A Traditional Definition Of Leadership Management Essay

A Traditional Definition Of Leadership Management Essay A traditional definition of leadership: Leadership is an interpersonal influence directed toward the achievement of a goal or goals. Three important parts of this definition are the terms interpersonal, influence, and goal.  · Interpersonal means between persons. Thus, a leader has more than one person (group) to lead.  · Influence is the power to affect others.  · Goal is the end one strives to attain. Basically, this traditional definition of leadership says that a leader influences more than one person toward a goal. The definition of leadership used in this course follows. LEADERSHIP is a dynamic relationship based on mutual influence and common purpose between leaders and collaborators in which both are moved to higher levels of motivation and moral development as they affect real, intended change. (Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, Bard Press, 1996, p. 298) Three important parts of this de finition are the terms relationship, mutual, and collaborators. Relationship is the connection between people. Mutual means shared in common. Collaborators cooperate or work together. This definition of leadership says that the leader is influenced by the collaborators while they work together to achieve an important goal. Leadership versus Management A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader. The leader of the work group may emerge informally as the choice of the group. If a manager is able to influence people to achieve the goals of the organization, without using his or her formal authority to do so, then the manager is demonstrating leadership. According to John P. Kotter in his book, A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs From Management (The Free Press, 1990), managers must know how to lead as well as manage. Without leading as well as managing, today’s organizations face the threat of extinction. Management is the process of setting and a chieving the goals of the organization through the functions of management: planning, organizing, directing (or leading), and controlling. A manager is hired by the organization and is given formal authority to direct the activity of others in fulfilling organization goals. Thus, leading is a major part of a manager’s job. Yet a manager must also plan, organize, and control. Generally speaking, leadership deals with the interpersonal aspects of a manager’s job, whereas planning, organizing, and controlling deal with the administrative aspects. Leadership deals with change, inspiration, motivation, and influence. Management deals more with carrying out the organization’s goals and maintaining equilibrium. The key point in differentiating between leadership and management is the idea that employees willingly follow leaders because they want to, not because they have to. Leaders may not possess the formal power to reward or sanction performance. However, employees give the leader power by complying with what he or she requests. On the other hand, managers may have to rely on formal authority to get employees to accomplish goals. Trait Theories In the 1920’s and 1930’s, leadership research focused on trying to identify the traits that differentiated leaders from non-leaders. These early leadership theories were content theories, focusing on â€Å"what† an effective leader is, not on ‘how’ to effectively lead. The trait approach to understanding leadership assumes that certain physical, social, and personal characteristics are inherent in leaders. Sets of traits and characteristics were identified to assist in selecting the right people to become leaders. Physical traits include being young to middle-aged, energetic, tall, and handsome. Social background traits include being educated at the â€Å"right† schools and being socially prominent or upwardly mobile. Social characteristics include being charisma tic, charming, tactful, popular, cooperative, and diplomatic. Personality traits include being self-confident, adaptable, assertive, and emotionally stable. Task-related characteristics include being driven to excel, accepting of responsibility, having initiative, and being results-oriented.

Implement concepts from Piagets theory of cognitive development when Essay

Implement concepts from Piagets theory of cognitive development when teaching second or third graders the skill of regrouping when solving subtraction problems - Essay Example For example, if the task at hand is to teach the children to subtract eight from 21, the instructor should group ten of the blocks together, perhaps in a tower formation, and then grouping the additional 11 blocks together in a group that is laying flat on the desk or working surface. At this stage, if the child fully understands how to count far beyond ten, they will recognize and be able to express that the tower consists of ten different blocks. The instructor would then praise this accomplishment to reinforce motivation and cooperation and then ask the child to express the amount of blocks laying on the surface. They should correctly identify that there are eleven blocks by counting them out loud one by one. At this point, the instructor reinforces that the task is to subtract eight of these blocks from the different formations and then regroup the blocks into a different series. The instructor might remove only two blocks from the tower and then six more from those on the table to provide example. The child will recognize that the tower now contains only eight blocks and should be able to regroup the surface blocks to account for the additional six blocks needed to complete the equation of 21 – 8 = 13. When the child is given free rein to perform another subtraction task through regrouping, they should accurately recognize, as part of mastery of pre-operational and concrete operational understanding, how to regroup the different blocks to achieve a positive math outcome. The teacher, for students in this phase, will not be dealing with egocentric behaviors marked by those found in children who are in the pre-operational stage and should expect full cooperation to the regrouping tasks. By allowing the children to choose their own ordered sets of blocks, based on the specific math task, they will begin to develop the ability to perform these calculations in their

Growing effects of violence in Sports Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Growing effects of violence in Sports - Essay Example The author posses the historical context of the article by discussing how children emulate professionals in the sport, and always find a way of displaying their affection and love for the game. Research about the author indicates that he is a sport journalist; therefore, the credibility of the article is not in doubt. This is mainly due to the knowledge of the game, facts and issues surrounding the article. The author displays an air of professionalism in the way he presents the facts of violence in the game and in the National Hockey League (NHL), which indicates that the author is credible. The author comes across as knowledgeable and fair since he does not lay blame on one party, in fact, the author tries to analyze and apportion the blame for the effects that violence in hockey has on children. The author blames both the parents, who let their children be exposed to the violence, and the media, who glorify the actions of violent players. From an analysis of the article, it is evident that the main aim of the author is to convince parents that violence in sports, especially hockey, really exists, and the parents should exercise caution when exposing their children to such sports (Davidson). This aim is evident from the warnings that the author puts across for parents to counsel their children and only allow children to view age appropriate content. The article is a persuasive essay that tries to indicate that violence has a real influence on the psychological growth of children, and parents should look out for these influences. The article also seeks to inform the audience that violence in sports is increasing, and the group most affected in society is the children and teens. The author also seeks to point out the results of the violence in the sport, which is done by quoting facts from past incidents. The intended audience in the article is obviously parents of teenagers and children who allow their children to be exposed