There are three great
questions in the beginning of chapter one A
Journey of Discovery that would be a great way for anyone who is interested
in leadership to be able to ponder over and reflect upon. The first one asks Has your own attitude to leaders changed in your life, and if so
how? I had to really think about
this because I have held a few jobs in my life and have had many types of
managers and leaders with very different styles of leading. To answer this question I would have to say
yes my attitude has changed in regards to leaders. I have seen many styles, some good, some bad
and some that left me scratching my head wondering what the heck they were
thinking.
Having been through a few
courses now in leadership development I can say that I have more of a firm grasp on
how to be a more effective leader and reflecting on the ways of past managers
and bosses I can see that some of them really got it but sadly most did
not. I look around at the different
departments and the styles of leading are very different from department to
department. Some tend to micromanage
where others are very relaxed and still others are able to have a good balance. I think a big reason I feel that my attitude
has changed is that I have grown as a person and I believe I have a better
understanding of what makes a great leader and it is not by intimation and
fear, or making unrealistic demands it is about communication on both sides and
being able to give and take. You have to
be able to adapt and grow. This leads to
the second question.
If
we take as a starting point in the attitude to those in authority/leaders as
held by your grandparents, and then look at those attitudes held by your
parents, and then by you, and then by the younger generation, is there a
changing trend? If so, what is it? My grandfather came
over from Italy as a teenager for a better life. He was a young man during the great
depression and managed to own his own business as a tailor in CT. From the stories I have been told his
management style was to lead with an iron fist. You did what you were told and you didn’t
question anything. His employees and
family were both ruled this way, you didn’t ask questions and you followed out
of fear. For his generation you just did as you were told there were no
questioning things. For my parents’
generation it was different because there were many changes with civil rights
and more and more women joining the work force.
Leadership was more about power and more women were emerging as
managers.
Women had to prove
themselves as managers that they could be just as firm and hardcore as their
counterparts. My mom had several female
managers who were very strict and demanding of their employees. It was a do
as I say kind and don’t question me kind of attitude. When I joined the workforce at 15 I was
completely naïve to how things worked and if my boss said to clean the bathroom
I didn’t question it I did because I was taught that you didn’t talk back when
someone told you to do something you just did it no questions asked. As I grew and changed jobs I realized that it
was ok to ask questions and to challenge things if I felt that they weren’t
right. I quit a few jobs because I
didn’t believe in what the company was doing or selling. For example, I worked for a company that sold
women’s bathing suits and the gimmick of this place was that all the employees
wore the suits we sold in the store.
This way when a customer came in they would see the suit on and want to
purchase one.
My first day of working
was fun and the lights were really bright so it was warm in the store. At the end of the shift we changed back into
our clothes, had our purses searched to make sure we weren’t stealing and told
to hang our suits back up on the racks.
I immediately questioned this practice and was told ‘that is the way we
do business’. I didn’t feel it was right
to do business this way and when the manager said she didn’t see a problem with
it I knew I couldn’t stay there and work for that company. Watching the younger generation interact with
managers I am surprised by it. There
seems to be no authority, trust and respect on either side. It seems to be lacking that special something
that sparks people to want to follow their manager.
This now takes me to the
last question Why do you think that
this has occurred? From looking
at each generation there seems to be a change in the sense that leaders aren’t
as tough and ruling with an iron fist but they also don’t seem to have found a
good footing on how to be better leaders either. Perhaps this is because there has not been a
standard way of teaching or lack of teaching people how to be good managers and
leaders. There are more and more books
and classes on how to become an effective leader which is great however if we
as future leaders cannot learn to understand ourselves and how we lead and how
to be able to adapt to change we will not make any progress.
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