The Rise Of Organizational Leadership

When you think of leaders is usually inspired leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy come to mind first. People who were at home on center stage, thrilling the crowd to new heights of passion and dedication. Inspirational leaders are people who can achieve great popularity and success.

Although most inspired leaders are still exciting and charismatic characters, may be a disappearing breed in today's environment. As the world becomes increasingly technology-oriented and market driven, the importance of personal magnetism is decreasing, while the need for technical expertise and organizational competence continues to grow.

In the past, if 50 or 100 years ago, large organizations were in the shape of the symbols of the early civilizations, the pyramids. There were a large number of people on the bottom, followed by layers and layers of supervisors and managers in increasing order. Each new level has had more authority than the one below. This structure has many levels rose higher and higher until it reaches its peak. That's where the classic inspirational leader was more comfortable.

This was the best way to structure an organization? Maybe it was in many cases and many times, especially when the leader was well suited for this, but until that ushered in the information age, no one really bothered to ask if it was better. The pyramid-shaped organization is only the way things were done.

As you move towards the Information Age and the 21 th century, the pyramids came tumbling down. Borders, degrees, and the lines are constantly evaporating. Every day, new technologies are equalizing access to information and make rigid bureaucracies obsolete. It is not necessary to have a deep voice and a big biceps to be a leader anymore. You just have to be fast, flexible, and before that with a new idea.

Today, successful organizations are fluid and flexible, and leadership of these organizations require the same qualities, and then some. Here are some essential elements of organizational leadership.

Common sense of purpose, any organization, in the first place, is a group of people with an identity of the team. Cultivating this sense is the main task of organizational leaders. People working together can do extraordinary things, so the essence of an organization depends on the unified vision of the team members.

Once the vision is in place, the ideas, creativity and innovation will come from the same team, but the leader still plays an absolutely essential. He or she must direct and concentrate all the energy. Leaders must keep team members informed about how their work affects the organization, its customers or clients, and the outside world as a whole.

So the creation of a shared purpose is a key element of organizational leadership, but there is another way to make the same point. Leaders must make it clear that success is a group experience, but so is anything less than success.

The meaning is very simple. Unless the whole team wins, nobody wins. Individual records are good in history books or almanacs, but they are seriously out of place in today's competitive organizations. What matters at all, is the performance of the whole group.

A sense of worth, people need to feel important. If they are denied that the feeling they give us less than maximum effort for the project at hand. So an effective organizational leader allows many decisions as possible to go through the whole group. Let the bubble ideas of all team members. Do not dictate solutions. Do not insist that things be done in a certain way.

Organizational leaders focus on the job at hand, but not an end in itself. Each work must be a learning experience leads to even better performance and greater accountability for the future. In other words, leaders need to strengthen the organization through the development of new business and jobs done on time, and they strengthen it so as to sharpen the skills of all members of the organization.

In short, organizational leaders take genuine responsibility for the life and career of the team. "How would you improve?" the leader should be a question often asked. "Where do you want your career to go from here" What kind of want to take on new responsibilities? "It 'task of the leader to ask these questions and respond in ways that help team members achieve their goals.

In other words, to communicate their confidence in their abilities. Provide standards for the organization to meet or exceed, and publicly show their appreciation when this occurs.

Always remember, for an effective organizational leader, team success equals personal success. Anything else is unacceptable. The greatest reward these leaders can achieve is a group of talented, confident, motivated and working together that we are ready to ride.

; 2008 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. throughout the world ....