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Cult of Personality, Research Paper Example

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Susan Scott’s (2002) Fierce Conversations offers an apt model for leadership assessment through what she defines as a conversational cartography. The foregoing Profile Survey looks analyses the leadership style and role of communicative praxis central to the success of leaders, Oprah Winfrey, CEO of Harpo Entertainment Group, Inc. and Debra L. Lee, CEO of BET Holdings, Inc. The OPQ32 Team Types and Leadership Profile (2007) survey serves to address Scott’s query into what makes effective leaders. Her insights have led to numerous communications based professional development training outcomes. The study employs the survey instrument toward methodological consideration of qualitative factors that have reinforced the subjects’ consistency as leaders. The instrument advances Scott’s theories that certain criteria such as level of accountability that the leader has appropriated in collaboration and alignment with their teams; communicative style; ability to tackle difficult situations toward change; and finally the economic, emotional and intellectual costs to their teams by not doing so present an integrated set of challenges that correlate to sustainable growth within organizations. Both subjects in the study have met the preliminary criteria, with substantial career impact and leadership status furthered by their role as women and ethnic minorities in a national market typically discriminatory against advancement of their classificatory identity and interests.

Profile Survey Instrument

Leadership Styles

Directive Leader

Maintains responsibility for planning and control

Issues instructions in line with own perception of priorities

Delegative Leader

Minimal personal involvement

Believes in delegation of task and responsibility

Participative Leader

Favours consensus decision making

Prepared to take time over decisions

Ensures involvement of all relevant individuals

Consultative Leader

Pays genuine attention to opinions and feelings of subordinates, but maintains a clear sense of task objectives and makes the final decisions

Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Style

Directive Leader

Oprah maintains responsibility for planning and control. Name of company edifies this.

Oprah’s many entities indicate that she is able to issues instructions in line with own perception of priorities

Delegative Leader

Personal Involvement probably exceeds recommendation due to celebrity trademark of her career

Oprah shows that she believes in delegation of task and responsibility

Participative Leader

Oprah might not favour consensus decision making at all times due to the variance of her career

Oprah moves quickly, yet this may be required rather than time deliberation over decisions as the industry is expedient in terms of demand

Ensuring involvement of all relevant individuals has obviously been critical here

Consultative Leader

Oprah appears to pay genuine attention to opinions and feelings of subordinates, but maintains a clear sense of task objectives and makes the final decisions, but this is unknown without further investigation

Oprah Winfrey is primarily a Directive Leader. Her personal celebrity dictates the terms of organizational authority, and especially as her name is both a legal trademark in the entertainment industry, and a core aspect of the umbrella corporation named after her. A personality driven production business, her Harpo Entertainment Group is unparalleled, with her celebrity talk show generating viewership of an estimated 49 million viewers a week in the United States, and is broadcast internationally in 145 countries (Hoovers, 2010). Charitable contribution to selective causes promotes her personal crusade amongst the philanthropic community; furthering her Harpo brand and her celebrity as a marketable and socially responsible enterprise. The Oprah Winfrey Foundation awards grants to organizations that “support the education and empowerment of women, children and families in the United States and around the world,” and including her well known educational contributions to underserved children internationally (Hoovers, 2010). Oprah’s humanitarian position towards highly personal issues translates into her communicative praxis as a television identity, and creates a feedback loop for unique content within the talk show circuit. Here, we see the impact of Scott’s conversational cartography in action. Her ability to direct production businesses is not a sideline, but a central aspect of her career trajectory, and provides evidence of the efficacy of her role as a corporate leader who knows how to craft decision making according to her own priorities with the benefits of the team in mind.

Debra L. Lee’s Leadership Style

Directive Leader

Debra is the CEO of BET Holdings, and responsible for planning and control

This is a grey area, as she was hired into the corporation as a leader, yet may still provide oversight in line with own perception of priorities

Delegative Leader

Although Debra is inherently responsible, her personal involvement will be lesser than a celebrity as she is employed to serve the organization, not her own celebrity

Debra is effective at delegation of task and responsibility

Participative Leader

Debra has a traditional approach, and will favour consensus in decision making as board approval is important

Appropriate time for consideration on projects is moderated by both the acceleration of the industry, yet slowed by required corporate stakeholder interests

It is likely that Debra ensures involvement of all relevant individuals

Consultative Leader

Debra’s traditional career path indicates that she has spent substantial time paying attention to opinions and feelings of subordinates, but maintains a clear sense of task objectives and makes the final decisions

Debra L. Lee’s emergence as the President and CEO of BET Holdings, the parent company of Black Entertainment Television (BET) network in 1996 was no surprise. BET was shopping for an educated leader with the right mix of corporate experience and vision. A Harvard Law School graduate, Lee presented the Corporation with extensive experience as a corporate lawyer. She became the chairman of the board for BET and in 2005, and also serves as also serves on board of directors of Eastman Kodak Company, Marriott, and Revlon. She has been the director of Washington Gas Light Company and WGL Holdings since 2000 (Hoovers, 2010). Similar to Winfrey, Lee is primarily a Directive Leader, yet is likely accustomed to application of Scott’s model of communicative oversight a Consultative Leader during her years as a practicing attorney. The more traditional career path of Lee indicates that what separates leaders from managers is precision in directorship, rather than mere delegative or participatory authority. As Lee’s approach to professional success is one based on intellectual skill rather than celebrity, the extent by which she meets Scott’s vision is untold – and clearly the case with most untelevised CEOs.

References

BET Holdings (2010). Hoovers. Retrieved from: http://www.hoovers.com

Harpo Entertainment Group (2010). Hoovers. Retrieved from: http://www.hoovers.com

OPQ32 Team Types and Leadership Profile (2007). AccessPersonality. Society for Human Resource Management. Alexandria:SHL Group Limited.

Scott, Susan, 2002. Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time. New York: Penguin Books.