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Recently, the secret service has been plagued with a scandal. Secret Service Officers were caught with prostitutes in Colombia the day before President Obama was to arrive there. This is obviously really bad press for the President during such a critical political time period. The way he handles it could really impact his efforts to be re-elected. But, this is not the main discussion of this post. What I really want to bring up is Leadership changes and question their effectiveness.

Watching the news these last couple days, I heard one of the anchors mention a possible leadership change at the top of the Secret Service to combat this scandal. In my opinion wouldn’t you want the person at the head to stay and remain accountable for this situation. Just because something goes wrong, doesn’t mean that the wrong people are leading. Quite frankly, during these situations is when a leader is proven. If things are always good, you can’t really determine if the current leader is good or if everything is just going well.

Replacing leadership during difficult situations also seems like an overreaction and a short term solution, which I cannot stand. So many decisions on leadership are made based on the present and never the future. In my opinion if we want to remain on top, we should always think long term and look at difficult situations as bumps in the road.

If you are not yet familiar with the Secret Service scandal, I have included a link to give you some insight on the situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/americas/colombian-escort-speaks-about-secret-service-scandal.html?pagewanted=all

Can Charisma be taught? Do all leaders have Charisma? What is Charisma? All these questions are very important when a leader is trying to get people on his/her side. Charisma is a personal attractiveness or charm that inspires others. Most of leaders have Charisma, and leaders who have it are more successful. Charisma comes with trust!

Trust is a very important factor when leaders want to convince or persuave others. If a leader does not reflect trust , noone will follow him/her. It comes together with Inspiration. Leaders have the power of Inspiration or Persuasion. Being persuasive is trying to convince people of something, but not giving orders directly.

I dont think that we can learn how to be leaders, but in the other hand, we can definetly lead in a way that someone will want to follow. As Bennis stated on the chapter:

” Getting people on your side has a lot to do with Spirit, a lot to do with team atmosphere. It has a lot to do with not putting people in direct competition with each other, something that is not a universally held philosophy”.

There are four factors leaders have that generate and sustain trust:

Constancy, Congruity, Reliability, and Integrity. When a leader follows and mantains these 4 key factors, they will get people on their side. These elements can be learned through experiences but not be taught.

Empathy is also important when leading. “Leading from the inner voice is necessary  for movement leadership”, as Bennis stated. Empathy is a common element on Women. Women tend to react faster on organizational problems than Men. They mostly use their inner voice to make decisions.

“Leading through voice, inspiring through trust and empathy,” I believe is the core statement that this chapter is about. Just like with my previous blog posts I first would like to post quotes and phrases from this chapter that I found valuable and full of important meaning.

“If we had a problem or complaint, we dealt with it openly and immediately” – In my opinion immediate action is the best solution, because the longer you wait the deeper would someone’s insult of pain would become, and the harder it would be to fix it

“Getting people on your side has a lot to do with spirit, a lot to do with team atmosphere”

“You can lead people out of fear and intimidations, as awful as it sounds” “Movement leadership requires persuasion, not giving orders” – a good comparison to both of these quotes was a Marine bootcamp 🙂

Four ingredients leaders have that generate and sustain trust:

1. “Constancy. Whatever surprises leasers themselves may face, they don’t create any for that group. Leaders are all a piece; they staty the course”
2. Congruity. Leaders walk their talk. In true leaders, there is no gap between the theories they espouse and the life they practice”
3. Reliability. Leaders are there when it counts; they are  ready to support their co-workers in the moments that matter”
4. Integrity.  Leaders honor their commitments and promises”

“When these four factors are in place, people will be on your side”

“Ability to inspire and persuade through empathy and trust can be and should be present in all organizations.”

“You have to be absolutely straight with people, not clever or curte, and you can’t think that you can manipulate them.”

“Endlessly expressing, explaining, extending, expanding, and when necessary revising the organization’s mission”

To lead in the current global world a leader needs “a different set of skills, based on ideas, people skills and values”

“The first thing one must have to do in setting out to change the culture is get people on one’s side and show them where you want to take the company”

“People trust you when you don’t play games with them”

“The freer the organization is, the more heterogeneity there is in the system, the more leaders will emerge”

“You should reserve the ability to say ‘Shove it,’ and go your own way. That really frees you”

I often feel obligated to people and situations and have always had hard time saying ‘No’, but I think that this answer will evolve itself when your heart or ‘gut’ will REALLY call for it.

This is yet, another great chapter with knowledge and wisdom that I will learn and practice.

This weeks post will revolve around leadership in a family and the impact it has on the household and extending even to the community and expanded families. Recently there was death in my family that although we expected still was shocking to hear, as expected. This person lived overseas and so my family and I, including aunts, uncles and cousins stayed in their house in the mean time. This event although tragic has provided a lot of insight into a situation in which we don’t focus on in class. With this person’s death, the household lost a lot of direction and although there was someone who seemed to be an obvious leader, some one else rose to the occasion to make sure all decisions were made with care. This new leader was able to control their emotions and act as anchor for the whole family. They were able to sit down with members of the family critical decisions on what the next steps are. Although this person didn’t have a clear vision of what would happen, their confidence when speaking was inspiring. This allowed the leader to gain the trust of the other family members, followers, to make sure everything was tied up before leaving again overseas. I don’t know that I would have noticed this if I had not been taking this class, but I’m glad I did. Seeing leadership in this setting was insightful and refreshing since most leadership is talked about in a business context.

