Author Archives: Marie C. G. Leroy-Jean

When I started this journey I was not sure into where I was embarking.  But I have to say that I really enjoyed the class. I like the format and the discussions and reading from Bennis. I wanted to take the course seriously, so, reading each chapter I forced myself into thinking deeper about the material discussed and take others into perspective. That was the most beneficial part of the learning for me. I also realized that leadership is really about a situation and that you can be a leader in different ways. Therefore, it is perfectly okay to take on a leadership role sometimes and to let a more capable person take control while still keeping things into perspective.

Kinderkareonline.co which started as babycareonline.com is really Sandra’s baby. From the beginning, I was very enthusiastic about the project and immediately embarked on board. Sandra being an expert in children care, took the lead and was always available to discuss the project and help understand a concept whenever necessary.

The leadership role I took on this project was to make sure we stayed on top of things where IVE was concerned. I reached out to different mentors and researched the subject on different facades.  I also kept track of what we were doing and made some recommendations. There was a good communication channel within our team and each individual was able to expose their ideas and opinions to take the project where it needed.

This was a great experience and I really appreciate to meet the people in the class. Each student has such strong and unique personality, yet we came as a group and were able to respectfully bring something to the table that was beneficial without clashing. That is to be respected!

“The leader knows that chaos is the beginning, not the end” is one of the many things learned from Bennis. As a great leader, we need to thrive on chaos and strategically use it for the benefit of the group and for the fulfillment of our desires. In the road to deploy ourselves by striking hard and trying everything it will help attain success. A leader manages the dream, and is mostly a servant. This concurs with the leadership theory described in Northhouse, where the servant leadership keeps the group together. If servantship disappear, the group is completely disoriented and breaks out. Therefore, a wise servant/leader communicates the vision, recruits meticulously, rewards, retrains and reorganizes through a set of shared values and objectives. As mentioned in previous posts, mistakes are encouraged and embraced as an indispensable step toward the path of projecting a better future for the organization as well as the leader himself. The same way, reflective backtalk forces a leader to go back to a previous position, find the “Achilles’ heel” of a point and make the necessary corrections. People playing the devil’s advocates will assist in keeping a cool head and know exactly what is going on so that precise resolutions can be taken. Being optimist, having faith and hope are some of the factors that give a sense of stability to one’s surroundings, making one omnipresent and building that hero aura that is such a craving in today’s world. So, as a leader, expect and demand the best from your people without hindering them and breaking their confidence. With patience, you will forge the future, live a fulfilled life and if you’re lucky, your values and visions will transmit to future generations which will live through the passage of time.

Today, we are living in a new era. Organizations are facing many challenges that can help or hinder them. Technology has replaced old savoir faire and is taking a major place in both the individual and the organization. The internet blasted in full force, creating new barriers for companies living in the past and opening new frontiers for start ups and innovators. Competition is as fierce as ever, making and breaking at the speed of light. Oceans are no longer the limits as from the comfort of one’s home; new ventures are started with enormous potentials. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook are some of the few examples proving that gigantic capitals are not necessarily the most important element in creating new companies having been launched from their founders garages. Talent and the individual are the most important along with the ability to turn vision into reality. Leadership and visions are what mattered the most. Business in no longer a one man affair and becomes like the orchestration of a symphony where every single member has to play its part to the best of its ability for the piece to be successful. As such, the organization, to be successful, needs to spot potential leaders and give them the opportunity, means and reward necessary to the advancement of the company. Making mistake no longer hinder the employee or the leader but becomes the necessary step to encourage and develop leadership – correction instead of censure in now one of the best approach used by “avant guardes” companies looking forward to a brighter future as only the most astute will survive from the stammer of a baby to a full grown company with the competitive advantage that will permit continuation into future generations.

