Leadership on The Line Essay Example for Free

Leadership on The Line EssayRecognizing the evolving definition and requirements of leadinghip, Heifetz Ronald and Linsky (2002) play up the need for leaders to consider the skills and perspective to ensure their effectiveness. Leadership, as illustrated in Leadership on The LineStaying viable with the Dangers of Leading? requires not only the accomplishment of goals but also the ability to respond efficaciously to the human realities of working in an organization. The books three parts provide steps in recognizing lead challenges, growth responses and interventions and what competencies leaders must jump professional personly and personally. Marginalization, diversion, attack and seduction are identified as the master(prenominal) sources of granting immunity to leaders. At the same time, the authors also pay particular attention to the dangers within the leadership characterized as hunger for power and control and the difficulties in self-monitoring. The authors want t o communicate to readers that at that place is a need for leaders to purse the development of their leadership skills. Despite the use of figurative characterizations in the book, the authors are practical and pragmatic sanction in their discussion. The examples given, particularly in the Response section of the book is based on real animation examples.Examples which the readers throw out easily relate directly to or parallel to their own experience. The authors point out that the sources of resistance are natural to any leadership scenario and therefore prat not be fully halt and in fact, can also be safeguard against ineffective leadership However, they have to control through resistance-response skills which in turn allows leaders to function as they are needed. Critique There is no dubiousness that leadership is a difficult challenge. Thus, there has been no limitation of the number of literature that aim to develop strategies and competencies for it.Unlike most literatu re in its genre that focuses on the development of attributes for effective leadership to stupefy a leader, Ronald and Linsky discuss the development of leadership when one already holds office. The authors aim to provide a literature or guide to leaders who are already experiencing challenges in their roles due to a change in working scenarios or relationships. From the perspective of Heifetz and Linsky, what has become more critical for leaders to day has been the ability to go beyond their functions and respond to other people and at the same time eliciting a response from them.Thus, beyond achieving goals set members, of the organization must understand why these goals are world pursued, that people need to jockey that the stakes are worth it (p. 94). At the same time, Heifetz and Linsky state that before any action can be take to address threats to effective leadership, leaders must be able to understand the lovingness of the issues before recognizing the actions, indicatio ns or faces determining the threats. The main message of the book is the need for leaders not effective to be competent, sensitive or responsive.They also must understand the their motivations for being so, the perspectives that can be taken, the methods that can be most effective and the implications of any perspective, opinion or action to be taken. Empathizing with the natural closing off of being the top man of an organization there should be an acceptance that there will be member of the organization who would undermine the clarity of his vision, delay his progress, and divert him from his core purposes (p. 76). Thus, leaders while being advocated to be sensitive to their organization have to balance this with their resolve to accomplish organization goals.Leaders should be then prepared to be questioned, doubted and even maligned for their decisions. Heifetz and Linsky reflect that leaders often view these are criticisms to their professional and personal capacity but they sh ould also understand that these reactions, even when they are deliberate and malicious, occur as part of the dynamics leading and organizations. Reading the book, one of the most unique ideas that Heifetz and Linsky present, absent from most of the leadership literature that I have read, is the concept of pain and leadership. The authors views are ones that one can easily view as and even commiserate to.The recognition of the fact that effective leadership has its pains and not just costs, twain to the leader and the organization, is a perspective that makes the work effective and truly emphatic to the challenges of leadership. The view that leadership challenges, or resistance, is an ever present element in any organization does not discourage readers but genuinely motivates them to deal with them rather than trying to circumvent them. However, it should also be recognized that some of the examples or ideas presented whitethorn require significant experience to be understood com prehensively.This is a particular challenge in the ending section of the book where the authors delineate the introspective requirements for leaders. Nonetheless, the book provides critical insights to the realities of leadership and not just what it should be. to a greater extent importantly, it is effective in motivating readers view leadership as continuing process of development and that there is a need to actively pursue effectiveness. Reference Heifetz, Ronald A. and Linsky, Marty (2002). Leadership on The LineStaying alive through the Dangers of Leading, initiatory Edition. Boston Harvard Business School Press.