one follower, you; and you guys believe in the same thing, you could potentially be business partners on a deal. You are no longer alone because you have someone your share commonalities with on a higher level. There’s a reason why Industrial Organizational Psychology is the unsaturated, in high demand and the highest paying field in Psychology. Large corporations like Home Depot, Lowes, Jet Blue, Amazon, EBay, Starbucks, and Facebook want psychologist who can develop their managers into leaders, to be able to encourage, enable, model the way and motivate through inspiration, their workers; creating a more productive an positive work environment. Manager’s maintain the status quo and manage things, making sure things are going the right way; leaders facilitate positive change to making sure the people they lead are doing the right things.
IMPORTANCE
To have a story is to exist. – Isak Dinesen
I had thought of the pursuit of a leadership studies minor a joke. When a friend has she was minoring in it, I laughed. Yet I needed a minor to pair up well with my major psychology, specifically Industrial Organizational psychology. Leadership was suggested by a professor, I looked more into and found the program amazing in that there was so much community and campus involvement. The USF CLCE (Center for Leadership and Community Engagement) had many programs such as the Big Brother Big Sister program, seminars, lectures, a minor and a certified student leader program. It caught my attention because I had always been interested in sales and self-help books; the concept of motivation, inspiration, coaching and self-improvement, and the role managers and bosses play in it. And all this time it was filed under the subject: Leadership.
Leadership is important, I feel many students, for example, don’t realize that they can be called or be a caller; or in other words, be a leader or be lead. If you’re not leading of managing your life, then something or some else is, and what they have planned for you might not be something you like. There are a lot of people in general walking in the dark because they don’t have a leadership flashlight enabling them to see a path or goal. Some need leadership because they are static with no goals to accomplish. Leaders encourage/ enable followers to have: a reason to wake up every morning; a reason that’s worth dying for. The static and lost person is working to live instead of living to work or engage in the work they enjoy doing. And that’s an important part of leadership; leaders enable and encourage their followers to having meaningful purposes in life; to pursue their goals, to live before you die. – Steve Jobs
Experience and development
There’s one story I always like to tell, and I tell it to my friends who use the word “can’t.” People feel as if they need to have something in order to do or be something. I always here: I don’t have enough time or I don’t have enough money, I don’t have the GPA. Lead, guide and manage your thoughts and perspectives. If you monitor your thoughts and manage them, this develops self-awareness. When I finally decided to pursue a PhD in grad school, I knew I need research experience and a better GPA. To be a research assistant I needed to do some asking, emailing and door knocking with professors. In order to do those things, I had to have a GPA at or above a 3.5. That’s what every flyer in the psychology department wanted as a prerequisite to being a research assistant in any lab. I gave up before I even started. But, I was a salesman, and still am at hart. I knew it was a numbers game and not every will turn me down. I was genuinely interested in Industrial Psychology and Leadership development so I changed my way of thinking and started saying I can be a research assistant. I do enough research in class as it is so I’m already a researcher. I then started the process of finding an internship; now I have one. Now I have a higher GPA and grades because I approach every project an assignment with hard work as a researcher would. Leadership starts with leading yourself, being self-aware, motivating and inspiring oneself and being positive. I’ll always miss 100% of the shots I never take.
Implications: Leading yourself first
Discovering and mapping the implications of what leadership is to me has been an educationally challenging process over the past year. Since early January, I had acquired two research assistant positions studying leadership in an applied setting and theories based on research. At the same time, I changed my political science minor to the leadership minor, and engaged myself in being a part of the certified student leadership program at USF. I’ve learned a lot about leadership, enough to apply in everyday life. I went into these various programs with the intention of learning how I can apply the concept to others and develop programs and people into leaders. However, I’ve developed as a leader myself, from coaching and instructing at two fencing schools, to taking over group projects and facilitating members to lead themselves, to encouraging my friend Josh to seek an internship regardless of his GPA; if I could find an internship with a low GPA, so could you. What I’ve found out was that leadership first starts with managing and leading myself. It just takes the will to do something, the self-motivation and drive, to want something badly enough, realizing that obstacles will get in the way to try and stop you, and when they do, figure out a way to work through and around them. Where there’s a will, there’s a leader who can facilitate the way. That leadership starts within us.