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Frank is being called an up-and-coming author whose writing has been praised as suspenseful and sophisticated. After writing articles that have been published and distributed by a professional organization, Frank was mentioned in a news story at msnCareers before turning his creative style to novels -- his debut novel praised as thrilling and a roller-coaster ride. His life has been an interesting one for his age of 47, in which time he has traveled to a dozen countries and lived in several of them. He spent 15 years working in management positions of Fortune companies and as an instructor at the college level, before providing communication skills training in other countries. Some highlights of his background include providing tutoring services to a member of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Planning Committee; holding the position of director in an international language business; and being praised as the best trainer by a former student (corporate lawyer). He has worked as a Ghostwriter for a publisher, judged a short-story competition, has provided editing services for graduate research material at USC, and writes book reviews for a POD publisher.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

MY REPLY TO A HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ARTICLE - On the topic of why leaders lose their way.


Another provocative topic worthy of serious consideration. I won’t comment on the personality or psyche of the leader, it’s too serious a subject which requires the discretion of conditions conducive to effectively talking about it.

However, having lived abroad for over 10 years, and in different cultures with their own perspectives on subjects like leadership, I suggest that there is one universal idea of leadership. And that is that when a leader takes actions which harm their organization, and by extension the people in it, it is considered to be undesirable.

I see this topic as supporting an earlier topic here about poor ethics in organizations. Considering the dark side of leadership, it serves my previous comments about putting ethical people in positions higher and higher in an organization. And value centered leadership reinforces the idea that leaders must have the right traits when chosen for a leadership position. That will include their ways of dealing with aspects of the position which push or try to compromise them. The, it’s lonely at the top, notion shows to have different interpretations of it. Some of them being, the buck stops here; the person at the top has no friends; you must distance yourself from your friends in an organization; and that when you have reached the highest position possible you feel a sense of loneliness for the end of the challenge, which offers nothing higher to strive for. However, the article’s idea about it, that the pressure of responsibility on a leader creates feelings of loneliness, serves to show that a leader who does not posses the right traits can in fact be lonely at the top.

The idea of being lonely at the top focuses on the notion that a leader must make difficult decisions, which at times can make them unpopular with people in the organization. Hence, either having lost the sense of camaraderie or possibly the public display of friendships by people in the organization, it is said the leader is lonely in their position at the top. This leader makes decisions which are in the best interest of the organization and the people in it, but they are not always popular decisions. Those who put this leader in their position must accept the responsibility to support the leader in the face of a loss of popularity at times. Without such support this leader risks becoming vulnerable to the traps of popularity, and become at risk of losing their way. That is if they are not taken out of their position for all the wrong reasons, in which case the organization has shown to have a flawed idea of leadership. The leader whose popularity takes a back seat to decisions that are good for an organization, is in contrast to the leader who seeks popularity at the expense of the organization’s best interests in their decisions — a leader, as I suggest in terms of a universal idea, is not a desirable one.

If the questions to be answered from this article are, "Why do I want to lead?" and "What's the purpose of my leadership?" — it is the reply to these questions by those selecting the leader for a position, or their understanding of the answers given by the prospective leader, that offer the chance to put the best possible person into a leadership position. Of course a leader must be introspective, but to avoid a leader losing their way it must be ensured initially that the leader has the right traits.

1 comment:

  1. With regard to comment 50, I received a comment about my earlier post here and it challenged my comment, suggesting I proposed that a popular leader is not a good leader. They missed the point being made, which is when popularity is given priority to what is best for an organization, a problem will soon be waiting to show itself. A popular leader whose actions keep the best interest of their organization in mind is an ideal, I would suggest, to work toward. However, I say this to serve comment 50 in its point about learning values from articles and other educational material. If people cannot properly understand what is posted here, and incorrectly read into comments, what are the chances they will learn something as profound as values?

    I think the attention given to the topics of leadership/ethics/values is an indication of there being a problem in these areas. Too many people no longer posses good traits in these areas. What also is a truism, or should be, is the idea that if leaders must be reminded of the pitfalls in the article, and are not already aware of them, they are questionable leaders. Think about it, how can a leader give advice about staying true to one’s position and the company if they need to be reminded in a blatant manner as this? It’s always helpful to review a topic, but one can easily feel patronized by this presentation of it. And to be positive about it, this information should be focused toward discussions around getting more people to have the values in question. Perhaps a look at hiring or promoting practices, or employee development, as the second part of this topic. If it is true, as comment 50 suggests, that values are already in us and cannot be taught (to adults), I’d say the next article on this should look at hiring and or promoting practices. The paramount priority becomes what to look for, because it’s been conceded that it cannot be taught. I think the worth of good people out there just shot way up.

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