Thursday, March 13, 2008

Effective Leadership

This article will provide brief overview about the concept and definition of leadership, set of competencies required and choices of power available for leaders through which they can work for organizational benefits.
There is no second thought about the fact that like in normal social life, organizations cannot deny existence and effectiveness of leadership for organizational objectives. In the simplest way, leadership can de defined as influencing other to act towards the attainment of a goal (Rehfeld, 1994, Greenwood, 1993) that in organizational sense mean business objectives. To attain such goals, leaders require a distinguished set of competencies, should enjoy some forms of power and can choose from various leadership styles with relevance to scenario requirements (Papers4you.com, 2006).
It was argued that to secure effective leadership, organizations should examine five core competencies including empowerment, intuition, vision, value congruence and self-understanding (Slocum & Hellriegel, 1996). It was argued that through empowerment, leader influences and control followers while intuition-manifested ability of a leader to scan a situation, anticipate changed, and take risk as well build trust. Similarly a leader should have self-understanding of his opt her own strengths and weakness to make best use of his strengths and avoid strategies that can be adversely affected by weaknesses. Moreover the leader should have vision to imagine scenarios and future path and deciding ways to achieve best possible set of strategies related to his visionary future (Papers4you.com, 2006). However one the most important required competency is value congruence that is leader should have ability to understand organizational goals as well as employees values and then reconcile both to optimal level.
Koontz & Weihrich (1990) asserts that for leadership choice organizations should identify the person with a particular set of effective leadership ingredients. That ingredients include ability for effective and responsible utilization of power, ability to realize that in different situations and times human beings get motivated differently, should have inspiration power and ability to ensure conducive motivating climate of his or her team.
Once a leader is chosen with best match of these competencies, leader should consider the best use of available powers he possesses. According to Slocum & Hellriegel (1995), five different powers are available to leaders. They can use legitimate power due to their formal position in organizational hierarchy as well as reward and coercive powers by facilitating ability to influence followers by either rewarding them or to obtain their compliance through punishments fear. As far as leaders own personality charisma is concerned, leader should have ability to use referent power through which followers feel proud to get identification from association with leader. However leaders should have specialized knowledge of the tasks they are controlling so that followers can feel their expert power as well.
Hence the discussion implies that every member of organization can not become a leader so choice of leader should be made with relevance to the competencies and skilled required for effective leadership as well as ability to use power so that followers can get influenced
References
Greenwood, R,G, (1993), Leadership Theory: A Historical Look at its Evolution, Journal of Leadership Studies, Nov, 1993, 3-20
Koontz, H & Weihrich, H, (1990), Essentials of Management, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-hill
Papers For You (2006) "P/M/507. Review of theories on leadership: evolution, styles, keys to success", Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt2.htm 22/06/2006
Papers For You (2006) "E/M/29. Theory of leadership and methods of research", Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt2.htm ">Papers4you.com 21/06/2006
Rehfield, J, E (1994), Academy of a Leader, New York: John Wiley & Sons
Slocum, h & Hellriegel, D (1996), Management, Seventh Edition, Ohio: South-Western College Publishing

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Personal Growth and Prosperity: How to Build Self Esteem the Right Way

Personal Growth and Prosperity: How to Build Self Esteem the Right Way

Mid-Life Crisis? 10 steps you must take now to save your life

Mid-Life Crisis? 10 steps you must take now to save your life
By Craig Nathanson Published 09/8/2007 Self Improvement
Mid-Life Crisis
1. Stop working
Thats right, you read this correct. Stop working and start living. Living with daily joy, happiness and purpose is worth striving for. It is enjoyable and refills the water glass of life with more energy, more passion and more excitement!Start by finding new work which feels like a better alignment of what you truly are interested in and either have or can learn the required abilities. Many people continue to simply work at things which they are good at but no longer have interest in.
2. Find some greater purpose
Identify and find something you feel strongly about or which bothers you about the world and do something about it. For example in America, it bothers me that we are spending billions of dollars in needless wars while our own cities fall apart. We are now a nation of have and have-nots when it comes to medical care. Our educational system is deeply flawed with too much focus on scores and grades and little focus on learning; not to mention too costly as well.Pick something which really bothers you and build a life purpose around it. Your life will never be the same for the better
3. Stand up for your beliefs
Dont be afraid to finally live your life through your causes. Drive yourself finally through internal reward vs. external recognition. Replace old beliefs which are no longer useful with new ones which better serve you
4. Be resilient
Stay focused- strive for more happiness in your life. Make this a goal in itself. Be selfish and define for yourself what being happy really means to you. Despite the barriers and hurdles we must all cross on the journey to more meaning and fulfillment in our lives, keep this vision clear at all times
5. Stay organized and structured
Have a plan for your life. This includes your daily living and your long term goals. Without a plan for ones life with clear intent, when the crisis hits and it will, your personal roadmap and plan will get you through
6. Surround yourself with love
There is no need to be lonely in ones life. Surround yourself with people you love. If necessary, find new people to love and receive love from. Build up your relationships in your life which nurture and support your personal roadmap.
7. Learn to accept your mistakes
This is easier said then done! We are good at beating ourselves up when things go wrong and seldom take the time to reflect when things go well. How can you be more of our own best friend? Learn to accept you as you are. Ask yourself; what can I learn from this past experience? What new wisdom can I gain from my actions? Realize that everything you do or did was for a good reason at the time. Learn to love yourself more and others will too.
8. Dont let the mundane slow you down
Dont let the mundane aspects of life slow you down. Yes, laundry has to be washed, cars need gas, lunches need to be made, and bills need to be paid. Ensure however that each and every day you identify the most important actions you must take to move you towards what you want vs. what you do not want in your life.
9. Take care of your body and mind
Eat well, sleep well and exercise daily. Take time each day to reflect on your feelings and thoughts. Heard this before? Well, it works. When our bodies and minds are stressed, we lose sight of our goals and what is most important to us in our lives. Writing is a good way to reflect on how you doing. Start a daily journal- just before bed; answer the question; what did I learn today about myself and others?
10. Seek joy not pain
Re-align your life and your work around the sole purpose of acquiring more joy, meaning and happiness in your life. This is in abundance in the world. You just must redesign your life with the intent to create more of it for yourself.
Mid-life Crisis?
Refocus your attention now on what would be perfect for you in your life. Create a new vision and take small steps each and every day with the intent towards creating more joy in your life. It will make your crisis suddenly feel like a crusade. This is good.
Ill be cheering you on as you go- Craig Nathanson
Craig Nathanson is the author of P Is For Perfect: Your Perfect Vocational Day and a coaching expert who works with people over forty. Craigs new E-book, Discover and live your passion 365 days a year is a workshop in a box designed to help busy adults go insane with their work. Craigs systematic approach, the trademark "Ten P" process, helps people break free and move toward the work they love. Visit Craigs online community at http://www.thevocationalcoach.com where you can take a class, get more ideas through Craig Nathansons books and CDs, get some private coaching over the phone or read other stories of mid-life change and renewal.
Craig lives in Fairfax, California. His office is located at 6 School Street, suite 220, Fairfax, Ca 94930. You can reach him at 415-457-0550 or at craig@thevocationalcoach.com.

