What is the book about?
The book of two prominent specialists, Kouzes and Posner, deals with the problem of leadership, which is the most crucial issue of contemporary management studies. The authors claim to outline the main contours of leadership in the organization. This claim is long-standing research conducted by these authors, which sought to find out the primary laws of the human leadership capacity and its role in the successful management of the organization. The authors present a unique approach that implies the interviewing of ordinary people rather than high-ranking managers and officials in the leading companies. The interviewing of ordinary people seeks to find information about their leadership experience. This outlines the main direction of the book, which is not to describe the behavior of extraordinary leaders but rather to analyze the process of making leadership functions in the organization and the tools for the formation of influential leaders.
According to the author’s approach, the research into leadership must deal with two facets of the problem – the leader and his followers. The authors prove that it is impossible for a leader to be successful without the support of the followers and vice versa. To emphasize this point and fundamentally prove it, the authors use much space to describe the dynamics of the relations between a leader and his followers.
The authors make all necessary to shatter many dominant myths about leadership, such as the perception of leadership as some kind of divine revelation which includes charisma and makes other people be tools in the hands of a leader. Authors justly claim that the role of the leader in the organization is far from implementing such revolutionary functions. The leadership in an organization is pragmatic, rationalized, built on knowledge and professionalism but not on power. That is why the concepts describing leadership qualities as exceptional talent are totally false because they overlook the possibility of developing excellent leadership qualities by means of training and communication.
The authors make a great effort from the start to make it clear that leadership is about understanding, learning practices, and procedures that are inseparably tied with the realization of ordinary working functions and improving the performance of the management. The result of these findings is outlining the set of five essential practices for leadership, which in turn are divided into ten significant commitments.
This classification is, by definition is the result of the authors’ profound effort and makes clear their deep perception of the problem. The structure of the book is designed to describe these leadership practices and commitments. The 2-6 chapters are devoted to the combination of five powerful techniques, and the rest of the book to an analysis of the ten significant commitments of a leader. In the same token, the book is finished by the inclusive appendices, which describe and prove the foundation of their LPI – Leadership Practice Inventory. This tool is designed to provide possible enhancement for a leader in the course of five practices outlined in the book.
These practices and themes will be outlined later in my essay. It is important to note that besides the evident advantages of this study there are, of course, some points that are not 100% perfect. I consider the authors to misuse the essentialist approach, which means that they seem to be more focused on the “pure,” “ideal” issues rather than on the real examples. In their desire to create the best possible practices for the leadership, they sometimes disregard the natural obstacles which the leaders are facing in their activities. For example, the authors ensure that the more mistakes a leader makes, the better it is for his experience. I don’t subscribe to this point of view because an effective system of errors prevention must always be in place. Besides this, there is an evident lack of practical advice in other realms of leadership. But notwithstanding some drawbacks, the book is beneficial and profound.
Authors’ definition of leadership?
The authors define leadership as a process of communicational relations between a leader and his followers. Leadership is characterized by this profound two-fold structure. For the leader to be effective, he must be respected by his followers, and on the contrary, for followers to be organized and efficient, there must be a professional, productive, and communicable leader. If one link is absent, leadership becomes impossible.
Identify five major leadership themes- brief description of each theme.
Among prevailing leadership themes, one can highlight the following (I use the authors’ classification of the leadership practices):
- Model the situation – a leader to be efficient must have good analytical skills. In order to take an appropriate decision he must assess pros and cons of each possible decision drawing on the antecedents, current circumstances, and potential consequences;
- Foster a shared vision – A good leader must install suitable communicational parameters in order to develop “team spirit” among the employees and make their personal relations perfect.
- Challenge a process – whatever happens to the organization a leader must be a sharp critique of the process. It means that he has to continuously search for better practices and decisions.
- Provide people with possibilities to act – a leader in order to make his followers more effective for the sake of an excellent organization performance must provide good motivation possibilities and all necessary tools for the employees’ efficiency.
- Encourage heart – In the problematic situation a leader must be a friend to every team mate, who is frustrated and needs help. The mood of leader can be easily transferred to the employee which is an essential task of the natural leader.
Identify 5 leadership “Ideas” that could be applied to a parks and recreation leader.
The following leadership ideas may be applied to a parks and recreation leader:
- Seek to find opportunities for innovation, change and growth. In parks and recreation it can be used to improve infrastructure, develop new projects for people’s park recreation.
- To create commonality among park recreation team. This idea is critical for the perfect organization of recreation events and measures necessary to meet the needs of community.
- Experiment and learn from mistakes. It is important to constantly seek for innovative design solutions to park infrastructure and entertainment environment. It is evident that a leader of park and recreation sphere must pay attention to the views of the customers and be creative. This will maintain great interest of the community in the park recreation.
- Inspire collaboration with all stake-holders. Park and recreation activities must be developed in close connection with municipal authorities, cultural organizations and other stakeholders. That requires a leader to organize good cooperation in the view of making park and recreation activities more efficient and cost-effective.
- Create a spirit of community and the feeling of common destination. A leader in park and recreation must make his activities the matter of the whole community. If the community members perceive leader’s objectives as their own the synergy of their joint action will contribute to the overall success.
References
Kouzes, James M., and Posner, Barry Z. The Leadership Challenge, 3rd Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003