As human being, living on the same planet, we have the obvious necessity to learn to live with one another. It is not a choice but a responsibility when more than two are cohabiting to develop qualities that will make that cohabitation if not harmonious, at least livable. That is where it becomes essential to get people on your side.  Getting people on your side does not only mean making them do what you want, but sincerely care about your team, your people and forget about yourself to fulfill the common good. It is about being emphatic and establishing trust, it is using your voice for the better.  It is team leadership at its best. As prescribed by Stagl, Salas & Burke in Northouse, it is “critical to achieving both affective and behaviorally based outcome”. As a good leader, you will need to behave, act and use a great deal of skills to improve your team performance. Exceptional heart, a keen sense of justice and cleverness will be required. A great leader will learn about and know everybody surrounding them. Knowing each and every member will help the leader identify the unique style, set of skills and preferences of each specific one which will be advantageous to the company. By doing it from the heart, the leader will establish a bond between him and the follower/team member which is the most important value that can be derivated from this relationship. It is a necessity for great leaders to be constant in what they preach, walk their talk, be reliable at all time and most importantly have the integrity that will boost confidence, inspire and have people committed to their ideas.

Bennis tells us that “what we do is a direct result of not only what and how we think, but what and how we feel” and that reflection gets to the heart of the matter and the truth of things. In this journey where we’re learning about the world and about ourselves, deploying ourselves becomes part of this knowledge we are so frantically searching for.  In this context, reflection and resolutions steer us in the right path. Unfortunately, it often takes failures and loss of important things or people in our lives to force us to sit down and do it when doing it when you’re in control would have been the best approach. Gloria Steinem and Gould told us that too much intellectualizing tends to paralyze us, but, how do you reflect without intellectualizing? I have to confess that this really puzzles me! It is said about reflection that it is to be conscious of a process and doing it well. Once this is completed you can develop your own perspective, figure it all out by testing and measuring them. This will allow you to develop your vision, your desire along with the ability to make things happen. Desires keep you restless until you satisfy them and move on to the next great thing or desire. Your goals keep you going, get you on the edge and practicing them help you master the task at hand to the point where it becomes obsession and routine. Now, at the top of the mountain you have climbed using all the assets you were provided with, strike hard, tried everything, you can really truthfully affirm and proved that you have fully deployed yourself and are ready to move through chaos.

Experience shapes and transforms a leader.  Through adversity a leader will  develop and become a bigger and better person in situations where regular people get  knocked out. Reflect, learn, and grow from adversity.

There is a French adage that says “20 fois sur le métier, remettez votre ouvrage”. It sums up perfectly chapter 7. Basically, it means try a lot, try hard, get to it until you get it right. Then, you will feel that you’ve accomplished something of value that has the possibility of changing both yourself and your surroundings. As pointed by  Northouse you have to be willing to forget about yourself, put the needs of others before, and see the greater good, the common good to become a transformed leader.

So, make the best out of everything instead of falling flat on your face when things do not go as smoothly as planned,  take the bull by the horn, take action and go on as “everywhere you trip is where the treasure lies”.  Adversity has a great deal to do with the development of leaders. Either it knocks you out or you become a bigger and better person.

Chapter 7 is about doing what is right, learning from adversity, learning from your experiences instead of being boosted by it. It’s about transformational leadership, it’s about change. But change is always associated with hope and people believe that the charismatic leader will transform their lives. But, is this at all possible? Is it fair? Isn’t it too much of a burden to place on one person’s shoulders? Aren’t we setting ourselves up for deception and disappointment? A lot of people seem to agree about the leader being some sort of a savior, but I don’t like being too dependent, so it makes me a little uncomfortable.  To me it has to be a shared burden, because titanic tasks such as the ones carried by true leaders have to be shared because it gives everybody a sense of accomplishment and responsibility.

This chapter dares us to not be afraid, take a chance and stand up for ourselves. There are great benefits associated with not being afraid and to me the best is that it makes us stronger people. We make decisions every day and sometimes, we are unhappy with them.  But, we chose to make them not because somebody told us to, but because we listened to our inner voice and it makes all the difference.