How to Build Self Esteem the Right Way

By Richard Kuhns Published 08/22/2007 Self Improvement
Building self esteem is done one of two ways. Unfortunately most of us do it the wrong way.
John was referred to me by his psychologist for relaxation and motivation. John was seeing the psychologist for building self esteem and self image and at the age of 28 felt that he was losing ground. This feeling of "losing out" contributed to his level of anxiety which made him tense and irritable. John's psychologist's devised a program for building self esteem. He had John focus on acquiring technical training to develop a skill.
Of all possible skills, John choose to become a technician in a metal shop and enrolled in a program. Even though everything he was shown in class made sense, when it came to test time, his level of anxiety interfered with his ability to obtain respectable, much less passing grades. He was in jeopardy of failing when he was referred to me.
The psychologist's approach was the typical, "accomplish something, acquire something," and you'll be building self esteem. Yes, it's the approach used nearly 100% of all programs for overcoming low self esteem that I've seen. You are supposed to be able to overcome low self esteem by getting better at something.
Unfortunately, this is a "catch 22" approach--a set-up for failure. I'm not saying that everyone who uses this approach fails to accomplish the goal of acquiring a skill or educational level, but this approach does not build self worth or self esteem. It's a set up for failure. Building self esteem is a myth with this approach. Look around. Most of your friends, family, and acquaintances have been building self esteem based on their accomplishments and acquisitions.
Unfortunately, the person who overcomes low self esteem and builds it largely: on his fortune, often commits suicide when his portfolio is lost in the stock market crash. on the love of his wife may become depressed and acquires life-threatening cancer within 2 years of her passing and then dies himself even though he was in fine health prior to her passing. on his position in life often becomes depressed and acquires a life threatening disease within 2 years of his retirement and dies. on his social contacts and accomplishments may develop anxiety panic attack when he moves to another part of the country. on his physical skills becomes has a greater chance of getting seriously depressed and likewise may acquire a life threatening disease when he has an incapacitating accident or is replaced by younger, stronger athlete.
And we can go on and on. For each person building self esteem based on an accomplishment, an ability, physical appearance, and so on, he/she feels good about himself/herself for as long as his/her skills, abilities, and accomplishments remain in tact. Yet when their skills, relationships, accomplishments and so on change, they lose themselves in the process. Is this self-worth? No, it's "things' worth," not self-worth.
In the face of all adversity and loss, the person who has truly been building self esteem does not lose himself, but by knowing his true value, is able to adapt and change to all life circumstances.Back to John: It was indeed a challenge getting John out of his failure path. More so because the psychologist set him up for failure--the psychologist actually set the path for him to stay stuck with low self esteem. Eventually he got up the hill and over the crest. He learned to overcome his low self esteem, not by graduating machine shop school (although he did), but by learning to deal successfully with life's challenges and to like himself in the face of disappointment.
Building self esteem the right way is from self involves asking questions. What is missing here? Why with so many programs for building self esteem is it still a crisis? It is clearly insane to teach one to obtain self esteem from his/her accomplishments.It's also to realize that: Comparing ourselves to anyone else is to kill self esteem Some of our best laid plans will simply fall through. We are emotional beings and rather than be ruled by our emotions we can acknowledge them and move through them. We each are a child of the universe deserving of feeling good about ourselves regardless of what we do or don't do. We only feel less about ourselves because of what we've learned to believe. Love of our physical, emotional, and spiritual self is deserved and until we can love ourselves, it's unlikely that another can love us. Egotistical people really don't love themselves.
Building self esteem from self so that you even like yourself on a bad hair day (when your fail to accomplish the goal) produces real results.

Richard Kuhns B.S. Ch. E., NGH certified operated a stress management clinic for 17 years, educator and seminar leader for various corporations, and is the author behind the best selling stress management hypnosis self help cds at http://www.dstressdoc.com/ and new treatment for anxiety panic attack using wakened hypnosis at http://www.panicbusters.com/