Deconstruction of Leadership 1

Running head: DECONSTRUCTION OF LEADERSHIP ASSUMPTIONS

Deconstruction of Leadership Assumption

Michael Phan

University of Phoenix School of Advance Studies

 Deconstruction of Leadership 2

Deconstruction of Leadership Assumptions

There are various Leadership Assumptions in the corporate world. However, they are

nothing but myths. The first assumption suggests that Leaders are born, not made. In other

words, “Leadership is a rare ability only given to a few”. (Smith, 2008) The Second

assumption and third assumption interlink with the first assumption. The second states, “Good

leaders have more education than other people”. (Smith, 2008) The third assumption states,

“Effective leadership is based on control, coercion, and manipulation”. (Smith, 2008)

In accordance to the first assumption, a leader is a ‘chosen one’ but the reality is much

different. Wright indicated in his book, The Moral Animal: why we are the way we are, that a

fundamental supposition of Leadership team of professional approaches is that the whole staff

of the organization including both the management and the workers, equally contribute to the

common purpose, share the common objective and have full attention in progress of the

organization. The Leadership policies and ideals undergo constant changes due to influence of

some basic factors such as domestic and international competition, changes in the social

structure and developments in technology etc. (Wright, 2007)

Thus, it seems that leadership is about simplicity and understanding common and day-

to-day problems and a company hardly needs an extremely special person to negate them. In

words of Smith, “The key ingredient making people good leaders is the ability to care about

others. The second ingredient is a sense of purpose, vision or mission. A good leader charts a

course and provides direction to those they lead.” (Smith, 2008)

In accordance to the second assumption, education is the most important element of

leadership. However, reality speaks otherwise. Efficiency of the Leadership of

multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary team of professionals lies in not only making the

 Deconstruction of Leadership 3

employees to work, but to make them work willingly, sincerely and consciously, by

employing new knowledge, new methods, new designs, new machines and novel techniques

of production and by allaying mistrust and antagonism.

Leadership of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary team of professionals under the

aspects of Management principals can defined as the art of creating industrial relations of any

kind, between people engaged in the industry. These can state as relation between employers

and employees, relation between individuals entering into commercial contracts, relation

between investors etc, in order to maintain true cooperation of all concerned along with

motivating the entire deal into a positive favor. Thus, it understands and sensitivity that is

more important than education.

Some critics, as stated in Zimmerman’s Introduction to Management Principals, feel

that scientific methods are not applicable in the art of management, which mainly concerns

human beings, such as Leadership formulation and management of leadership. According to

them efforts to manage, industry scientifically has worsened the relation between the

employers and the employees. Their point of view is that though in the leadership framework

workers get absorbed into a comparatively more employee friendly group oriented associative

work culture, but the feeling of individuality remains in them. This is a reason behind their

halfhearted contribution in the progress of the organization. However, it is not so. In fact,

using of practices or policies of scientific methods of management like leadership

construction or Leadership of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary team of professionals,

need trained mind, which is used to unbiased observation and is not amenable to hasty

conclusions and untenable theories. Leadership of team of professionals instruct the managers

to be detached an impartial. The development of industrial relations to make a company

 Deconstruction of Leadership 4

productive is an evolutionary process, depends on the initiative, constructive thinking, and

discipline on the part of all engaged in the industry. The form of relationship between the

employee and the management with which the unitary ideology is concerned is about hundred

years old issue and the most important aspect is understanding and not mere education.

(Zimmerman, 2005)

In accordance to the third assumption, a true leader should manipulate and control the

issues. However, the fundamentals of long termed success are ethical values and

understanding rather than manipulation. As for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

that started in 1981, leadership defined and categorized under definite qualities. These

qualities were of a leader examined “how senior executives guide the organization and how

the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship”.

(Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, 2007)

The Leadership purpose takes account of a several activities, and the most important

among them is making a decision what staffing requirements one have and whether to use

autonomous contractors or take into service employees to meet these needs. Leadership is also

about appointing and training the excellent employees, making sure that they are better

performers, handling performance related problems, and ensuring that the human resources

and administrational practices do the accepted thing to various set of laws. (Manning, 2005)

Lamb states in his extremely important book on the subject Cult to Culture: The

Development of Civilization that the increasing significance of competitive advantage and of

the growing presence of multinationals has resulted in noticeable changes in sector of

Leadership of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary team of professionals’ ideologies.

Globalization has led employers to push for implementation of fewer directives of industrial
 Deconstruction of Leadership 5

relations, less standardization of the employment affiliations, and a greater focus on the

workplace as the centre of gravity of Leadership. Of the three popular models in Leadership

construction Management, the global Leadership model has the utmost coverage in

international point of view due to worldwide growth approaches, degree of delegation,

organization’s dimension and requirement for deportee reimbursement etc. Due to steady

Industrialization and accelerating competition in market, today organizations have to face

tough time to survive. These conditions also affect leadership strategy and policies up to a

great extent and the aspects of Leadership of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary team of

professionals as a whole. Such an environment gives rise to organizational conflicts. Such as

conflict of power verses moral values, which include raising standards of production along

with humanizing the workplace, Managerial prerogatives with ownership policies such as

system, reliability, hierarchy, uniformity etc conflict with sensitivity, responsiveness,

interactive ness, novelty and sub optimization. (Lamb, 2004)

It is obvious to mention that there are huge amount of pressure on the leaders and it is

still obvious the true leader is the one who is able to successfully negotiate this pressure.

There are several outlets of this pressure and some of them can relate to personal psychology

too. With success or constant failure, a leader may tend to be more arrogant, over strict,

ruthless taskmaster and rigid. All these are personal problems but when put into the

parameters of a company or corporate house these elements become very hard to digest and

thus become detrimental for the company. However, it should be taken into consideration

from the management point of view of the company and proper measures be taken. One good

move is to incorporate a refreshed educative move. Another individual measure may include
 Deconstruction of Leadership 6

elaborate counseling by professional management counselor. Thus, ethical approach is the

most important feature of leadership.

In conclusion, it can states that healthy relations between the management and the

employees only can bring prosperity to the company and so the leadership principals are to be

maintained with care. Thus, the leadership system or the Leadership of multidisciplinary or

interdisciplinary team of professionals is not simply about trade unions and industrial

relations between managements and employees. In fact, it is a definition, which portrays the

projection and maintenance of understanding, togetherness, and essential values and ethics as

accepted by both the management and the workers of the companies. Thus, it is a managerial

frame of reference, which does not easily bring itself together with companies or social

positions, which are distinctively more politically influence. Instead of all drawbacks in

Leadership ideologies of management, it has numerous facilities. Thus, the companies for

finding solutions of their management-employee problems could always follow the realities of

leadership and not remain fixed with the assumptions related to leaderships.
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References

Lamb, D. (2004). Cult to Culture: The Development of Civilization; Wellington: National Book Trust

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; 08/14/07; What are the Baldrige criteria; Baldrige

National Quality Program, NIST. Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2008, from

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/baldfaqs.htm

Manning, S. S. (2005). Leadership in Human Services: A Multi-Dimensional Approach, New York:

Allyn and Bacon.

Smith, G. P. (2008). Leadership Mythology; Business Know-How; Attard Communications, Inc;

Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2008, from http://www.businessknowhow.com/growth/mythology.htm

Wright, R. (2007). The Moral Animal: Why We Are The Way We Are; Dunedin: Little, Brown & Co

Zimmerman, S. (2005). Introduction to Management Principals; Wellington: National Book Trust.