{"id":9946,"date":"2016-10-27T21:23:21","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T04:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9946"},"modified":"2016-10-27T21:23:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T04:23:21","slug":"shelf-life-determinants-of-a-great-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/shelf-life-determinants-of-a-great-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Shelf Life Determinants of a Great Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shelf<\/a>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the \u201cshelf life\u201d of a leader?\u00a0 Is he\/she the determinant to how long they stay in office or is it contingent on other factors that are less tangible?\u00a0 Vision, perceived success, viability, and organizational health are factors to longevity but the character and skill set of a leader are more likely the glue that keeps the leader at the head of the pack.<\/p>\n

After reading Reflections on Character and Leadership <\/em>last spring by<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, I was excited about reading his book,\u00a0The Leadership Mystique:\u00a0 Leading Behavior in the Hu]<\/a>man Experience.<\/em>\u00a0 I resonate with his assessment of leadership and his practical format for being a better leader.\u00a0 His practicality in writing is clear in the opening statement of the book, \u201cOrganizations are like automobiles.\u00a0 They don\u2019t run themselves, except downhill.\u00a0 They need people to make them work.\u00a0 And not just any <\/em>people, but the right <\/em>people.\u201d[1<\/a><\/p>\n

Kets de Vries helps weave the essential elements that are both inherent and are nurtured in leaders.\u00a0 Leadership has, and will never be, \u201cone size fits all\u201d.\u00a0 The leader is a composite of two traits \u201cnature\u201d and \u201cnurture\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cAs with many traits, leadership is probably a combination of both factors.\u00a0 Although some twin studies suggest that the mixture is 60 per cent nature, 40 per cent nurture, the precise combination isn\u2019t especially important for people in the leadership selection business.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

A le\"Nature:Nurture\"<\/a>ader\u2019s talent can propel them but their character is what sustains them.\u00a0 Kets de Vries states that, \u201cMost of the nurture that\u2019s going to happen in regard to leadership has already happened by the time people choose their career track\u2026\u201d.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Whether the 60\/40 blend is true or not, there is still resident a potential greatness made by choices.\u00a0 Kets de Vries demonstrates that \u201can individual\u2019s leadership style \u2013 a synthesis of the various roles that he or she chooses to adopt \u2013 is a complex outcome of the interplay of that person\u2019s inner theater, as expressed in core issues\u2026\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"leadership<\/a>Kets de Vries focuses on three issues in his book:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cI\u2019ll argue that \u2018irrational\u2019 behavior is a common pattern in organizational life and demonstrate that such behavior has a \u2018rationale\u2019 to it\u2026<\/li>\n
  2. I\u2019ll provide a number of insights into the darker side of leadership, highlighting some of the common behavior patterns that contribute to the derailment of leaders.<\/li>\n
  3. I\u2019ll address what needed to become an effective leader, identifying what effective leaders do to create high-performance organizations and profiling what such organizations look like.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Those three issues are the crux of any organization becoming and sustaining viability and remaining competitive in the market.\u00a0 Then with a simple sweep it seemed he brought out his laser and stated, \u201cFor each of us, our unique mixture of motivational needs determines our character and creates the triangle of our mental life \u2013 a tightly interlocked triangle consisting of cognition, affect, and behavior.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Leadership is more than cognitive reasoning and\/or acquisition of knowledge.\u00a0 Our affect is unique to us based on our nature and nurture combination.\u00a0 To top it off, our behavior is the outflow of our mental, cognition and our affect that people perceive.\u00a0 I was bit uneasy at this point thinking, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t I get this sooner?\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s when I read the Soren Kierkegaard quote, \u201cThe tragedy of life is that you only can understand it backward but you have to live it forward.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The LGP program has been a constant tune and theme in my head of, \u201cI sure wish I would have known that a long time ago.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 All leadership is interim at best!\u00a0 This is when the concept of succession and \u201cshelf life\u201d played in.<\/p>\n

    \"life<\/a>Kets de Vries speaks of the \u201clife-cycle\u201d of a CEO.\u00a0 He states, \u201cThe word life-cycle<\/em> is often used to describe the various development stages of an organism, whether plant, animal, or person.\u00a0 It can also be used to describe the tenure of a CEO.\u00a0 The life-cycle of a CEO generally has three stages:\u00a0 entry, consolidation, and decline.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Not only have I \u201clived in\u201d in my dissertation on the transitioning of the senior leader, ultimately I will \u201clive in\u201d that season again.\u00a0 I realize that I am past the \u201centry\u201d stage and hopefully leading in the \u201cconsolidation\u201d to an eternal vision that will outlive and outlast generations yet to come.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s when Kets de Vries brought clarity to my, and it time all of ours, path.\u00a0 With succession being imminent, \u201c\u2026if you want evolution<\/em>, you promote an insider; if you want revolution<\/em>, you choose an outsider (preferably someone who\u2019s well acquainted with the industry in which the company operates).\u201d\u00a0 The concept of evolution or revolution caused me to look at my \u201cshelf life\u201d and wonder which way am I going to go and how long do I have ?<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, The Leadership Mystique:\u00a0 Leading Behavior in the Human Experience, <\/em>(New York:\u00a0 Prentice Hall, 2001), 1.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Ibid., 229.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Ibid., 229.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Ibid., 229.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Ibid., 4.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Ibid., 5.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> Ibid., 17.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Ibid., 218.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Introduction What is the \u201cshelf life\u201d of a leader?\u00a0 Is he\/she the determinant to how long they stay in office or is it contingent on other factors that are less tangible?\u00a0 Vision, perceived success, viability, and organizational health are factors to longevity but the character and skill set of a leader are more likely the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"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":[246,949],"class_list":["post-9946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ketsdevries","tag-shelf-life","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}