Wednesday, April 13, 2011
visionary leadership
In Developing the Leader within You, John C. Maxwell states, “All great leaders possess two things: one, they know where they are going and two, they are able to persuade others to follow” (pg. 141). Leadership theory is an important part of our everyday experience. In almost every element of our lives, there is a leader. Whether at work, play, or home, leadership is involved in one way or another. Sometimes we even get to lead ourselves. Over the past few decades, multiple leadership theories have evolved and been used to guide behavior. Visionary leadership theory rose to prominence in 1980-90s, and can be traced back to the political sociology writings of Max Weber and James MacGregor Burns. In this theory, leaders are born not made. Furthermore, these leaders only take charge when the need for them is great. Of course, this was the theory long before men and women were seen as "equals" in the work place. When your research subjects are men in established leadership positions, it is easy to conclude this. Visionary leadership models have a dual focus on who a leader is as well as what a leader does, merging both the trait and behavioral theories of leadership. Yet, the models go further. Early theories of leadership focused on influencing others to achieve good results, yet the results being sought were readily achievable and the means of achieving them were known. Visionary leadership by contrast involves rallying people behind a dream or vision of something that as yet has been out of reach.
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“All great leaders possess two things: one, they know where they are going and two, they are able to persuade others to follow” (pg. 141). I think that this is a key foundation for any leader to have no matter what leadership style one has. Reading the article, I could relate to the visionary leadership style in the sense of, I too only like to take charge when the need for me to do so is great. It is important to note, that this is not to “save the day” so to speak, but rather I believe in empowering others to lead while guiding them. Although, I am not sure I agree that with this model that the leaders have to be “born and not made.” I don’t think that any one type of leadership style should be pigeonholed in anyway because I think that a leader that is “made” can use be a visionary leader as well as any other type of leader. I see the key trait in the visionary leadership theory is that fact that the vision is made clear. I feel that this is an important feature in any leadership style in order to be an effective leader.
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