The New Reality for Leadership, Essay Example

As I perceive the new reality for leadership, I gain a sense of actual empowerment, rather than any sense of discouragement.  Clearly, recent leadership practices  in certain commercial arenas has generated significant unease regarding ethical behaviors and any real understanding of the role itself.  Leaders trusted to maintain vast organizations have been seen as grossly neglecting their basic responsibilities, and this has permeated the idea of what leadership is in today’s culture.  Culpability, rather than responsibility, is too often the byword for leadership today.  This is moreover an issue extending to social and political spheres as well; all leaders, no matter their rank or spheres of power, are now viewed with wariness by a public no longer confident in their innate adherence to true leadership principles. In plain terms, these are dark days for leaders, and the trust once associated with the role must be restored.

From this modern dilemma, however, comes immense opportunity because the new leader is enabled to literally reconstruct the role, and in ways reinforcing the basic tenets of it.  For example, if anything has been viewed as lacking in much modern leadership, it is the pivotal element of accountability.  For many, and rightly so, leadership begins, not with actual decision-making and authority, but with a commitment:  the leader comprehends the scope of the role in any given circumstances and accepts the responsibility of fulfilling it in an ethical and thoughtful manner.  They are intrinsically accountable for the consequences of the role they have taken on, and this consistent awareness must be the foundation for the leadership practices.  In its absence, no decision-making, no matter the ostensible benefits, has validity.  Consequently, just as recent scandals have severely challenged the idea of leadership in the public mind, so too is the new leader able to actively embrace the accountability vital for the role.  The issues have very much magnified a core too often absent, and this in itself empowers.

Accountability as well inherently goes beyond the parameters of the leader role.  It is an empowering quality for all within the organization, and one essentially defined and “passed down” from the leader’s full acceptance of it (Dive, 2008,  p. 14). I firmly believe that this will influence my own leadership pursuits as something of a reality in itself.  It is essentially a formula for success; as the leader evinces consistent accountability for their own behaviors, those in the organization then better apply the same quality to their own efforts.  This in turn translates to what I perceive as the mark of a real leader, in that they actually seek to empower subordinates to levels of leadership all their own.  The true leader, in other words, is never threatened by evidence of leadership in others, but all the more validated by them, and consequently more assured of maintaining their own role.

I would add that all of the above goes to my conviction that the new reality for leadership must be based on servant leadership, for no other model best represents the essence of leadership at its most effective and ethical.  The model is ironic to an extent, in that even the name implies a contradiction; it literally calls for the leader to adopt a seemingly subordinate role.  This, however, is always the real force behind great leadership.  It demands that accountability be in place because the leader is ultimately in place only to serve the greater good, various elements of authority notwithstanding.  It is based on the concept that good leading happens only when the organization is seen by the leader as paramount.  In my view, then, the reality of leadership today as having generated serious issues is no dilemma at all.  Instead, it merely reinforces the need for a full return to core values of accountability, and the servant leadership concept which I believe is critical to genuine leadership at any level, and in any arena.

References

Dive, B. (2008).  The Accountable Leader: Developing Effective Leadership Through Managerial Accountability. Philadelphia: Kogan Page Publishers.