Self Resonance As A Leader

The concept of effective leadership is a topic that has been widely debated by individuals and professional leaders in many societies. In Kevin Cashman’s book, Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for life, the author reveals that leadership is defined through a person’s understanding of their internal nature, rather than the values, beliefs, and morals a society claims that a leader should possess. Even though Cashman does acknowledge the importance of the societal view of leadership, he argues that true leadership is defined by an individual’s understanding of their internal essence. In each chapter Cashman strongly debates that leaders lead by virtue of who they are. He defines this outlook on leadership as the Inside-Out Leadership Method. This is a method that allows an authoritative figure to develop a strong understanding of their physical, mental, and spiritual essence to lead others towards a mutual goal.

In the process of being a leader, Kinneeveauk emphasized the importance of not losing oneself, “of being you, being comfortable with your skin.” A large number of leaders have no idea who they are; they recognize what they are and live according to the expectation of their position. To him, 50% to 60% of being a leader is recognizing “who you are” and not living to the expectations of the job. Knowing who you are and becoming who you are as a leader [and learning over time the “what” of the job] – encapsulates the trait approach of a leader.

Being a leader is not considered a job or position. Becoming a leader is not a talent, job or position. Although, leadership can be rewarding and difficult at the same time. In today’s society, “the kind of leadership necessary to move social movements forward is very different from the type of leadership required in a military setting, especially on the battlefield. A more sharpened focus on leadership processes versus individual leader traits and behaviors deepens our understanding of the complexities and interactive nature of leadership” (Komives, Lucas and McMahon 2013, 46). My goal is to understand how to face the complexities in life as a leader to communities, universities, organizations, the workplace and the world. As a leader,

Leadership is the elaboration of group inspiration. One person entrusted as leader can implore the aid, and support of supporters in the accomplishment of a common mission. According to Gurdjian, Halbeisen, and Lane “Becoming a more effective leader often requires changing behavior. But although most companies recognize that this also means adjusting underlying mind-sets, too often these organizations are reluctant to address the root causes of why leaders act the way they do” (Gurdjian, Halbeisen, and Lane, 2014) However, today abundant businesses engross importance on the improvement of leaders. Some of the ultimate leaders were formerly followers, such as in instructive businesses. One aspect as leaders many have to contemplate in striving

It is impossible to escape the message here that if people work with leaders who encourage the heart, they feel better about themselves. Their self-esteem goes up. These leaders set people's spirits free, often inspiring them to become more than they ever thought possible. This, indeed, may be our ultimate mission as leaders.

Leaders must be their own selves when engaging with people because this is how they can sympathize with their constituents, making themselves seem more real and approachable. In

Authentic leadership emphasizes that leaders must practice self-awareness, optimism, resiliency, balanced processing (valuing others’ input and all relevant information prior to making decisions), and relational transparency (being one’s self in all interactions). The authentic leader values bringing out the best in others and continually ensures that his/her behavior is both ethical and moral at all times (Laschinger, Borgogni, Consiglio, & Read, 2015). In order to be an authentic leader, a person must request and receive feedback with an open mind and take advantage of opportunities to explore one’s self, which often results in the individual feeling vulnerable (Kerfoot, 2006). Vulnerability is uncomfortable for many due to our society’s emphasis on being autonomous

In the world we live in today the roles of power and leadership are often confused. Although they have similar meanings, they can be distinctly defined between the latter. The key difference between the two is the term of effect. Power is the exercise of leadership, and leadership is only defined if you have power. Leadership always involves attempts on a leader to affect behavior or a follower in a situation, whereas power is not equivalent with influence on another person’s behavior. Although power and leadership have similar meanings, they are certain differences that can point out what makes

DAFT, R. L. (2011). Leadership mind and body. In Leadership (pp. Chapter 5 120- 150).

Unlike servant leadership, a Machiavellian leader does not care about the emotional dissonance of the citizens or employees in the case of a company. Most of these leaders are power hungry politicians who will do all it takes to acquire positions in the parliament and amass wealth. However, there are other leaders who may just want to rule harshly for “the greater good”. Either way, as studied by Gkorezis et al. (2015) , “Machiavellian leadership has a both direct and indirect, through organizational cynicism, on employees’ emotional exhaustion.” An example of such a leader is Gambia’s former president, Yahya Jammeh who had to be impeached for resisting to hand over power. He is allegedly reported to have been worth more than the entire country he was ruling for many years and claimed that he got his wealth from Allah (Freedom Newspaper, 2017). This is a leader who does not put the interest of the people at heart and exploits them to amass wealth. A servant leader would never do such a

Self-regulation, which is like an ongoing inner conversation, is the component of emotional intelligence that frees us from being prisoners of our feelings. Self-regulation matters so much for leaders in such a way that people who are in control of their feelings and impulses are able to create an environment of trust and fairness. In such an environment, politics and infighting are sharply reduced and productivity is high

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

Many leaders fail in leadership because of unresolved issues in their past that have not been dealt with. These unresolved issues will resort in leadership flaws and failures and will bankrupt ones ministry. I found this too be true because I have personally left some past issues unresolved in my life and they have reared their ugly head in numerous areas of my live; especially in leadership. Much of what determines how a leader’s dark side will develop, stems from the family the person grew up in and his/her childhood years through adolescence. The book does an excellent job to show that unsettled issues can create a certain feeling subservience and uncertainty.

The word ‘leadership’ often times triggers a preconceived image of an ideal leader—typically accompanied by the aura that the effective leader should be at the top of the hierarchy, ready to produce the solutions to complex problems. However, this is not true of leadership, given that effective leadership is not achieved by position but rather through style and situational awareness. Examining leadership requires the consideration of the catalysts for different types of leaders. Popular leader development theories tend to focus on the natural servitude of the leader, his or her capability to manage, and leader behavior.

The concept of power is an applicable leadership concept. Leaders use power to decipher whether they have the ability to acquire the commitment or obedience from their workers/officers. Leaders that are educated or trained under the old-paradigm, have low levels of expectations of others around them, and tend to use