EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP: CATALYST IN ACHIEVING AN EFFICIENT WORKPLACE

By: Lourdes S. Sevilla

Effective leaders take a personal interest in the long-term development of their
employees, and they use tact and other social skills to encourage employees to achieve their best.
It isn’t about being “nice” or “understanding”—it’s about tapping into individual motivations in
the interest of furthering an organizationwide goal. by W.C.H. Prentice

Leadership is the attainment of a goal through the guidance of human assistants—a

human and social achievement that arises from the leader's awareness of his or her coworkers'
individual aspirations and their link to the group's goal.

Leaders should master two fundamental facts in order to be successful: people are
complicated, and people differ. Human beings react not just to the classic carrot and stick, but
also to ambition, patriotism, love of the good and beautiful, boredom, self-doubt, and a variety of
other goals and feelings. Someone may find fulfillment in solving intellectual difficulties but
may never be given the opportunity to investigate how that fulfillment may be applied to various
fields; other people may require a warm, admiring connection and be continuously irritated by
the superior's unwillingness to understand and capitalize on that desire.
Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants.
The man who successfully marshals his human collaborators to achieve particular ends is a
leader. A great leader is one who can do so day after day, and year after year, in a wide variety of
circumstances.
It is simple to summarize in a few words what great leaders should do to be effective.
However, determining the factors that affect their performance is far more difficult. The typical
strategy is to offer appropriate acknowledgment of each worker's job so that he might anticipate
the fulfilment of some important interest or purpose of him in the group's execution. Crude forms
of leadership are based exclusively on single sources of gratification, such as monetary rewards
or the reduction of various types of insecurity. The work is completed since obeying these orders
shall result to compensation, which can be monetary, and deviating may result to dismissal from
service.
It is undeniable that such techniques of motivation are applicable within certain
parameters. They do, in a mechanical manner, link the worker's self-interest to the interest of the
employer or the group, but it is also irrefutable that such simple approaches have apparent flaws.
Human beings are not machines with a set of buttons to press and a sequence of command to
execute. When their complex reactions to love, prestige, independence, achievement, and group
membership go unnoticed at work, they perform at best as automata who bring far less than their
maximum efficiency to the task, and at worst as rebellious slaves who consciously or
unconsciously disrupt the tasks they are supposed to accomplish and excel in.
When the leader succeeds, it is because he has understood two fundamental lessons: men
are complicated, and men are unique. Human beings respond not only to the classic carrot and
stick employed by a donkey driver, but also to ambition, patriotism, love of the good and
beautiful, boredom, self-doubt, and many more dimensions and patterns of thought and feeling
that define them as men. However, the strength and relevance of these interests differ for each
individual, as does the degree to which they may be satisfied in his employment.
An individual may be defined primarily by a strong religious urge, yet this fact may be
completely irrelevant to his everyday work. For instance, a  person's major source of joy may be
solving intellectual issues, but he may never be led to realize how his love of chess problems and
mathematical riddles might be used in his business. Another may require a friendly, admiring
connection that he does not have at home and be continuously disappointed by his superior's
failure to understand and capitalize on that desire. To the degree that the leader's circumstances
and expertise allow him to respond to such unique patterns, he will be better able to generate true
intrinsic interest in the work that he is tasked to accomplish. Finally, an ideal organization should
have workers at every level reporting to someone whose dominion is modest enough for him to
perceive people who report to him as human beings.
Truly, someone who effectively leads us must appear to comprehend our aims and
objectives. He must appear to be in a position to please people; he must appear to comprehend
the repercussions of his own actions; and he must appear to be consistent and unambiguous in his
judgments. The term "appear" is essential here. It makes no difference how capable a potential
leader is if we do not recognize him as possessing these characteristics. We shall continue to
refuse to follow his lead. If, on the other hand, we have been duped and he just appears to have
these attributes, we can continue to follow him until we realize our mistake. In other words, the
impression he produces at any one time determines his effect on his followers.
Some of us believed that no judgment is worth the name unless it incorporates a risk-
reward analysis. We wouldn't need a man's opinion if it were a foregone conclusion. Errors are
unavoidable so that employees must be expected to learn from their errors rather than never
make them. It should be the good leaders’ task to monitor his men's long-term development to
ensure that, as they learn, their triumphs outnumber their mistakes.
Long-term growth is an essential component of effective leadership. Each worker must
be allowed to understand that his function in the group is malleable and that its growth is limited
only by his contributions. He must, in particular, perceive the leader as one of the most interested
in and beneficial to his development. Yet, it is insufficient to have interested personnel officers
or other staff members who do not participate in policy making. Regardless how much
technological support they may provide, they will never be able to replace the accountable
executive's enthusiasm.
Leadership, in contrary to popular belief, is far more than "understanding people," "being
nice to people," or not "pushing other people around." Democracy is commonly considered to
mean a lack of hierarchy or that everyone may be his own boss.  However, corporate leadership
may be democratic in the sense of offering the most opportunities for progress to each employee
while avoiding chaos.
 In reality, the orderly arrangement of duties, as well as an accurate awareness of a
leader's position in that arrangement, must always come before the maximal development of his
talents. A leader's responsibility is to offer the group with the recognition of responsibilities and
duties that will allow each member to satisfy and fulfill their main motivation or interest.