Things You Thought You Knew About Leadership

Much has been written about leadership: rules, pointers, styles, and biographies of inspiring leaders throughout world history. But there are certain leadership ideas that we ourselves fail to recognize and realize in the course of reading books. Here is a short list of things you thought you knew about leadership.

 Leaders come in different flavors and you will probably encounter more than one flavor in your lifetime. Formal leaders are those we elect into positions or offices such as the senators, congressmen, and presidents of the local clubs. Informal leaders or those we look up to by virtue of their wisdom and experience such as in the case of the elders of a tribe, or our grandparents; or by virtue of their expertise and contribution on a given field such as Albert Einstein in the field of Theoretical Physics and Leonardo da Vinci in the field of the Arts. Both formal and informal leaders practice a combination of leadership styles.

·Lewin’s three basic leadership styles – authoritative, participative, and delegative

·Likert’s four leadership styles – exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative

·Goleman’s six emotional leadership styles - visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.  

Certain people seem to be born with innate leadership qualities, without the right environment and exposure, they may fail to develop their full potential. So like learning how to ride a bicycle, you can also learn how to become a leader and hone your leadership abilities. Knowledge on leadership theories and skills may be formally gained by enrolling in leadership seminars, workshops, and conferences. Daily interactions with people provide the opportunity to observe and practice leadership theories. Together, formal and informal learning will help you gain leadership attitudes, gain leadership insights, and furthering the cycle of learning. You do not become a leader in one day and just stop. Life-long learning is important in becoming a good leader for each day brings new experiences that put your knowledge, skills, and attitude to a test.

The best way to develop leadership qualities is to apply it to your own life. As an adage goes “action speaks louder than words.” Leaders are always in the limelight. Keep in mind that your credibility as a leader depends much on your actions: your interaction with your family, friends, and co-workers; your way of managing your personal and organizational responsibilities; and even the way you talk with the newspaper vendor across the street. Repeated actions become habits. Habits in turn form a person’s character.

Leadership is shared and not the sole responsibility of one person, but rather a shared responsibility among members of an emerging team. A leader belongs to a group. Each member has responsibilities to fulfill. Formal leadership positions are merely added responsibilities aside from their responsibilities as members of the team. Effective leadership requires members to do their share of work. Starting as a mere group of individuals, members and leaders work towards the formation of an effective team. In this light, social interaction plays a major role in leadership. To learn how to work together requires a great deal of trust between and among leaders and members of an emerging team. Trust is built upon actions and not merely on words. When mutual respect exists, trust is fostered and confidence is built.

Leadership styles depend on the situation. Aside from culture, beliefs, value system, and form of government, the current situation of a nation also affects the leadership styles used by its formal leaders. There is no rule that only one style can be used.  Leaders employ a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation. In emergency situations such as periods of war and calamity, decision-making is a matter of life and death.  A nation’s leader cannot afford to consult with all departments to arrive at crucial decisions. The case is of course different in times of peace and order---different sectors and other branches of government can freely interact and participate in governance. Another case in point is in leading organizations. When the staffs are highly motivated and competent, a combination of high delegative and moderate participative styles of leadership is most appropriate. But if the staffs have low competence and low commitment, a combination of high coaching, high supporting, and high directing behavior from organizational leaders is required.

Now that you are reminded of these things, keep in mind that there are always ideas that we think we already know; concepts we take for granted, but are actually the most useful insights on leadership.

Thank you for taking the time to review our blog. We hope you find this series of articles related to self-improvement and development of benefit.

Keep Dancin’  Larry B

Vision of Success

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior high school student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status.  You can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. She believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: It is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

Vehicle: A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. It was then her vision-mission to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. There is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound.  You cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes: The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly. This may seem never ending but with perseverance you will succeed.

Thank you for taking the time to review our blog. We hope you find this series of articles related to self-improvement and development of benefit.

Keep Dancin’   LB

 

I am a Nurse!

I started my career in Health Care when I was still in High School by working at Sells Nursing Facility, first as the night and weekend cook. I moved from the Kitchen to Activity Director. Upon graduation I went to college and became a Speech and Hearing practitioner.  I worked several years with severe behavioral and mentally disabled children and young adults, developing specialized hearing testing and nonverbal communication programs.  When the regulations changed for my field, I went back to school and became a Registered Nurse.   I just knew my career had to be in a health related field, my mission was to be a care giver.

I started my Nursing career in the hospital setting, with Orthopedic and Infectious Disease as a specialty. After several years in this setting, I moved on to Home Health which became my favorite arena for nursing.  Being able to go into a patient’s home and taking care of their needs was the most rewarding aspect. Not only did I enjoy doing nursing in the home for the patient but family education was equally as rewarding.  Home Health in rural Kentucky, you were not just a nurse providing care, you became part of the family.

