Introduction
The senior executive service (SES) leader within the federal government sector analyzed herein reflects my option obtained by working alongside him first as a mentor, then as a colleague, and lastly a peer. He is dominantly charismatic and transformative, as he exhibits important traits of a charismatic and transformative leader. In regard to integrity and agreeableness, the leader has personal behavioral characteristics that many people perceived as trustworthy, dependable, cooperative, warm, sympathetic, and considerate. He also demonstrates extroversion. The leader was highly sociable and friendly. He was able to traverse many countries and was always welcome because he had a way of fusing with the locals, for instance, by learning some of the dominant social words in the places he visited and using them to address the locals before he commenced his speeches. This gave him an audience and admiration everywhere he went. Conscientiousness according to Hanson (2014) is the ability to think meticulously, an observable trait in this type of leader’s thinking, his speeches, and his way of approaching issues. The SES leader was also intelligent and open to learning. The leader exhibited the required skills, knowledge and attitude to be a capable leader. Additionally, he had a strong capacity to communicate, a profound perceptual ability and a highly intelligent capacity to reason.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses of Dominant Leadership Style
The SES leadership strengths included his ability to provide inspiration to people to work cooperatively and collaboratively for a common cause, such as when he successfully implored Americans to vote him as president of the interagency workgroup for him to deliver the changes they wished to see. He was able to focus his office on the central goal of changing the policies of the agency to make them more inclusive and democratic. Some of his other strengths included his ability to learn from mistakes and using these lessons to succeed in his missions. He was able to inspire his subordinates to work because he articulated the purpose of his administration. For instance, a leader of this caliber coordinated efforts that led to the elimination of one of the most wanted terrorists in the world as indicated by Hersh (2015). Weaknesses of the SES leader’s leadership style were also observed. While he was an established activator, he sometimes failed to follow-through in executing his policies. This is because owing to his charismatic nature, he tended to focus more on human relationships, which might have caused him to sometimes miss out on the not so vivid details. Sometimes, he came off as self-promoting because some people saw him as a politician and not a leader. For example, most people said that Obama could only succeed in giving speeches but was not adept at running a country. His ability to steer the nation was particularly questioned when he failed to come up with a policy that would adequately address the prevalent and dangerous climate issue, meaning that his ability to form effective policies was under question.
Emotional Intelligence
According to Ovans (2015), emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability of an individual to identify, utilize, comprehend, and handle emotions effectively and productively. When the emotional intelligence is high, an individual is able to communicate effectively, minimize stress and anxiety, resolve conflicts, have empathy for others, improve relationships and maintain a good life balance. The SES leader had good emotional stability, meaning that he demonstrated good emotional intelligence. For example, he could keep constant focus on his vision. He was able to focus on what he was targeting and kept his ego and personal differences aside. If others had better ideas and resolutions, he would listen and make the necessary adjustments to his plans. For instance, he was able to direct operations that resulted in the extermination of a policy that would increase project costs and overruns. He also had a good ability to deal with his emotions.
According to Kannaiah and Shanthi (2015), having good emotional intelligence means one is under control of one’s emotions. The SES leader did not react angrily to situations and even when confronted, he maintained his calm, and this enable him to think in a clear way during times of crisis. For example, he had a clear understanding of external factors regarding budget cuts and used his situational awareness to not start projects, as there wouldn’t be enough funds to complete the job and thus demonstrated a good model of competent behavior. The leader was also a good listener and an eloquent communicator. His subordinates always felt they had an audience with the leader. He was apt at making speeches and talked plainly and in a manner that allowed his listeners to understand him. Another example of the SES leader’s demonstration of emotional intelligence was him being aware of how others felt and could communicate at their level.Since he could connect with how others felt, he was thus a highly skilled mediator and could bring the opinions of people together to work towards obtaining a common goal. He was also flexible, humble, and open to learning from his mistakes. The SES leader had an open attitude and a readiness to listen to others. This is because he had the humility and the self-realization to know that he could not always be right and was always accountable for any mistakes he might have made.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard to Emotional Intelligence
The SES leader’s strengths was comprised of his ability to react calmly to change and accordingly adapt, which allowed him to make effective communication even when under pressure, a characteristic of a person with a good emotional intelligence as indicated by Jorfi, Jorfi, Yaccob and Md Nor (2014).He was also self-aware, which made him aware of what he was supposed to do and know what improvements he had to make, as well as know what approach best worked for him in disbursing his daily duties. He was balanced. Since he had a good self-awareness, he appeared to know how to maintain a healthy balance between his personal and professional life, which enabled him to run his affairs in a capable, stress-free manner. His emotional intelligence made him empathetic, meaning that he was able to relate well with others and to make them feel appreciated in the workplace. Weakness of the SES leader with regard to emotional intelligence included owing to the inclination of the emotionally intelligent person towards favoring social contact, his high emotional intelligence it made him more agreeable and open in some moral situations that people perceived he should have been more withheld. For instance, some fellow colleagues were of the opinion that he was sympathetic to anti-American positions.
