{"id":28397,"date":"2022-03-17T11:49:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28397"},"modified":"2022-03-17T11:49:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:49:51","slug":"leadership-varieties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leadership-varieties\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Varieties"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Peter G. Northouse\u2019s 1997 book, \u201cLeadership: Theory and Practice,\u201d a wide variety of leadership styles are analyzed for their merits. After each style is evaluated, a determination is made on which style is best in particular situations. Each chapter could stand alone, discussing a single leadership style and its best application. It is a unique and helpful way to organize a book on leadership. The book is strong on theory and practice, helping the reader understand the why<\/em> and the how<\/em> of leadership practice. It also proceeds based on the oldest theories of leadership to the newest theories on leadership. As one progresses through the book, the more sophisticated the ideas become. It is heavy on academic research, complete with graphs and charts, but the prose is written clearly, intended for a popular audience.<\/p>\n

In the brief introduction, Northouse defines leadership as \u201ca process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal\u201d (p. 3) With that basic understanding as the starting point, Northouse branches off into the many theories about how best to do leadership. My biggest criticism of the book is that these categories of styles of leadership are somewhat artificial. The author tries to make distinctions between the dynamics of leadership as though it is a buffet line. For one situation, you can use the roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans. For another situation, it calls for the ham, french fries and corn. Still another is fish, rice and carrots. People\u2019s behaviors and personality traits can not be so easily changed in and out as needed. Nor can a person lead so differently from one situation to another. A danger of trying to be everything to everyone arises. No leader can be that because we all have unique personality traits that refuse to go away. In Edwin Friedman\u2019s book, A Failure of Nerve <\/em>he talks about the strength of a personality in the role of leadership\u2014and that always comes with advantageous and disadvantages. There will be traits about myself in my professional roles that will no doubt rub some people the wrong way, but I will also have some traits that people respect and follow. When you work side by side with people for any period of time, you get to know each other very well. Grace, understanding, and patience inevitably come into play. It is part of being human, working together and trying to accomplish a goal together. We make allowances for each other and we move forward. We should always be striving to improve and learn and add to our professional abilities, but Northouse seems to imply that we can swap out our personality like we change our shoes.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Shulz\u2019s book, Being Wrong<\/em> speaks to the subject of making errors, admitting them and correcting them. Then we move on a little wiser. But it is within our genuine selves that we make these mistakes and learn from them. She says, \u201cLike most fears, our fears of wrongness is half real, half spectral\u201d (p. 180). Northouse might agree with that statement but his solution would be different than Shulz or Friedman. The point they have in common is the undeniable aspect of morals when it comes to leadership. Morals matter and it is essential. They can be developed, refined, and expressed and the successful leader does all three. It would be interesting to study the question of morality under different types of situations that call for different types of leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Peter G. Northouse\u2019s 1997 book, \u201cLeadership: Theory and Practice,\u201d a wide variety of leadership styles are analyzed for their merits. After each style is evaluated, a determination is made on which style is best in particular situations. Each chapter could stand alone, discussing a single leadership style and its best application. It is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2258],"class_list":["post-28397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-northouse","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28398,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28397\/revisions\/28398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}