leading and organizing

Leadership has never been one of my interests as an organizational communication scholar. I've always felt it should be, but I tend to be more interested in the view from the bottom of the hierarchy. Nonetheless, leadership does function at all levels in an organization. Rather than looking to "a" leader, organizations generally work better when leadership and leading are more distributed.

In Chapter 9, the authors of your text discuss various approaches to leadership. The trait approach to leadership provides the insight that physical attractiveness is a key component of effective leadership. An early version of the leadership approach to leadership posited autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leaders. From the situational approach to leadership, leaders’ behaviors can be categorized as delegating, participating, selling, or telling. The transformational approach to leadership stresses the importance of leaders communicating a vision that resonates with followers.

After serving as acting chair of the department for six months last year, I could relate to the section in the chapter on effective leadership habits. Habits of mind essential for effective leaders include sensing, presencing and realizing. Habits of character include accessibility, decisiveness, and valuing individuals. Habits of authentic and compelling communicative performance include creating a vision for the future and developing a credible life story. In leading the department, I found the habits of character to be the most important in securing faculty enthusiasm and productivity. For example, faculty could easily contact me via email, phone, or in person. There are some decisions I made myself, such as setting up a faculty wiki. And I made sure to thank and acknowledge faculty members for their efforts in completing essential departmental tasks.

~ Professor Cyborg