Leadership 1

Organizations

At some point, though, leadership goes beyond getting to know who people are and what they want and then facilitating their desires and aims. If we allow it, people will direct their leaders just to fulfill their wishes. Coaching is just one form of leadership, but it has a characteristic that can guide people in all other forms of leadership: coaches inspire their atheletes to achieve performance beyond what they (the atheletes) previously thought they were capable of. And, particularly coaches of team sports, they inspire their players to aspire more for the team’s good than for their own individual benefit. Leaders inspire people to 1) see values that are bigger than and beyond just themselves, 2) rise above the level they previously thought possible, and 3) accomplish something significant for the greater good beyond limited self-interest. This is beyond just telling people what to do, making people do what you want them to do or just helping people get what they want. A leaders needs to understand their organization’s Charter, the operation they lead - including work flow, work procedures, customer needs/desires, job descriptions of all who report to them, what outcomes from work count as success, and how the activities of the group affect/contribute to the desired outcomes for the larger system. Someone with a formal leadership role will need to make decisions for the good of the group s/he leads and the organization everyone belongs to, based on the understanding described above. Views and thoughts solicited frommembers of the group contribute to these decision but do not necessarily determine them. Everyone places great trust in the individuals given formal authority to make these decisions. Nobody believes they will make the absolute best decision 100% of the time. Those who choose people to hold formal authority in the organization believe that they will make good decisions on a regular basis. They will (should) have ways to determine if those with formal authority make good use of it.

12

Made with FlippingBook Annual report