Essay on moral leadership

Schultz’s leadership model

Great leaders usually have certain characteristics that make them special. For any organization to be successful, then they should have great leaders with special characteristics. This research will evaluate the leadership of Howard Schultz whom I believe is a leader who possesses the characteristics of a good leader. Howard Schultz is an exemplary American businessperson who has shown considerable moral qualities that make him stand out as a leader in the society.
Howard Schultz was the man who turned Starbucks coffee into an international brand. Howard was born in a housing estate In Brooklyn New York in 1953. He was the first person in his family to graduate from college at Northern Michigan University where he got sports scholarship. He joined Starbucks in Coffee Company in 1982 and rose through the ranks. During this process, he transformed the company’s organization structure. He pioneered Starbucks strategy of coffee retail stores that became a success making him a billionaire and role model for many young entrepreneurs in the United States. However, this is not only reason why Howard Schultz scores big on the platform of morality. Howard Schultz has been commended for his generosity as well as leading the Israel and USA friendship charity. In 2007, Howard Schultz won the Business Ethics award from University of Notre Dame. For this paper, I focus on him because of his combination of business success and social success. This is the reason Howard Schultz is worthy of study in morality.

Before delving further, we begin by literature reviews on the study of leadership. The concept of leadership is as old as history. Former president of the United States Dwight Eisenhower once argued, “ Leadership is the art of getting someone else do what you want.” While Eisenhower’s words were the closest to meaning to the meaning of leadership, they were an abstract definition of the concept of leadership. Is Eisenhower’s definition still standing? Scholars agree that while leadership plays an instrumental role in achieving goals and aspirations of organizations, there are conceptually agreed methods that define leadership. Some leadership strategies include authoritarianism, democratic leadership, and servant leadership, among others. How leadership does affect the performance of organizations? How are leadership qualities shape moral prepositions in a society?
Defining leadership often appears elusive due to the difference of understanding of what leadership means. Understanding leadership from the diverse and distinct definitions is a critical in developing a holistic paradigm for the study of leadership (Levy, 2006). In the last five decades, there have been over 60 classifications of varying concepts that are instrumental in having a comprehensive understanding of leadership. Brass (1990) defined leadership as “ focus of group process” (p. 38). Fielder (2002) argued that there is no evidence of one leadership trait, behavior or personality required to be an effective leader. Instead, “ leadership effectiveness is the ability to get a group to accomplish its mission that does not entirely depend on a leader’s ability and attributes” ( Fielder, 2002, p39). First, the trait emphasizes how the leader treats the subordinates while the second aspect premises on the leaders organizational skills.
According to leadership theories, a good leader takes care of the other employees’ needs. They should help the other employees to work through activities such as delegation (Michael, 1). In addition, the leaders should allow employees to give their ideas that can assist the organization. Howard Schultz reports that good leadership involves observation of certain principles. The first step is ensuring that no one is left behind in the organization. This means that a good leader will help others to develop economically and socially (Caroselli, 17). All employees should have the necessary information to help them perform their duties. Good leaders should have visions of the organizations they lead according to Howard Schultz. This enables such leaders to inspire other employees so that the objectives set by the organization are achieved.
The other principle that Howard Schultz respected is that the efforts and experience of the employees in the organization should be respected. Howard Schultz also believes that a good relationship with the workers is important for the success of the organization. Howard Schultz also believes that changes in the organization are always necessary. That is why he accepts challenges by the employees. He encourages employees to be creative and contribute to the development of the organization. The ideas of the employees are accepted. The right to speak and democracy is greatly encouraged by Howard Schultz. This makes the employees be free with the leaders in the organization and hence give their ideas willingly that help in the success of the organization (Caroselli, 16).

In response to his principles, Howard Schultz empowered all the workers in the organization. He made sure that all employees in his organization have a health insurance cover. He also helped the employees to acquire shares in the organization. In response, the employees became loyal to the organization. That is why they did to resign from their jobs. The organization therefore achieves its objectives easily because the employees feel satisfied because the organization takes care of their needs effectively (Michael, 1). Howard Schultz is a good leader with great leadership skills. This is why the organization he head has achieved great goals and continues to grow. His greatest principle is that none of persons in the organization should be left behind.
It is just natural that not everyone has to become a leader. However, those who are unfortunate not be leaders will not follow anyone who shows up just to be a leader. Moreover, people do not like to accept old-fashioned leaders that are authoritative, control freaks, and who like to enforce new management procedures on others. Followers are more comfortable with leaders who posses well- rooted human values and who have respect for talents and contributions given by others. Followers would like leaders who make them feel enthusiastic in all their actions. For that reason, effective running of an organization requires leadership that must be able to have clearly defined priorities, visionary thinking, and efficient strategies. It is upon that followers get the trust, compassion, stability and hope from their leaders. Howard Schultz is not only a leader, but a follower of principles of integrity, honor and respect. He respects his followers and champions for their success.
The leaders have the responsibility of creating an enthusiastic and loyal following basing on the influence of their leadership positions. In the words of the writer, “ good followers are created partly by leaders who understand their requirements and obligations for developing people.” This is a complex task but is created by a tactful leadership approach that embraces the idea that leadership is not about authority. Instead, it is created by a balancing act that recognizes the ability of the followers to make independent decisions and not follow the leader like “ passive sheep.”
Research has shown that an enviable leader is one who possesses qualities such as honesty, forward thinking, inspiring, and competent. The same research shows that leaders would like to work with colleagues who are honest, cooperative, dependable, and competent. Let us look at leadership requirements. An indispensable prerequisite for a leader is to capture assurance from his followers and colleagues. A Leader can lose his follower if he lacks solid self-assurance. This can easily happen if the followers lose confidence on the leader, or if the leader loses integrity and trust in the eyes of his or her followers.
It is essential for the follower to view the leader in the most realistic way. Unrealistic expectations on what the leader can do for his or her followers are poisonous to the well being of leader-follower relationship. There are several ways that follower can idealize their leader. First, follower can assume that a leader is perfect and cannot make mistakes. One a leader makes mistakes the relationship is destroyed because the followers begin to see the leader just as normal like them. However, understanding that the leader is human and capable of making mistakes is vital for the healthiness of a relationship. A realistic view of the leader is helpful in building trust based on mutual understanding, as opposed to an idealized based trust and expectation. Second, leaders can make the mistake of portraying themselves as saints in the eyes of their followers by covering up their mistakes and weaknesses. While covering up the leaders mistakes is indispensable for the wellbeing of the organization, it is essential for the leader to appear normal to his followers and thus allow to be corrected when in wrong. For the most part, leader’s followers should share only leader’s positive things. When a leader is forward and ready to admit his mistakes, it becomes easy for the followers to be constructively critical of his approach. An opportunity for open disagreement is key for the organizations well being.