Modeling the Way
A host of reasons were observed as to why the SES leader was good in modeling the way. He was a good model because he is insightful. He was constantly advocating for the people he led and understood that the organization could only progress if the people had equal opportunities in employment, education and health care. He recognized what his responsibilities were and executed them notwithstanding if they caused controversy. The leader was also aware of the roles of his subordinates. He understood the duties that every subordinate was delegated and was aware of why each of the roles was beneficial to the accomplishment of the larger success of the office. He thus motivated his subordinates, which inspired them to work harder to achieve the set targets. The SES leader’s good communication also made him a good model because he clearly articulated the vision of his office and allowed his subordinates to consult with him for direction and guidance and was willing to furnish them with all the guidance and advice they needed to maximize on their jobs.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard to Modeling the Way
The SES leader’s strengths encompassed his ethical work ethics, his speech, his dressing and adequately modeled the way to his employees by being a personal reflection of how the employees were expected to behave and work. He was self-confident, meaning that he was sure of his skills and competencies. He also had high self-assurance and high self-esteem in his conviction that his team could bring about positive change. The leader also understood that leadership entailed making positive influences on others and thus, using his self-confidence, he endeavored to make positive impacts in the lives of his staff. For instance, he openly expressed support for his staff affected when President Obama legalized same-sex marriages because he was of the opinion that people marry for love and that no law could prohibit that. A weakness of the SES leader with regard to modeling the way as a result of him being a charismatic leader, his support of Obama’s decision to legalize gay marriages was viewed by some people as an effort to gain audience with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and that he was not acting morally. Thus, it was difficult to make the distinction when he made controversial decisions on whether he intended to please people or whether he was making decisions on a factual basis.
Inspiring a Shared Vision
The SES leader was an adept change agent at inspiring a shared vision. He was able to convince a variety of employees and stakeholders alike that they could change their personal lives by making positive alterations to their futures. The positive impact of this message was evidenced by the interviews with the segregated black staff whose voices were filled with hope and the belief that they could achieve what was initially inconceivable. The leader’s message of inspiring vision was felt across all ethnicities, genders and racial ages. He demonstrated that where people had given up hope, change could indeed occur. He was able to inspire change by using his proficient oratory skills that inspired all staff to focus less on slight concerns and work collaboratively to surmount the present challenges, both at home and in the workplace. This capacity entails framing potentially divisive concerns in terms that go beyond specific philosophies and concentrate on larger universal premises. Indications by Martin, McCormack, Fitzsimons and Spirig (2014) aver that owing to a shared vision, people feel inspired and encouraged to rise over fear and to unify in gearing towards achieving one purpose of change.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard to Inspiring a Shared Vision
The SES leader’s strengths were his capacity to inspire his staff and unify them for a common purpose. For example, he was highly successful in mobilizing people to vote for him, notwithstanding the ever-present racial factor in the organization, and especially on the governmental scene. His calmness, confidence and a commanding presence inspired staff to believe that he had their best interest at heart, notwithstanding the disparities in policies. The leader had a keen regard for all perspectives and establishing common ground to incorporate everyone’s input. He also had an ability to offer informed responses to the most pertinent issues affecting employees. Weaknesses with regard to inspiring a shared vision included his confident stance that was sometimes mistaken as arrogance and a lack of seriousness. For instance, many people were skeptic of his endorsement of gay marriages, terming his endorsement as a political move geared to ensuring the LGBT community voted for him, and not necessarily because he truly believed it was the right thing to do. Another weakness was his incorporation of divergent views that was sometimes regarded as being too morally fluid and an indicator of his inability to make tough decisions which made him appear as a leader bent on pleasing people.
Challenging the Process
The SES leader was keen on making critical challenges to the conventional process of administrating the affairs of his office he led. He began by initially affirming his leadership by asserting he was in charge of things and adopted an approach of communicating his messages in a way that convinced the staff that things were going to be done differently than they had previously been done. He also was receptive to new ideas and welcomed new approaches on how policies could be formulated and implemented in the most productive way that would benefit stakeholders as Milillo (2012) indicated Obama did.
In light of challenging the process, the SES leader set his office’s mission to ensure that his staff as well as his approaches at tackling issues was focused, proactive and positive. He also enthusiastically created and upheld a culture of openness, determination and integrity that permeated his tenure. The leader was aware that the most pertinent issue in challenging the process was closing the gap in results, where special interest’s promises were in abundance but devoid of actualization. He was insistent that the blame game could however not help to close this gap; rather, focusing on actualizing the promises was the primary concern. The leader also believed that the mistake that many public officials did was to have a myopic view of the process of actualizing an idea into a result. For instance, he cited those legislators rarely took part in implementing bills because they view passing the bill as the final step.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard to Challenging the Process
The SES leader’s strengths involved his keen determination where others wavered. He saw opportunity and progression where other people saw obstacles. He was disciplined when others lost sight of their purpose and were calm and collected when others were finicky.