Listening to ourselves helps us form our own opinions instead of agreeing with the ones of others.  I don’t know if anybody has seen Disney’s Tinkerbell movie when they were kids. I have a little girl who loves Disney movies.  My thing is that Tinkerbell was not afraid to try different things because she didn’t want to accept the status quo. She messed up a lot, but finally she found her true calling and by the same occasion, improved the fairy world.  She might be a fictitious character, but she still is an example as she was curious, tried different things and thought outside the box. You might not become a leader in the sense everybody comprehend that word, but, you will complete a full circle of yourself. So, dream, aspire to great things, care about others, be honest, be unique and be true to yourself as it will help you gain confidence and will make you complete. To be honest, it is kind of complicated and you are not even sure you will get to get there, but nobody promised that life was easy, right?

Knowing yourself, like we’ve seen previously is very important, but the pieces of the puzzles would not fit completely if one would only by preoccupied with thyself. That is where your environment comes. People either learn through maintenance or shock but the best way of learning according to Bennis is through innovative learning.  You will learn to trust yourself and shape events instead of being shaped by them.

“In innovative learning one must not only recognize existing contexts, but be capable of imagining future contexts”.  Creativity, therefore, plays an  important role in the developmental curve of a leader and helps create a vision. You have to forget about the status quo established through maintenance & shock learning and become autonome.  You have to free yourself from the constraints of the past and move into the world, into the future, have perspective to appreciate your vision and realize it to the full extent. However, you have to fill gaps left in your education by reading and thinking. Don’t be afraid to be different, to be yourself. This is better said than done, but I believe it is a reachable goal.

I like the idea of travelling to broaden your experiences, as it is more than true. When you stay on one place you are static and can’t have a full picture.  “The stranger in a strange land sees more and sees fresh”. I still remember my first real contact when I came to the USA and how bizarre so many things looked and felt to me; still feel strange and out of place sometimes. I’ve been touched by the culture; I’ve had experiences that have changed my perspective of thing but I’m still able to see, smell things differently and have kept my individuality regardless of the “you’re so strange, so different” looks I still get.

Meeting people and going to suffering help you embrace the world.  We learn from the past and our experiences. This takes us to chapter 5 operating on instincts.

I am beginning to really enjoy this journey to leadership as I am learning more about myself and about my character than I thought. I am thinking about different aspect of leaderships than I thought possible.

We just studied leadership as defined by the situational theory and acquainted with the curve of leadership style and how you can grow and adapt your style from directing to delegating depending on the situation and on the personality type and subordinate level.

I am getting puzzled and attracted to the character of some of the people described by Bennis in chapter 3 and how they became leaders by knowing themselves, their limits and adapt to situations. To live the fullest, you have to know yourself or you will never really appreciate and be in agreement with yourself. “You become a leader, the moment you decide how to be”. Some things said in this chapter caught my attention:

• Absorb everything new and reflect on it and don’t be afraid of failure
• Reflect on everything you read, hear and see until you completely and fully understand
• Practice self awareness and reflection
• Help children to learn instead of teaching them. Teaching homogenizes, learning liberates.

Chapter 3 might discuss things we think we know, but until the day we die, we will never entirely know ourselves. So, I believe that so far, it is the most interesting chapter, one that I will go back again and again to retrieve and reinvent myself. You have to forget everything you thought you knew, go back to the basics and relearn, re-teach yourself. By doing so, you are sure to really pick what is most important to you, as it will make you stand out and surprise even yourself.

It would be foolish to believe that you know everything about yourself. If that was the case, life would be dull and would not be worth living. We are shaped and molded by our experiences. With these little surprises, we get reacquainted with everything including ourselves. Maybe we will even influence others when we’re gone. How cool is that!

On Ch2 Bennis tells us that whatever the leadership style or gender, all share a “guiding vision” which allows this leader to be successful regardless any setback or failure. Leaders know exactly their direction and have such great passion that it is easy to share and communicate it to others.

Leaders are inspiration to people and their integrity and honesty are some of the major reason people are so drawn and attracted to them. When a leader believes in something, they do not get distracted or directed in an opposite way.  They earned people’s trusts and have to follow their path.

Being a leader is different from being a manager. A leader masters his context and develops it while the manager just surrenders to it.

I find inspirational that Bennis says that leaders are self made and invent themselves by developing character and vision. We often tend to associate politicians and leaders, maybe because that’s what the politician should really be about. But unless he/she reinvent him/herself, a leader will never be born.