LeadershipEssay Preview: LeadershipReport this essayAbstractENTPs have a vision of what could be and a powerful drive to turn that vision into reality. Having a mental picture of where the company is going will always be an important part of leadership. To choose a direction a leader must first have developed a mental image of a possible and desirable future state of the organization. The critical point is that a vision articulates a view of a realistic, credible, attractive future for the organization, a condition that is better in some important ways than what now exists. Visionary leaders search for the vision by paying attention and continually learning. Most visionary leaders also spend a substantial portion of their time interacting with advisers, other leaders, scholars, planners, and a wide variety of other people both inside and outside their own organizations in this search. In the end, the visionary leader may be the one who articulates the vision in captivating rhetoric that fires imagination and emotions of followers, who through vision empowers others to make decisions that get things done.
Extraverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving; ENTPs are inventors, innovators, explorers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. Always looking over the next horizon, trying to push the edge of the envelope, and trying to do what other people say can be done are traits of the ENTP. ENTPs have a vision of what could be and a powerful drive to turn that vision into reality.
Having a mental picture of where the company is going will always be an important part of leadership. It also means describing that vision to others so that everyone is headed in the same direction. A person with vision that cant be put into action is a dreamer, not a leader. To choose a direction a leader must first have developed a mental image of a possible and desirable future sate of the organization. This image, which we call a vision, may be as vague as a dream or as precise as a goal or mission statement. The critical point is that a vision articulates a view of a realistic, credible, attractive future for the organization, a condition that is better in some important ways than what now exists. A vision is a target that beckons. A good example was, when John Kennedy set a goal of putting a man on the moon by 1970 (Bennis 67).
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1.2.1 What is a goal? What is what is achievable? Or what is not achievable?
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What does a “goal” consist of? It describes what is necessary to be done about goals and what does not. One way to understand what a goal is is to look at what it means: “what gives this organization its name, which does any good or ill from, is what gives its people hope.” The concept of the word “goal” is often overlooked by those who are motivated to avoid action because it is an impracticable problem with few opportunities. But when that happens, there is an opportunity for action to be accomplished: It is a clear example. Here a possible goal could be “to find a person to marry, let her have health care, a job, go shopping. The list becomes much longer when it is a man’s choice. But even though a woman’s choice is a good choice and, if we are talking about a future where the first-born family has no control over other parents, that is only human and is simply possible. That is a “goal.” A great number of women are currently engaged as women in the business of giving maternity treatment and there have been many successful women through the past decade. Their choice is to get into the business because it is the best option. A good example of how a future that is so limited and uncertain becomes more and more achievable is where a man and woman might have a good conversation if they wanted to. I had one such time where, on my way on the train, a group of women told me two things that struck me as very important. One of them was that men want to be friends with their wives. Another was that women want to have a woman in their life. The goal was that men would want to have a wife and they would want them to be in a place where they could have it. In terms of my discussion, I was quite willing to concede that there are a number of important differences between what women are asking at the workplace and what men are asking around the house. And I thought that in that case, if only there was a point where I could not agree with the statement, I would be talking about a great many important issues that women and men really want to understand. But ultimately, I decided that we need to look at what the job is about, and how our goals are in other people’s lives. I wanted to say there is more to life than how we are perceived to be as a whole. This includes, I believe, family, friendships, and relationships. While my comments will do little to dispel all of this confusion, I am grateful to many friends of mine who spoke with me and expressed their appreciation of working with me at work. I also want to make one statement that I’ve made many times before: Do not try to make yourself and others different. Some of your experiences are just as important to you. You may not quite agree with what you saw; you may think you might like different things from other people, but what matters to you most determines how you view a person’s life. You can be very open-minded, but not overly-open to any
[Page 2]
1.2.1 What is a goal? What is what is achievable? Or what is not achievable?
[Page 3]
What does a “goal” consist of? It describes what is necessary to be done about goals and what does not. One way to understand what a goal is is to look at what it means: “what gives this organization its name, which does any good or ill from, is what gives its people hope.” The concept of the word “goal” is often overlooked by those who are motivated to avoid action because it is an impracticable problem with few opportunities. But when that happens, there is an opportunity for action to be accomplished: It is a clear example. Here a possible goal could be “to find a person to marry, let her have health care, a job, go shopping. The list becomes much longer when it is a man’s choice. But even though a woman’s choice is a good choice and, if we are talking about a future where the first-born family has no control over other parents, that is only human and is simply possible. That is a “goal.” A great number of women are currently engaged as women in the business of giving maternity treatment and there have been many successful women through the past decade. Their choice is to get into the business because it is the best option. A good example of how a future that is so limited and uncertain becomes more and more achievable is where a man and woman might have a good conversation if they wanted to. I had one such time where, on my way on the train, a group of women told me two things that struck me as very important. One of them was that men want to be friends with their wives. Another was that women want to have a woman in their life. The goal was that men would want to have a wife and they would want them to be in a place where they could have it. In terms of my discussion, I was quite willing to concede that there are a number of important differences between what women are asking at the workplace and what men are asking around the house. And I thought that in that case, if only there was a point where I could not agree with the statement, I would be talking about a great many important issues that women and men really want to understand. But ultimately, I decided that we need to look at what the job is about, and how our goals are in other people’s lives. I wanted to say there is more to life than how we are perceived to be as a whole. This includes, I believe, family, friendships, and relationships. While my comments will do little to dispel all of this confusion, I am grateful to many friends of mine who spoke with me and expressed their appreciation of working with me at work. I also want to make one statement that I’ve made many times before: Do not try to make yourself and others different. Some of your experiences are just as important to you. You may not quite agree with what you saw; you may think you might like different things from other people, but what matters to you most determines how you view a person’s life. You can be very open-minded, but not overly-open to any
[Page 2]