The leader did not lose hope regardless of the situation and arrived at solutions where none seemed to work. Weaknesses with regard to challenging the process, one instance where the SES leader was aware that the problem was in the process and thus, failures were expected. However, he seems to not have formulated the right processes that would ensure that the relevant policies were effectively implemented and followed up. Another time was when he sometimes fixated on bashing the media for focusing on the political infighting, rather than concentrating on his task, which made it appear as if he was pointing fingers and placing blame.
Enabling Others to Act
In light of empowering others to act, the SES leader firmly believed in the abilities of his subordinates and sought to unite them in working collaboratively to achieve the mandates of their duties and of the office as a whole. He was able to empower his subordinates because he initially created a shared vision of what he wanted them to accomplish and effectively communicated it to them. The advantage that this approach gave him was that he allowed the subordinates to share his vision and to own the process by working collaboratively with him to attain their goals, as well as his. The leader understood that effectively communicating the share vision to this staff would ensure that they had adequate knowledge on what and how they needed to execute their job mandates personally and collectively to the best they could. He also realized by encouraging his subordinates to work with him, he was always aware of the resources they needed to accomplish their tasks and adequately supplied them in order to enable the subordinates to actively turn their information and inspiration into actual results, similar to the way Milillo (2012) described how Obama enabled others to act.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard To Enabling Others to Act
The SES leader’s strengths were his good socialization skills that allowed him to communicate the vision of his office not only to staff, but also to other influential senior leaders. For example, he gave a speech at the burial of a fellow colleague that evoked the sense of nationalism and patriotism, which communicated the ideals of every agency and of the mission of the organization. He also had good organizational skills that allowed him to define articulately define the task of every subordinate, which allowed the subordinate to work towards attaining the required objective. The leader’s interactions with his subordinates allowed him to know how and when to allocate the required resources to his subordinates to enable them to execute their tasks. This helped him to engender team spirit among the subordinates and the management of the office he led. Due to his participative approach when dealing with his subordinates, he was able to monitor how the tasks were being performed and compare the results to his plan. Consequently, he was able to develop the subordinates and create a sense of purpose in them.
A weakness of the SES leader with regard to enabling others to act was that couldn’t control the rate and quality of work and couldn’t effectively adjust the plan based on the outcomes and feedback obtained. This caused him not able to maintain discipline and commitment to the mission of the office he led.
Encouraging the Heart
The SES leader was able to encourage the heart because he had positive messages that convinced people and stakeholders that they could bring any change they desired to their lives, and that the power to do so lay within themselves. He inspired people to work with the vision of change and he publicly demonstrated that he believed his subordinates were capable by giving them the space to do their work and never scorning them publicly. He also ensured that the rights of every constituent were adequately provided and went to great lengths to ensure that every stakeholder was recognized and granted his or her due rights. For instance, he granted administrative leave in recognition of the gay marriage law by asserting that people came together because of love.
When the U.S. came under terrorist and racially motivated attacks, the leader would appear to personally encourage people and to let them know that the administration was still bent on ensuring the protection of American against terrorism and against the negative effects of racial attacks. He was able to relay a message of personal empowerment, possibility, and even reasons to trust the government. This same approach of assertiveness, confidence and self-assuredness can be used in any institution to empower employees, leaders and other key personnel to believe that they have the capacity to achieve their personal goals as well as those of their respective jobs.
Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses with Regard to Encouraging the Heart
The SES leader’s strengths were his able to provide inspiration that motivated people to believe that they could positively influence their personal lives if they so wanted. He encouraged people that even in the face of adversity, the possibilities were still there, and it only required for one to understand himself in order to realize that the change they desired was in fact with them.
He was also articulate when giving people the tools and the information they needed so that they could concentrate on directing and achieving their inspiration. The leader was able to provide important motivation that enabled stakeholders as well as his subordinates and partners to transform such information and inspiration into action to obtain real results. For instance, his initiatives to personally respond to families who have been affected by terrorism helped him to convince legislators that the administration was considerate of their safety and endorsed for enhancement of security policies. He was also able to demonstrate to senior leaders and to the general community that every resource was a priority when on the quest to achieve a goal. He demonstrated this resolve by exploiting the available low tech and high tech means such as the internet to create a highly prolific campaign that eventually accessed him to the top of the leadership ranks.
