Introduction
Leadership in any sphere of human activity is not so much a certain quality as a set of characteristics and features that successfully develop into a specific psychological portrait. In order to gain the right to leadership, a person needs to be not only charismatic but also ready for hard work. In this paper, it is proposed to consider one individual figure of a leader from the standpoint of its inalienable qualities. Then, having described the principles of leadership and collaboration, it will be possible to find out which components influence the creation and retention of the status of a successful leader figure.
Marc Benioff
As a prominent and worthy of consideration leadership figure in the modern public space, the personality of Marc Benioff stands out. Ten years ago, his company Salesforce Inc. was given the title of a revolutionary industrial force in America, providing a variety of relationships between management and customers on the Internet (Colin, 2020). What makes Benioff such a strong leader is his vision and mission. One can assume that without a strong and expressive mission, it is impossible to secure leadership qualities. This is because a strong vision can draw people along, grab and hold their attention, and give them inspiring motivation. Salesforce specializes in acting as an intermediary between software vendors and companies that need it. Benioff’s logic is understandable – by acting as a mediator in the area in which there is uninterrupted demand, he actually finds a gold mine.
Benioff himself calls the end of software his mission, meaning that companies will no longer have to look for and buy it on their own. Marc Benioff’s vision truly transcends the drive to make money, as he facilitates and accelerates a truly impressive number of companies through his activities. The Salesforce representative’s vision is a leadership quality that goes beyond corporate ethics itself, as one percent of any proceeds goes to public services (Colin, 2020). The desire for philanthropy, possession of a clear vision of one’s organization, and a subtle sense of belonging to a given niche are the qualities of a leader who is able to successfully manage an organization and inspire and lead people.
Leadership at All Levels
However, one should not forget that leadership can not necessarily be perceived only as a quality inherent in the head of the entire hierarchical chain. In any company with a clear organizational structure, the leader is not only the main representative of the entire enterprise but also the people responsible for private areas and sectors of the company’s activity. It is essential that at every level of the company’s work, the basic humanistic principles, such as compassion and the desire to serve for the benefit of other people, are preserved (George et al., 2016). It is this human-centric worldview that is fundamentally important. If a person is able to put the collective multitude as more significant than their ego, one can argue about the leadership qualities of this person. Often there is a sense of subtle, ghostly leadership in which important movements are made that veiledly move the work of the organization forward. Thus, the lack of self-centeredness is an important quality of a leader, regardless of the height of their status within the organization. The ability to commit to the organization must be motivated by goals and vision that are in sync with the company’s mission and must be maintained even in the face of external pressure.
Finally, the essential quality of a true leader is charisma, persuasiveness, the ability not to force but to positively motivate people to take action. The charisma of the leader is one of the keys to adequate and positive communication in the team, and by ensuring balanced and relaxed communication, the organization can only win. This prioritization needs to be represented at every level of the organization, from Human Resources and Help Desk to maintenance. The presence of a charismatic and motivating leader in each segment of a hierarchical organization ensures the minimization of lost time and effort and therefore is the guarantor of innovation.
Promotion of Values via Leadership
As already mentioned, the presence of a mission and vision for the leader of the company is fundamentally important. This is not only because the mission is able to provide enough motivation that surpasses the desire for financial profit. A clear vision of a better future inspires people, not only employees subordinate to the leader but also customers themselves (George et al., 2016). If an organization, company, or brand has a stated mission, it is easier for the leader to have a meaningful impact on his audience. If, for example, a social service puts the health and value of the individual as its mission, people interacting with this service will tend to adopt and disseminate these humanistic values. Human-centered care as a value can be instilled through the active implementation of such practices. Person-centered treatment of citizens can motivate them to spread humanistic values and feel the responsibility to their community (George et al., 2016). Thus, a leader who stands by the care center’s vision can promote healthy values to those who use these services.
