Summary
In this paper, the importance of creating leaders in a more evolutionary concept than the conventional one will be raised, we will analyze the concepts of leadership and leader to develop the importance of incorporating leaders who, in addition to being people who possess certain attributes to motivate and direct a group of people or an organization, get involved in the organization to carry out activities that help to present positive results to meet the objectives set. The objective of this work is to create the profile of a good leader but this time adding leaders who meet the objectives, therefore we will base ourselves on the book Results-based Leadership (Zenger 2000).
introduction
This paper forms a brief analysis that will help us achieve effective leadership so that this process leads us to our objectives, taking into account two fundamental elements that a leader must seek, which are: attributes and results.
When thinking about creating leaders, developing leaders with excellent Emotional Intelligence always comes to mind, but apparently this has not been enough for a leader to face certain situations in an organization, in the search for the complement of the leader, it was found that it is necessary deliver results based on objectives and not only transform emotionally to direct our collaborators. The purpose is to work together with both attributes and results without thinking that one is more important than the other.
In the introduction, mention will be made of the definition of leadership, leader and how to develop the characteristics of a leader. The development of the work will be based on the inclusion of the achievement of results in reference to Human Capital and shared Leadership in combination with the attributes, making mention of the main ones.
II. Background
Leadership includes as main conceptions the leader and the people he directs, the power, the power to influence and the values which are reflected in Stone's definition in which he indicates leadership as “the process of directing the work activities of the members of a group and to influence them ”. (Stoner, 1996, p. 514). And to define the leader, we can say that “he is the person capable of exerting influence on others, to direct and guide them effectively towards the achievement of organizational objectives and goals”. (Gómez, 2008, p. 162), this concept indicates the achievement of objectives and goals, which leads us to think that a leader must develop their attributes to use them as tools to achieve these objectives and goals.
There are multiple definitions of the concepts of leader and leadership, but there is a question: Are people born being leaders or can they become leaders? The leader understands characteristics associated with his personality, if the personality is transformed through experiences then I agree that "There are people who are somehow born endowed with a certain charisma that make them leaders in different circumstances… Another type of leader is the one who is form as a result of a summation of concrete life experiences… ”(Delgado, 2003, p. 81). As these qualities and skills are developing and improving, I can assure you that we will obtain better results.
If the characteristics of the leader can be developed or transformed and if they can continue to be developed or transformed, how will we be able to create the profile of a good leader? Years ago this question has been tried to answer by creating profiles of emotional leaders, in evolution this essay seeks to answer this question by building a profile that involves, in addition to emotional intelligence, the importance of incorporating the achievement of positive results to the organization in order to achieve leadership effectiveness, because a leader cannot be called such if he does not have the ability to achieve the expected results based on the objectives. In this work, some points from the book Results-based Leadership (Zenger 2000) will be taken into account.
III. Development
Some people appear to have been born to be leaders, innate leaders with an excellent emotional profile to lead. Leadership no longer has the same vision as before, which was to fully develop the skills, qualities, values and other attributes that the leader should possess. Leadership has evolved and now demands, in addition to attributes, results; which are necessarily learned in experience. The leader of this century fulfills his objectives, using his attributes as a tool. Being in charge of a company, leadership becomes more than just knowing how to treat others, it is about presenting results.
In an organization, the main basis to deploy the desired success is found in leadership, the leader is the engine that directs and influences his collaborators to carry out their activities. A leader is the perfect combination of emotional intelligence and the results obtained according to the objectives, in summary we obtain the formula: "… Effective leadership = attributes X results" (Ulrich, 2000, p. 19), each term is not cumulative since if one has a low score it will affect the other even if it has a higher score, that is, the attributes depend on the results and vice versa.
We will first look at some basic attributes that leaders will need to develop and then focus on the results term for effective leadership.
