Padraig Morrissey
Leadership Essay
Part 1
Describe what you understand by leadership
The question we have to ask is; what makes a leader who is able to cope with change? To this day and over 50,000 books later, there is still no consensus of the basic meaning of leadership. We are left to our own devices to decipher the real meaning of project leadership which many see as an important element of project control.
The leadership definitions developed by Keith Grint will be my topic of discussion and how I can relate them to my understanding of leadership while also integrating my life experiences. Grint(____) defined the areas where these somewhat irresolvable differences in the definitions may lie. He felt that leadership as a position, as a person, as a result and as a process are the major areas which should encompass a significant amount of the different definitions of leadership.
I believe leadership will remain a contested concept for some time. Even so, I do believe leadership as a person is significant in the search for the real definition of leadership. Here we can directly link leadership and followership, and also closely link social interaction with leadership which has been explored by Grint and Collinson (2006). This can be directly related back to my own experiences in my sporting career. During my term of captaincy, I lead my team to a cup semi-final, but success was not achieved through me alone, it was through the work of my team members and the invisible leaders that some of them were. Through my motivation and encouragement we achieved success for the club. For this reason I think Grint(___) truly portrays my understanding of leadership, “The power of leaders is a consequence of the actions of followers rather than the cause of it.”(Grint, 2005, p.38). Fleming may be known for the discovery of penicillin, but it would not have been developed further if it wasn’t for the collective work of Noble Laureates and scientists. I chose this example because it is the
Part 1
Describe what you understand by leadership
The question we have to ask is; what makes a leader who is able to cope with change? To this day and over 50,000 books later, there is still no consensus of the basic meaning of leadership. We are left to our own devices to decipher the real meaning of project leadership which many see as an important element of project control.
The leadership definitions developed by Keith Grint will be my topic of discussion and how I can relate them to my understanding of leadership while also integrating my life experiences. Grint(____) defined the areas where these somewhat irresolvable differences in the definitions may lie. He felt that leadership as a position, as a person, as a result and as a process are the major areas which should encompass a significant amount of the different definitions of leadership.
I believe leadership will remain a contested concept for some time. Even so, I do believe leadership as a person is significant in the search for the real definition of leadership. Here we can directly link leadership and followership, and also closely link social interaction with leadership which has been explored by Grint and Collinson (2006). This can be directly related back to my own experiences in my sporting career. During my term of captaincy, I lead my team to a cup semi-final, but success was not achieved through me alone, it was through the work of my team members and the invisible leaders that some of them were. Through my motivation and encouragement we achieved success for the club. For this reason I think Grint(___) truly portrays my understanding of leadership, “The power of leaders is a consequence of the actions of followers rather than the cause of it.”(Grint, 2005, p.38). Fleming may be known for the discovery of penicillin, but it would not have been developed further if it wasn’t for the collective work of Noble Laureates and scientists. I chose this example because it is the
References: * Barber, E. and Warn, J. (2005) Leadership in project management: from fire fighter to fire lighter, Management Decision. Volume 43 Number 7 2005, pp 1032-1039. * Bennis, W. & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper and Row. P.21 * Blanchard, K.H * Collinson, D. (2006) ‘Rethinking Followership: A Post-structuralist Analysis of Follower Identities’, The Leadership Quarterly 17: 179-89. * Fiedler, F. E. (1967) A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness, New York: McGraw-Hill * Grint, Keith(1997), Fuzzy Management: Contemporary Ideas and Practices at Work, Oxford * Grint, Keith (2005), Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. Palgrave Macmillan 2005. ISBN: 0333963873, p.38. * Grint, Keith (2005), Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. Palgrave Macmillan 2005. ISBN: 0333963873, p.39. * House, Robert(1971), Administrative Science Quarterly , Vol. 16, No. 3 (Sep., 1971), pp. 321-339 * Kotter, P * Ofori, G., & Toor, S.-u.-R., 2008. Leadership for future construction industry agenda for authentic leadership. International Journal of Project Management 26 (6), pp 620–630. * Wiio, O., Goldhaber, G., & Yates, M. (1980). Organizational communication research: Time for reflection? Communication Yearbook, 4, p.91