"We need heroes (leaders), people who can inspire us, help shape us morally, spur us on to purposeful action." --Robert Coles
What makes a great leader? While most of us may find it easy to
recognize good leadership qualities - honesty, diligence, fairness to
name just a few - finding the words to define exactly what
inspires people to follow a single individual is not always so
straightforward. That's because, claim Al Gini and Ronald M. Green
(business ethicists and authors of a thought-provoking and fascinating
new book) the ability to lead is based first and foremost on an
individual's character, their ethical principles, and their desire to be
of service to others - it is a lived process affected by
time, place, issues, problems, circumstances, and an individual's
personal ability to manage success and failure. Despite what other books
may tell us, great leadership does not follow a set of rules or
theories. So, with this in mind, is it possible to learn how to become a
great leader? And who should we look to for inspiration?
"Leadership is a power-laden, value-based and ethically driven
relationship between leaders and followers who share a common vision and
accomplish real changes that reflect their mutual purpose and goals."
The last twenty years has seen an emergence of new, empirically-based
studies of leadership that makes a powerful contribution to our
understanding of the role ethics plays in organizations and
organizational life. In Ten
Virtues of Outstanding Leaders, Gini and Green draw on
philosophical thinking and scholarship from across the social sciences
to guide the reader clearly and comprehensively through the key
theoretical as well as practical aspects of ethical leadership, arguing
that in order to be an inspirational and influential leader, one must
exhibit certain characteristics or virtues - deep honesty; moral
courage; moral vision; compassion and care; fairness; intellectual
excellence; creative thinking; aesthetic sensitivity; good timing; deep
selflessness. With these in mind, they then go on to examine in detail
the leadership qualities of some of our more successful leaders, from
Charles de Gaulle to Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King to Winston
Churchill, Abraham Lincoln to Oprah Winfrey, revealing for each the
virtues they possesses, their ability to learn and adapt (for,
importantly, no leader is perfect and most have encountered, and
overcome, their own moral and personal failures, referred to in the book
as 'misleadership'), and their outstanding conduct for the common good
in times of adversity.
Providing a stimulating and fresh perspective on leadership ability, Ten
Virtues of Outstanding Leaders demonstrates how, given the right
set of circumstances and personal strength of character, the opportunity
to become a leader potentially stands before any one of us. We must
simply develop good habits through practice and this illuminating and
informative book, by both theory and example, helps show us how.
First Business News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuP71A5rxdI&feature=c4-overview&list=UU_mw1LkcbtC7kcQpZmsDkGg
Chicago Tonight: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2013/07/23/what-makes-leader-great