Leadership implies directing people, influencing them, therefore leaders must present some qualities and values such as empathy, which is the ability to perceive what others transmit in order to put themselves in their place. Empathy involves emotions, it means knowing and understanding people, knowing your collaborators allows you to act on them but if you are not capable of that, you will not be able to direct them.
Some authors assure that the essence of leadership is in character, character is important but it has been making up about a quarter of effective leadership, so we must take this statement as inconclusive. When it comes to character, we think of leaders with strong character who must enforce orders through respect even through fear, when employees comply out of fear and not out of commitment in their activities, there is no leadership effectiveness, in addition to strong character means “… to be open and transparent. In fact, the more people can see inside, the more the leader will radiate. " (Zenger, 2008, p. 33). As a consequence of these qualities, they will be able to gain trust in others and better communication with their staff.In leadership and everywhere you have to know how to communicate, leaders must have the ability to understand what others are trying to say and make them understand what they want to say, since through communication they will transmit the objectives, the orders they want to fulfill, the results, the motivation and the guidelines of the organization.
Values, emotions, character, communication, among other attributes that can be added to the leader to lead, form only a proportional part of leadership.
Now that we know the scope to become leaders based on emotional intelligence, we can see the other part that complements the leader, which is the results obtained and to begin with “We fully subscribe to the basic thesis of the book Results-based Leadership, which maintains that leaders they can be wonderful human beings, but if they do not generate balanced results, in an interrupted way they will simply not be good leaders ”(Zenger, 2008, p. 34), this means that they should not simply act as the kindest people with others but that leadership also demands results.
With knowledge and creativity they will be able to obtain effective leadership creativity helps to create strategies, make decisions, maintain constant innovation and experiment. Knowing the organization and its operation in connection with creativity will drive them to create products or expand the product line, analyzing customers and discovering their needs that are related to the product or service, offering the maximum value with quality, low costs and innovation. Leaders are interested in their customers and in offering them the closest to their needs, to know their opinions they will have to approach them asking them to evaluate their service or product, if they are satisfied we can say that part of the results are positive.Obtaining details of each process that is carried out in the business allows them to become more involved, to act effectively and efficiently.
Peter Drucker states that: "the task of the leader is to develop leaders." (Delgado, 2003, p. 78), we will take this phrase into account, especially if it belongs to the same organization because we share objectives, therefore we have the obligation to teach how to lead and the more competent Human Capital is, the better results will be.
I particularly liked this phrase quoted by the aforementioned author “… When the ship is sinking, the captain cannot gather people to hear them. You have to give orders. That is the secret of shared leadership: knowing in which situations to act as a boss and in which to act as a partner. " (Delgado, 2003, p. 78), leadership is shared to a certain extent, everyone has the right to share their ideas, perhaps some may be useful, some will not have much impact, but the leaders are the ones who decide which ones are favorable. Leadership may be shared, but when facing a problem and making decisions, only the leaders will participate, especially when you have to act soon.
Despite the complex list of characteristics expressed, there is no perfect profile of how a leader should be, since each one will develop it according to their personal style.
IV. conclusion
Leaders need to train and develop into something more than good people, since it is not enough to be the kindest people to direct and motivate their collaborators to meet their objectives, in this work we have tried to understand that both elements work collectively, attributes are the tools that help us direct an organization or an area to know, produce, create and employ the administrative process and meet organizational goals.
V. Bibliographic references
- Delgado, NA (2003). The leader and leadership: reflections. Revista Interamericana de Bibliotecología, 75-88.Gómez, RA (July 2008). Business leadership for technological innovation in micro, small and medium enterprises. Thought & Management., 157-194. Obtained from Thinking & Management. Stoner, JA (1996). Administration. Mexico DF: Pearson Education Ulrich, DZ (2000). Results-based leadership: how leaders strengthen the company and increase value creation. Barcelona: Gestion 2000. Zenger, J. &. (2008). The extraordinary leader. Transforming good managers into extraordinary leaders. Barcelona: McGraw-Hill.
