leadershipassignment4

Leadership Theories and Styles

Tina Rice

Strayer University

Professor Timothy Smith

Pad 515

Leadership Theories and Styles

Based on the response to an earlier question on leadership theories and styles, I have decided to analyze the effectiveness of both the theories and styles by a brief discussion about two renowned public leaders, John Quincy Adams and Betty Williams.

To begin with, John Quincy Adams is a leader who had essayed many other roles in the field of public service even before becoming the sixth president of the United States of America. He is known as a man who portrayed both participative and situational theories of leadership as well as bureaucratic and democratic leadership styles. Despite the fact that patriotism was in blood, he was also a man of extraordinary intellect whose personality was that of recluse making him not to socialize much. He is well known for his strong spirit of never giving up in anything and his statement, “try and fail but don’t fail to try” has been a motivation to many upcoming young public leaders (Northouse, 2012).

On the other hand, Betty Williams, a female leader is renowned for her endless effort and dedication in trying to bring harmony and promote peace all over the world. Nothing could prevent her from raising her voice and denouncing all the evils of the society and increasing menace of terrorism in the world not even the fact that she did not have a strong political background or even was she a political figure. The theories and styles of leadership portrayed in her are very important for any person entrusted with leadership by people. This is based on the statement that, “real leadership is when everyone else feels in charge (Northouse, 2012).”

The two leaders have similarities in leadership goals. As a president, Adams was a very great diplomat and he fought against the expansion of slavery with the aim of making every person feel free, live and experience peace and harmony. Similarly, Betty Williams is a very strong female leader known for her quest in promoting peace and harmony in the world through condemning the evils among the society and all kind of terrorism in general. The only slight difference between the two leaders is that Adams served the people while in office as a president while on the other hand, betty served with no political powers connections whatsoever because even in her personality, she was not a political figure (Rahim, 2011).

However, the two characters seem to have patriotism in their blood since political power was not the only driving force behind their leadership since Adams continued being a public leader even after his presidency term was over. Therefore, they both manifested a true leadership by birth in that they were born leaders, not made leaders. They portrayed leadership not out of opportunity but out of duty and there was no way they could betray the trust people had for them. They had strong sense of leadership despite the difference in them in terms of gender. They sought and gave advice from their elders and to their juniors hence their supervisors and subordinates viewed each of the as a good and responsible leader (Rahim, 2011).

It has not been an easy task for researchers to evaluate the presidency of John Adams and one of his greatest achievements had been making peace with France. He was a very strong president who had the ability of mediating between competing interests and this quality enabled him to endure the violent political passions of the time. His view of the office and his destination of parties and factions rendered him incompetent of bridging the constitutional separation of powers through party leadership. On the other hand, Betty’s strength mostly lied in the powerful believes she had. She made people realize the importance of effective leadership when she quoted that it takes wisdom to know that while we cannot singlehandedly change the world, we can all make a dent in the universe if only we are prepared to step up and be leaders (Carter, D'Souza, Simkins, & Simpson, 2010).

Being prepared for challenges was one of the strengths of Betty Williams in that she understood that despite the work done, the road to peace was going to be long and painful, with sufferings alongside it, and violence would still be continually experienced for some time before peace is achieved. Dedication in her dream inspired her and she knew she had had witnessed enough of the senseless deaths and she could no longer simply accept the constant random violence of life something which made her determined to do something about it. She however confessed that she was in shock most of the times she moved around motivating people to second her peace petition (Nagel, Rudick, Abramowitch, Spring, Moalli, Al Snih, & Black, 2011).

Being granted the honor of leadership is being entrusted with a responsibility. Generally, the times we live require a wise choice in terms of leadership. Before becoming a leader one needs to have a high self discipline and respect for ones self and other people always. Some of the strengths of leaders lie in the good qualities they have, for instance, courage to make hard decisions, recognition of ones accountability to people, a clear vision for the future, the ability to see things, not simply as they are but as they ought to be and above all, flexibility. There are lots of factors that can impact my ability of becoming a public leader. The greatest strength that I possess is being flexible. Flexibility to learn, improve as well adjusting within a convenient time in the event of any change is a strong factor that I think can influence my ability of becoming a public leader (Böhm, Collen, Baillie, Bowles, Chanson, Cox, & Cheylan, 2013).

However, flexibility does not most of the times depend on itself but it is greatly supported by the ability to communicate, and both qualities sum up my strength which makes me believe that I can make it to be a public leader. This is because I have learned and realized that leadership without good communication is not always effective. A leader has to be ready to welcome the different peoples ideas since people from different cultures want to be listened to and their problems solved. Therefore, good communication skills and flexibility will in turn lead to good and acceptable leadership. Personally, I suggest that my flexibility character, which is empowered by the ability to communicate as well as the willingness to listen, is the overall strength that can influence my ability to become an effective and a reputable public leader (Carter, D'Souza, Simkins & Simpson, 2010).

References

Böhm, M., Collen, B., Baillie, J. E., Bowles, P., Chanson, J., Cox, N., ... & Cheylan, M. (2013). The conservation status of the world’s reptiles. Biological Conservation, 157, 372-385.

Carter, D. A., D'Souza, F., Simkins, B. J., & Simpson, W. G. (2010). The gender and ethnic diversity of US boards and board committees and firm financial performance. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 18(5), 396-414.

Nagel, J. D., Rudick, J., Abramowitch, S., Spring, J., Moalli, P., Al Snih, S., ... & Black, A. R. (2011). Abstracts from the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health Eighth Annual Interdisciplinary Women's Health Research Symposium November 17, 2011: Eighth Annual NIH Interdisciplinary Women's Health Research Symposium November 17, 2011. Journal of Women's Health, 20(10), 1382-1413.

Northouse, P. G. (2012). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.

Rahim, M. A. (2011). Managing conflict in organizations. New Brunswick [NJ: Transaction.