“Become yourself, use yourself completely – all your skills, gifts and energies – in order to make your vision manifest.”  This quote is probably the concept goal of Bennis’ Chapter 5.       Bennis took majority of the chapter discussing the importance of listening to personal instinct, which eventually leads to fully becoming yourself.

I would say that learning to listen to your instinct is crucial to any decision making and to self awareness.  After all, it is proven that your first multiple choice selection on a test is typically the correct one, and that is for a reason.  A gut feeling is something that is really hard to describe, but that it is your inner voice that every growing leader should learn how to listen to and follow.  Professor Raymond, I remember that during our class discussion you have given us an incredible exercise mentioning different words and self evaluating our response to them. Reasonable and true words or phrases call for a warm and fuzzy feeling somewhere around the stomach area, where nonsense words cause a reaction in the brain, which begins thinking about the word or a statement. This is a great exercise for training your instincts. I will remember it and try practicing it. Thank you.

Like with all other chapters I am very much inspired by Benni’s chapter 4 called “Knowing the world”.  In this blog I will summarize and quote knowledge, lessons and valuable information I received.

Bennis starts out by mentioning Maintenance and Shock learning both of which I am familiar and had the “pleasure” of experiencing.  Following these examples he moves into the values of Innovative learning that are Anticipation and being active, Learning by listening to others and Participation and shaping the events, rather than being shaped by them. “Innovative learning is a way of realizing a vision”, Bennis states.  Further the author moves into describing the importance of liberal arts, social sciences and humanities and the ability of its graduates to be more successful in becoming effective leaders. Roger Smith’s paragraph from his book “Educating Managers” should be noted for future reference and personal growth.  Another great quote from this chapter is about ambition and it states, “Ambition is the death of thought,” where the author warns about it being in the way of intellectual thought. “The only way to prevent ambition from killing your intellectual life is not to be afraid of loosing, or to say something people might think is wrong.”

Bennis also talks about the importance of travel and the value it brings in broadening one’s experience. A great quote I find useful states, “The stranger in the strange land sees more and sees fresh.” In the chapter’s Friends and Mentors section an important aspect of life that “everything is interrelated” is brought up, which I find very interesting.  The following are a few valuable quotes that I’d like to note for my future reference:

“Study, travel, people, work, play, reflection, all are sources of knowledge and understanding”

“You have to get 80 or 85 percent of information and then then take your best shot, and go on to something else”

“Mistakes are not failures, and I don’t take them seriously. Its okay to make mistakes, as long as you make them in good conscience and you’re doing the best you can at the moment”

“If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried very hard”

“Experiences aren’t truly yours until you think about them, analyze them, examine them, question them, reflect on them, and finally understand them.”

“Compelling vision combined with a unique ability to manage risk is magic behind successful entrepreneurs.”

Learning from experience means:
1. Looking back at your childhood
2. Consciously seeking the kind of experiences in the present that improve and enlarge you
3. Taking risks as a matter of course

The following Blog post relates to Northouse chapter on Team Leadership. In the blog, I’d like to talk about my leadership initiative that took place during the organization of a Psychedelic Trance party called California Sunshine, which took place on March 31^st in New York.  A little pre-history: Psychedelic trance is a musical genre that emerged in early 90’s and has had a good niche following since.  The music is often composed by very experienced musicians and sound engineers, as it requires a lot of attention to detail, high musical skills sound generation and development and is often considered “intelligent music.”  The goals of this event was to bring quality event production and quality Psy trance artists to New York City, as it lacked it for the past 5-6 years, slowly fading away Psy following and local scene.  I believe my event has managed to revive and inspire local audience, as the party’s Facebook wall has been bombarded with complements and thank you letters.

Acting as event’s executive producer and organizer I have faced numerous leadership challenges, acquired much experience and learned a few important lessons. The major problem I faced was hiring a Decoration artist, who was a much-disliked person by many, which was something that I learned later.  I had act as a mediator to establish team cohesion, effective communication and joint work. This required personal conversations with various individuals, including a disciplinary communication with the Deco artist, who immediately has managed to offend one of my team members. A bigger problem came during the event setup one day before the party.  During the time that I was not present at the location, running various event arrons, I received a call from one of my team members, saying that the Deco artist has badly offended the venue owner, whom I rented the space from.  I had to take an immediate action, requiring no additional assessment, because the fate of the production was now at stake.  I have yelled at the Deco artist, making him understand that he is not to talk to anyone except me, because I hired him and he works for me.  I have managed to earn his respect of my authority by showing him where was his place in my event production.  Following this action the remaining work of my crew has been smooth and the event became a great success.  Here ais an example of the responses received after the event:

‎:))) Awesome Event! Thanks to the Red Marines crew for all of the hard work and attention to detail that made it so Amazing! The Artists were perfect, and it sounded Great! I hope to see you again very soon! (((:

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.