Twentieth Century Leadership Approach to Change Versus the Twenty-first Century Approach
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The Desirability of Friendship
Friendship is a sacred commitment to trust and care for someone you hold in high esteem, whom you are not really expecting any reward from in return for the gift of your friendship. But here is the twist: when you initiate such a friendship, don’t seek people’s approval to be relevant or make life comprehensible to you. If you do so, you will live all your life in deep regret. Caroline Myss observes that “When you do not seek or need approval, you are at your most powerful.” But whenever you seek or need the approval of others to remain in a friendship, you are in the wrong friendship. At this point, people’s goal will be to toy with your emotions and leave you at their mercy for you to survive.The key to nurturing an enduring friendship is mutual care — consistently showing up for one another with empathy, commitment, trust, and respect. This means active listening, honest communication, and supporting each other through the highs and lows of life. It also involves shared experience of memorable events and forgiveness for mutual imperfections in order to strengthen the bond of friendship over time.
The Intent and Purpose of Leadership
There are many ways in which people have defined leadership across time and age. I have been privileged to come across a few of those definitions. Amazingly, all the ones I have come across in my study about leadership are insanely good. However, the definition that resonates with me the most was the one given by John Maxwell, who defines leadership as “Influence, nothing more, nothing less!” Maxwell also says, “Everything rises and falls on leadership!” I couldn’t agree less with him because, whichever way you look at leadership, it is simply about influencing, inspiring, and motivating people to do things they would not think of doing on their own. Leadership is taking people from a state of inactivity to a place of extraordinary accomplishment. When you can genuinely mobilize people to get things done without force or coercion, you become enlisted in this type of ingenious leadership. But when you fail as a leader to inspire people to get things done, it reveals a deep flaw in your leadership ability.
There have been many questions about those who aspire to become leaders. The problem is not always with leadership aspiration. Some people have thought it is wrong to aspire to become a leader. No! There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a leader. What you should be concerned about is why you want to become a leader. This is a question that reveals your leadership motive, intent, and purpose. Your motive is very important if you hope to become a leader that society would be proud of and to celebrate.
The Two Inseparable Sides of a Transformational Leader
If there is a subject I have been passionate about in recent years, it must be transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a reintroduced concept that is beginning to gain recognition among leading experts because of its role in effecting a cultural change in a society or organization. Although it has been around for a long time, many people do not know what it is and how to identify it in practice. Transformational leadership was first popularized in the 1970s by James MacGregor Burns when he tried to contrast its significance with transactional leadership.Burns argues that transactional leadership doesn't care as much about cultural change as the organization's bottom line. On the other hand, transformational leaders don't just move people toward a worthy cause by mere influence. They cause an actual change in how things have been in society or the organization over a set period. So, they are not just influencers, as you would naturally think of a leader. They are agents of change that cause a significant shift in how organizations or societies operate. A transformational leader's ultimate goal is to significantly alter people's behavior, resulting in societal or organizational development.
You are absolutely right. There is something in this and an excellent idea, I agree with you.