Weaknesses with regard to encouraging the heart could be seen by the positive messages that were initially received with accolades but at some point, certain policies seemed to fail and thus, people began to doubt his ability to deliver on his promise. His inability to implement or enforce policies that would compel the legislators to follow up on key bills reduced his effectiveness in bringing the desired change to stakeholders. For example, many perceived that his stance on Obama Care did not account for the poor of the country, thus painting the picture of a president who did not regard the plight of the poor citizens who could not afford to pay for the mandatory cover.
Conclusion
In the end, it is concluded that the leadership improvement seems necessary in an organization, as it can lead towards the better directions. It is good for a leader to evolve with the passage of the time. The study focused on different strengths and weaknesses in the process, and accordingly, the leadership of the company may adopt different leadership styles. The improvement in the leadership process is a glimpse of leadership behavior change. The most important thing is how a leader deals with all key stakeholders to share the vision and delegate the process. Deriving several insights from the study, the role of the leader in an organization is to enhance the visibility of cognition and streamline the rational decision-making process. Emotional intelligence, modeling, vision, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart are some key aspects that a leader can carry on the company to contain the improvement. To become a better leader, the leader must have to streamline different weaknesses and work on them to eliminate different barriers. The perfect intelligence in the leadership process is an effective approach to derive several insights, and accordingly, make the decision. All leadership aspects, elaborated above, contain weaknesses. Interestingly, good leadership can intend to convert all these weaknesses into opportunities to make the difference. The execution of the monitoring system seems mandatory for the leadership. It looks purposeful, as the leader can identify some flaws in the process. The follow-up or monitoring system is a prominent source to get information and make several decisions for further improvements. Trends of doing business are changing with the time, and the role of the leadership in the different organization is also evolving. The leadership evolvement starts from improvements that can lead towards the change. It is a steady process. However, it is quite beneficial for the organization and all key stakeholders.
References
Hanson. S.L. (2014). Transformational leadership and communication: Barack Obama case studyhttps://sdsu-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/115573/Hanson_sdsu_0220N_10194.pdf
Hersh, S.M. (2015). The Killing of Osama bin Laden. Vol. 37 No. 10, pages 3-12. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden
Jorfi, H., Jorfi, S., Yaccob, H.F.B., and Md Nor, K. (2014). The impact of emotional intelligence on communication effectiveness: Focus on strategic alignment. Vol. 6(5), pp. 82-87. DOI: 10.5897/AJMM2010.036. http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/AJMM/article-full-text-pdf/63A098347718
Kannaiah, D and Shanthi, R. (2015). A Study on Emotional Intelligence At Work Place.European Journal of Business and Management: Vol.7, No.24. https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/40340/1/40340%20Kannaiah%20and%20Shanthi%202015.pdf
Martin, J., McCormack, B., Fitzsimons, D and Spirig, R. (2014). The importance of inspiring a shared vision.International Practice Development Journal.Vol 4 (2) [4].https://www.fons.org/Resources/Documents/Journal/Vol4No2/IPDJ_0402_04.pdf
Milillo, W.M. (2012). The Obama Doctrine: The LICI Foreign Policy Perspective. http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1186&context=honors_capstone
Ovans, A. (2015). How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill.https://hbr.org/2015/04/how-emotional-intelligence-became-a-key-leadership-skill
Reflection
The senior executive service leader contains many charismatic and transformative characteristics. In the service process, the role of the leader has been streamlined due to the impact on both process and stakeholders. The transformative leadership style is quite pertinent to the SES leader in an organization. The biggest strength of the emotional intelligence is that the leader can recognize needs or flows timely and makes effective decisions. On the other hand, the weakness is the inclination. Modeling the way is another trait of the leadership. However, the biggest strengths are ethics and behavior. However, conversely, the weakness of this aspect is the controversial decision. When sharing the vision, the leader can motivate the staff effectively. However, the biggest weakness is the arrogance, which can be occurred. In other others, there may be a lack of seriousness. When integrating with challenges in the process, he intends to be optimistic. People usually face different barriers or resistances. Conversely, he likes to find different opportunities to eliminate these obstacles. Thus, SES leader prefers opportunities for better exploitation of different resources. Enabling others to act is a kind of delegation. For Instance, it is better to use organizational skill to allocate different tasks and let others make effective decisions for the organization. SES leaders save time and cost of the company through this effective approach. Creating the team spirit in a firm builds a strong workforce, which makes some outputs quite predictable. Encouraging the heart is a workable initiative by the leader. To meet the purpose, the motivation is a prominent tool. The motivation and inspiration are two elements that a shape the behavior of the workforce. However, some improvisations are needed to evade barriers, as all employees are to be treated differently. The example on stance on Obama care is quite interesting, as it creates some contradictions.
The importance of having the comprehensive conclusion is visible, as it helps in deriving insights from the study and illustrates some key deliverables. Articulating some key point in the study needs a precise and well-organized conclusion. Therefore, the conclusion has been expanded.
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