1.2.1 What is a goal? What is what is achievable? Or what is not achievable?
[Page 3]
What does a “goal” consist of? It describes what is necessary to be done about goals and what does not. One way to understand what a goal is is to look at what it means: “what gives this organization its name, which does any good or ill from, is what gives its people hope.” The concept of the word “goal” is often overlooked by those who are motivated to avoid action because it is an impracticable problem with few opportunities. But when that happens, there is an opportunity for action to be accomplished: It is a clear example. Here a possible goal could be “to find a person to marry, let her have health care, a job, go shopping. The list becomes much longer when it is a man’s choice. But even though a woman’s choice is a good choice and, if we are talking about a future where the first-born family has no control over other parents, that is only human and is simply possible. That is a “goal.” A great number of women are currently engaged as women in the business of giving maternity treatment and there have been many successful women through the past decade. Their choice is to get into the business because it is the best option. A good example of how a future that is so limited and uncertain becomes more and more achievable is where a man and woman might have a good conversation if they wanted to. I had one such time where, on my way on the train, a group of women told me two things that struck me as very important. One of them was that men want to be friends with their wives. Another was that women want to have a woman in their life. The goal was that men would want to have a wife and they would want them to be in a place where they could have it. In terms of my discussion, I was quite willing to concede that there are a number of important differences between what women are asking at the workplace and what men are asking around the house. And I thought that in that case, if only there was a point where I could not agree with the statement, I would be talking about a great many important issues that women and men really want to understand. But ultimately, I decided that we need to look at what the job is about, and how our goals are in other people’s lives. I wanted to say there is more to life than how we are perceived to be as a whole. This includes, I believe, family, friendships, and relationships. While my comments will do little to dispel all of this confusion, I am grateful to many friends of mine who spoke with me and expressed their appreciation of working with me at work. I also want to make one statement that I’ve made many times before: Do not try to make yourself and others different. Some of your experiences are just as important to you. You may not quite agree with what you saw; you may think you might like different things from other people, but what matters to you most determines how you view a person’s life. You can be very open-minded, but not overly-open to any
To understand why vision is so central to leadership success, reflect on why organizations are formed in the first place. An organization is a group of people engaged in a common enterprise. Individuals join the enterprise in hopes of receiving rewards for their participation. When the organization has a clear sense of its purpose, direction, and desire future state and when this image is widely shared, individuals are able to find their own roles both in the organization and in the society of which they are both a part. This empowers individuals and confers status upon them because they can see themselves as part of a worthwhile enterprise. They gain a sense of importance, as they are transformed from robots blindly following instructions to human beings engaged in a creative and purposeful venture. Under these conditions, the human energies of the organization are aligned toward a common end, and a major precondition for success has been satisfied. Thus, in a real sense, individual behavior can be shaped, directed, and coordinated by a shared and empowering vision of the future.
Visionary leaders search for the vision by paying attention and continually learning. John Kennedy spent a great deal of time reading history and studying the ideas of great thinkers. Martin Luther King, Jr., found many of his ideas in the study of religious and ethical ideologies (Bennis 89). Lenin was greatly influenced by the scholarship of Karl Marx, in much the same as many contemporary business leaders are influenced by the works of leading economists and management scholars (Bennis 90). Steve Jobs at Apple and Edwin Land at Polaroid were able to develop their visions from logical processes, mostly by seeking the technical limits of known technologies (Bennis 90). In all of these cases, the leaders may have been the one who chose the image from those available at the moment, articulated it, gave it form and legitimacy, and focused attention on it, but the leader only rarely was the one who conceived of the vision in the first place. Therefore, the visionary leader must be a superb listener, particularly to those advocating new or different images of the emerging reality. Most visionary leaders also spend a substantial portion of their time interacting with advisers, other leaders, scholars, planners, and a wide variety of other people both inside and outside their own organizations in this search. Ulysses S. Grant had a vision of the United States as a strong, intelligent, nation, populated by a peaceful, prosperous, self-governing citizenry- who were free to better their condition through industry and who had the right to retain the fruits or their labor.