Effective Communication is the Key to Success

The quote “Leadership is an action, not a position” was once said by Donald McGannon. In other words, the quote is saying that leaders are not just people who are given a position to make decisions and decide what is best for a company. Leaders are those who take action with their followers and cause a greater good in our society and the world. For example, you can be a manager for a company and tell people how they should do their work.

However, a real leader would take action when something is wrong would, change certain problems, and ask their followers how they feel about certain issues in a company. A real leader would always make sure her/his community and the people surrounding them are always reaching for the common good. A good leadership style is Transformational Leadership; this Leadership focuses on many different aspects, not just one.

Transformational Leadership has components like charisma, communication, and influential motivation that lead to progress and the common good. What is successful Leadership without these? What is Leadership at all if you don’t care about your followers and tend to put yourself first? That is Authentic Leadership. This is the kind of Leadership that works with certain people while leaving others out. Transformational Leadership has so many aspects and is a very useful style that helps leaders become successful at any place and anytime, which is something that Authentic Leadership lacks.

If we take a look at the definitions of Transformational and Authentic Leadership, we can tell which one is above and would actually lead to progress. Transformational Leadership is defined as a process where it creates connections that uplift the motivations and morality of the leader and followers by engaging with others. This is the kind of Leadership that supports its followers in order to become leaders. However, the definition of Authentic Leadership is defined as leaders who remain true to their values and beliefs and have high levels of trust in their followers. According to the article Leading Self published in 2010, when leading one’s self-first results in the common good for a community.

However, this leadership style sort of sounds selfish when it comes to the followers. If we want the common good for a community, we should start focusing on the community instead of ourselves. Transformational Leadership treats Leadership as a process that occurs between followers and leaders, which is something that Authentic Leadership lacks. Transformational leadership style is a most useful style than Authentic Leadership for the reasons that it has more components and it’s more in-depth. One of those components is charisma. Many famous leaders contain this very important aspect of Leadership.

Having charisma when it comes to Leadership is not only important but a necessity you need. When you have charisma, you have a strength of character, personality, and presence when the mic is on you, and this is the reason many people tend to lead to a charismatic leader. When you have a strength of character, people can see it and feel it, they enjoy you and your presence, and this is why transformational Leadership is very important. John F. Kennedy was the executive leader of the United States who was tragically murdered. Before John F. Kennedy became president, he was going against Richard Nixon and won many presidential debates because of the fact that he was a very charismatic person, and the public saw that. Many of the public felt that this kind of personality could lead a country in the correct way.

John F. Kennedy’s strength of character and wanting to move the country in a better direction shows his small component of transformational Leadership. Another very charismatic leader was Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. Obama was a very well-put-together man that, through his charisma, also won his presidency and became the first African American president of the United States. These two leaders inspired a vision that would make progress in America and maybe the entire world. They also challenged the process by passing laws that would help minorities, something that many presidents back then lacked. If it wasn’t for the public, they probably wouldn’t be where they were; they enabled others to act and vote for them in order for them to become presidents. This is where Authentic Leadership lacks.

This Leadership is so focused on leaders building themselves up instead of actually taking action. It’s a selfish leadership style because it would rather focus on ones self than others. The next Transformational leadership component we have is effective communication. It is no lie that communication is the key to success. If we don’t communicate well with the employees, then how can we make progress in a company? Not communicating is one of the worst mistakes any of us could ever make. If we don’t communicate, then how can we meet a person’s needs, wants, and future goals? We see a lot of effective communication in companies and politics. However, we only see communication in those leaders who apply it.

For example, in a company, you need effective communication if you want people to make progress and if you want your company to make stocks. When you communicate with your fellow employee and know what they want in order to make progress, and for them to give their 110%. It’s not only the communication a leader has with a follower but also the one the follower has with a leader. When we look at this from a political aspect, we can really see how much communication we need with the government and its people. With voting and the House of Representatives, how the government gets to communicate with the people? Not only with voting but through protests, the citizens and its government get to communicate as well. When citizens go out and protest and make it nationwide, the government sees this and tries to make a change. Thank you to the first Amendment; citizens have the chance to communicate well with the government even if some sacrifices are made.

Authentic Leadership might have a communication component. However, how can it have it when all it’s looking for is the leader’s best interest? It wants to give the lead time to focus on themselves and then later on focus on the people when it shouldn’t be like that. One of the most important aspects of Transformational Leadership is influential motivation. When we are able to influence others with our leadership style, we are able to make a huge change in our society. Many people say, “leaders aren’t born. They are created,” and this is true. They are created through the motivation and influence that other leaders have provided them with. The ability to influence people for the better is a gift that many leaders with Transformational Leadership have. Not only Transformational Leadership is not only useful but is a necessity that most of our leaders need if they really want to make a change in our society because that’s what Leadership is all about. Influencing others and motivating them in order to create better leaders.

We have many influential motivational leaders in this world. For starters, we have Martin Luther King Jr., a man who, through his speech and years of marching and protesting, finally persuaded the United States government in order to abolish the “Separate but Equal” laws that have caused so much harm in America. Martin Luther King Jr. has influenced so many young individuals in this generation and keeps on influencing them. Another influential leader that we have had is Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential election.

Many people might disagree with the fact that she was an influential motivational leader. However, this is a woman that was going against a man who has insulted her time after time, and she kept her head high. This a woman who wanted to become a president in a patriarchal country. This woman has influenced many women and men to believe that “anything is possible.” When we take, a look at Authentic Leadership is just a leader remaining true to her/his beliefs in order to become a good leader. According to the article Authentic Leadership, individuals with an authentic style lead with Self-awareness, Balanced processing, Relational transparency, and internalized moral perspective.

Many people believe this is one of the best styles of Leadership there is because they believe in morality and staying true to themselves. You might find a lot of people in the 21st century supporting Authentic Leadership because we are moving towards a more transparent leadership style. We love individuals who show us who they are and respect them even more for that. For example, we always tell children to remain true to themselves if they want to be great in life. However, can this transparency and value lead us to process in a company and society? Many people might say that transparency and self-awareness its what we need in order to make progress.

Others who are against Transformational Leadership might think that this Leadership is putting the leader above the followers and has an anti-democratic view of it. Transformational Leadership does not put the leader above the followers; they are more focused on what the followers want than what the leader needs. Those who decide are those who feel ready and don’t wait and sit around to find themselves before making an important decision or establishing the vision. Leading with charisma and influential motivation is the leadership style that out and many generations need because a leader takes action and doesn’t wait around to see if he is ready or not in order to take action is needed. This is why Authentic Leadership is not a helpful style for future leaders.

According to Leadership: Theory and Practice, this Leadership has never been tested for validity. Therefore, this leadership style is not practical. If we don’t contain any research support behind it, how can we even put it into practice? One criticism of Transformational Leadership is that it has the potential to be abused (Northouse, 2013). This leadership style has no time to be abused because we are looking for what’s best for our followers. In brief, we can see how Transformational Leadership is way most useful than authentic Leadership.

We cannot apply a style of Leadership that is selfish and has not been tested for validity. However, we can use a style of Leadership that leads a company, and Transformational Leadership creates a culture in which employees felt empowered and encouraged to freely discuss and try new things (Northouse, 2013). We can also see how Transformational Leadership takes action and wants what’s best for its follower by communicating well with them and influencing them to become even better leaders in the future. Let’s keep on looking at Leadership as an action, not a position.

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