Once I relocated to South Florida, I thought I would learn so much more about Home Health Nursing and was shocked to learn that in the hills of Kentucky we were doing far more in the home setting than was being conducted in the large metropolitan area of South Florida. The most discouraging aspect of doing Home Health in South Florida in the late 1980’s was that I never got to see the same patient twice. I did not have the same connection with my patients that I had back in Kentucky where you were assigned a patient/family and you were their primary nurse till discharged from services.

Becoming discouraged with the Home Health arena in South Florida, I came across an advertisement asking nurses looking for a change in their career. I went to the open house this company was having and became a Field Case Manager with a company called International Rehabilitation Associates, which later became Intracorp.  I was hooked in a matter of months with this new aspect of nursing handling Workers’ Compensation Injuries. I was able to assist the individual to ensure the appropriate medical care was being obtained and move the individual back to a state of health prior to being injured on the job.

 I have moved around in this arena from Field Case Manager, Field Supervisor and Unit Manager. I even took a break from case management and went back to Home Health as an Administrator of an agency for a few years. I missed case management so returned to Intracorp.

The Case Management industry has changed over the 24 years I have been doing Medical Case Management. I personally don’t feel that the connection with the individual that was once a big part of the position is a primary focus in today’s corporate arena.

I have been wondering for several years if was time to get out of the Medical arena altogether. I just did not feel that connection with the profession that I had 31 years ago when I first obtained my license. That was until recently when I became friends with an individual that was diagnosed with cancer not long after we had met and developed our friendship. This friend asked me to be his cancer buddy and now care giver. After 5 months, I remember now why I fell in love with nursing, skills I have not used in years simply surfaced as if being in hibernation for all these years.

Sure I had taken care of other friends’ minor health issues over the years, took on care giver for my mother when she was diagnosed. This time it was different in some way, someone I had not known very long was depending on me to assist with the most critical health issue that he had ever encountered.

I have experienced a renewal of why I became a nurse and a case manager, to assist someone in dealing with the complexity of the medical profession and to ensure the best care possible if provided by all those involved.  I am a Nurse.

Keep Dancin’ Larry B

A New Young Hero

I was very active politically back in the 1980-90’s, I marched on Washington DC. I attended political rallies and worked at getting petitions signed. Then I just stopped. I guess I felt that I was just not making a difference. I was so wrong in thinking that one person could not make a difference in the political/social arena. I have discovered a young man that is making a difference here in Tennessee.

Marcel Neergaard is a Tennessee boy who was home-schooled for sixth grade and even contemplated suicide due to severe anti-gay bullying, bullying that many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates say could have been fostered in public schools throughout the state if the “Don’t Say Gay” bill had actually passed.  

The bill, rejected in 2012, aimed at banning talk of sexual activity other than "related to natural human reproduction." It was resurrected by Representative John Ragan (R-Tenn.) this year as the "Classroom Protection Act." It included an amendment requiring school officials to inform parents if they have reason to believe the child might be gay. The bill also required schools to provide counseling for such students so as to prevent “behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and well-being of the student or another person.” 

 From what I can decipher from reading the bill, it would have required Teachers to respond to students trying to report anti-gay bullying by saying basically “that subject is inappropriate for your age group”. If the student was able to speak to one of the few school officials who can discuss homosexuality such as nurse, counselor, or principal that official would be required by law to report the gay or lesbian student’s sexuality to the student’s parents.

The proposed “Classroom” bill failed in March but prior to that, Regan was honored in 2012 with the educational “Reformer of the Year” award by the StudentsFirst, a group dedicated to defending the interests of children in public schools.

Marcel did not think Regan deserved such an award and wrote a petition to have StudentsFirst retract their award to Regan. Marcel was able to get over 50,000 + signatures for his petition.

StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee not only did she rescind the recognition, but Rhee also denounced Ragn’s bill as “ill-conceived and harmful legislation” that would have “cultivated a culture of bullying”.

This young boy is a hero in my eyes and his parents are heroes for supporting their son in this venture. Here is Marcel’s video:   http://youtu.be/U54Px3jvr_Y

So Thank you Marcel for renewing my faith that a single person can make a difference in bringing about political/social change. That one person standing up for what they know is the right thing is a force to be reckoned.

We should all be proud of who we are, we should not let anyone bully us or anyone. We should stand up for ourselves and for those not able to do so on their own. 

Keep Dancin’ Larry B.