Finally, the leadership qualities of the head of an organization can communicate other values besides altruistic ones. The ability to make decisions independently, which is so valued in a leader, can become public property if the leader’s actions are still altruistically motivated (Changing lives, 2006). A leader striving solely for earnings is not able to inspire the audience, as it turns out to be limited by his own self-centeredness. However, the manifestation by the leader of such qualities as composure, creativity, and focus can ensure innovative activity in the company, which in turn motivates people to develop similar qualities. Such leadership proves to be an example for people to look up to, suggesting that it is they who are also able to control their own lives and make their own choices. Citizens who receive care should also have access to all the medical information, which provides them with individual responsibility for their decisions (Changing lives, 2006). Thus, a pronounced individuality of the leader, combined with human-centered altruism, is able to promote person-centric, healthy, and independent values.
Risk and Flexibility
The activity of any employee of the company, if it correlates with the mission and vision, is certainly a positive contribution to the work of the organization. One of the conditions for the growth of the organization, expanding the reach of the public, and increasing functionality, is the rejection of stagnation. Therefore, any leader who realizes that the absence of changes means the possible degradation of the company must act unpredictably. This is necessary, at least occasionally, in order to take the company out of its comfort zone and into new possible spheres of influence. Active participation of employees is highly valued in such situations, as it provides the organization with a necessary impulse to change and adapt. The manifestation of flexibility in the company guarantees its ability not to bend under the pressure of the external environment but, on the contrary, to adapt or even change this very environment.
In modern realities, more and more is required from the sphere of social services, and this situation has been especially aggravated during the pandemic. The demand for social services has increased significantly, as has the range of mandatory actions and dangers for workers. However, the ability to withstand the challenge of historical circumstances to social workers means that the field is evolving and improving its ability to fulfill the mission. During the pandemic, the very mission of social services required a choice between their own safety or helping those in need. The possibility of contracting COVID and spreading the disease caused obvious dismay among social organizations (Starr, 2020). However, the duty to the vulnerable strata of the population turned out to be higher than the concern for individual security, which again increased the prestige of social services. Thus, the active need to adapt to new settings and do it with certain risks is integral to the work of the organization. Participation in social service in the previously unknown conditions allows the employees to show extraordinary flexibility, in this way learning to better fulfill their duties.
Leadership and Collaboration: Critical Evaluation
Leadership qualities cannot exist in a separate independent form since a leader is a person who relies on others to the same extent that the people subordinate to the leader rely on them. Leadership involves not only the redistribution of power in order to get people to act but also the power of communication and the art of persuasion (DeWitt, 2017). The leader is engaged in reinterpreting a given situation in such a way as to restructure it and find a solution or a series of actions that approximates it. It is impossible to imagine a leader without people cooperating under their department, which emphasizes the principle of leadership as a collaborative practice (DeWitt, 2017). A leader, more than an ordinary employee, must possess the art of persuasion and motivation, be able to be flexible in his behavior but steady in the principles that correspond to the mission of the organization. If a leader communicates the values of the company to the employees, this is a condition for the company to truly support other people. This is the principle of the existence of organizational culture as part of the global establishment.
Conclusion
The leader is the person who is able to activate the positive process in the organization in accordance with its vision, having done this through the inspiring motivation of subordinate workers. A company with a humanistic mission must have a leader who shares and promotes these values to employees. Thus, the value of the tasks set by the organization is proved, and the existing structure is justified, which guarantees the company’s benefit to society.
Reference List
Changing lives: Summary report of the 21st century social work review. (2006) Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.
Colin, C. (2020) ‘The gospel of wealth according to Marc Benioff’, Wired, 28(1), pp. 70-81.
DeWitt, P. M. (2017) Collaborative leadership: six influences that matter most. New York: Corwin.
George, C., et al. (2016) Enabling leadership: research to identify what good leadership looks like in Scotland’s social services. Stirling: University of Stirling in partnership with the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS).
Starr, J. (2020) ‘On leadership: responding to COVID-19: short- and long-term challenges’, PDK International, 101(8), pp. 60-61.