How about Emotional Intelligence and Leadership?

Emotional intelligence is paramount to leadership. Research has shown that leaders who score higher in emotional intelligence are likely to be more effective and highly rated by colleagues and peers. A productive and balanced management of one’s emotion is equal to emotional intelligence. Being aware of oneself is a key element of this achievement. Literally, this includes qualities such as honesty to one’s emotions, identifying values and passions, knowing strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly finding meaning and purpose for one’s life. An individual with sufficient emotional intelligence is able to control emotions so that they do not spiral to harmful behavior. He or she understands that anger is a secondary emotion that comes from other reasons, and the only way of extinguishing anger is by understanding it. Goleman asserts that, anger is best managed by diffusing its primary root causes. Anger management is key to emotional intelligence. Understanding anger enables an individual to effectively deal with anger and to move forward with life. Having possessed the ability to take charge of his emotions, one becomes empowered to effectively become as a leader.
Apart from anger management, an emotionally intelligent person masters other skills such as social arts: the ability to make friends and keep them around. This includes the talents to know how to talk with people, connect with them, and build relationships. In addition, the emotionally intelligent person also has a very clear understanding of self. With self-understanding, one will have intrapersonal intelligence. Intrapersonal intelligence is the correlative aptitude to accurately assess oneself in order to function efficiently in life. Having understood him or herself, one will now easily possess a great deal of interpersonal intelligence which is the capability to identify with other people, knowing them well enough to understand what motivates them, and how they operate, and how to work in one with them. These qualities are important ingredients required of a leader. People with such skills are more “ resilient, more adaptable to changing situations and more willing to step outside their comfort zone. They are also open to new ideas and opinions.
Most importantly, the person with a clear grasp of emotional intelligence exhibits a high level of motivation, faith, and optimism. He always believes that things will turn out for the best. His energy is always focused towards success, and he looks at challenges as obstacles that have to be passed in order to achieve a target, (Golman, 2005 p. 88). Positive motivation is a quality that most people adept with emotional intelligence demonstrate. According to Goleman, constructive inspiration is marshalling of feelings like enthusiasm and confidence to enhance achievement (Golman, 2005, p. 79). Perhaps the most notable example is demonstrated by Abraham Lincoln. Historian Doris Goodwin has noted that president Lincoln’s success as a leader is for the most part, a function of his emotional intelligence.
Clark (2004) identifies identical mutual trust, effective communication skills, active empathy, accessibility by workers and personal courage as the key elements of an effective leader. In their part, effective leadership is fundamentally about developing people, setting defined directions to be followed and designing an organization to be successful. Effective leadership involves identifying people within the organization who would be potential leaders and letting them gain the knowledge and skills required for success.
Ultimately, an outstanding leadership team is a complimentary team where people’s strength are made productive and their weaknesses made irrelevant by strength of others. While leadership focuses on the ability to communicate and acknowledge people and their potential, management is based on using the potential and talent to achieve a goal. Both leadership and management are vital, and they have to operate in one. Management and leadership are entwined in the general understanding of the human nature as Body, Mind and Spirit. The Whole man understanding of man is pivotal for twenty first century understanding of people and work. In a world where people are more informed, more educated, and have many choices; it makes a lot of sense to govern them in a manner that makes them feel included, and where their ideas and opinions are freely expressed and tolerated (DuBrin, 2012).

References

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Clark, William. (2004) Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward. Washington D. C: AMACOM Div American Mgmt. Print.
DuBrin, Andrew. (2012) Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills. NY: Cengage Learning, Print.
Goleman, Daniel. (2005). Emotional Intelligence. New York. Bantam Books.

Farmer, E., and J. Burrow. Leading With Character. Mason, Ohio: Thomson, Southwestern., 2008. Print.
Goleman, D. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books., 2005. Print.
Hein, Steve. EQ for Everybody. Clean Water, Florida: Aristotle Press., (1996). Print.
Lee Stallard, Michael. “ Howard Schultz’s Connection and Leadership.” Leadership. N. p., 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 31 July 2012..
Riggio, R. E., Chaleff, I., & Lipman-Blumen, J. (2008). The art of Followership: How Great Followers. San Fransisco: Wiley Publishers.
Starbucks, (2012) Starbuck’s Company Website. Published on November 5th, 2012 http://www. starbucks. com/about-us/company-information