Reference no: EM132380590

Exercise your ability to Enlist Others, Record your shared vision for yourself and organization.

Go to your Leadership Challenge Textbook, Chapter 5; or depending on your book, use the summary noted below.

Practice your hopes, dreams, and aspirations by addressing the following below (share how you would apply these actions in order to enlist others).

Wiley, summarizes the textbook chapter to Enlist Others as noted below: Enlist Others

The authors relate the story of a leader who discovered how essential it is to find out what motivates his team members. He says that the more you know about the people you work with, the more committed you become to each other's success and the more you realize that you have similar hopes and aspirations for what you are working on. A company is like an engine: "We cannot move forward if any of the cogs are not working."

Develop A Shared Sense Of Destiny

A leader's vision is not enough. Members of the organization must understand, accept, and commit to it. Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue. Leaders must engage constituents in conversations about their lives, hopes, and dreams, to develop a shared sense of destiny, an ideal and unique image of the future for the common good.

Inspire a Shared Vision is the least frequently applied of The Five Practices-people feel the most uncomfortable with it, and only one in ten considers herself inspiring. Yet even when they do not consider themselves inspiring, people nearly always become emotionally expressive when talking about their visions of the future.

The assumption that the process of inspiring a shared vision is somehow mystical or supernatural inhibits people, making them feel that they have to be something special to be inspiring. But what is necessary is believing in the vision and developing the skills for communicating it with commitment and enthusiasm, just as Martin Luther King did on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

To inspire their audience as Dr. King did, leaders need to practice three essentials to Enlist Others: Listen deeply, discover and appeal to a common purpose, and give life to their vision by communicating expressively.

Listen Deeply to Others

Leaders need to strengthen their ability to sense the purpose in others. By knowing their constituents, listening to them, and taking their advice, they can give voice to their feelings and show them how their own needs and interests will be served by enlisting in a common cause. Listening is crucial because leaders can't do it alone-they don't have all the ideas or all the answers.

A key characteristic of leaders who won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige award is impressive listening skills. Leaders listen carefully for quiet whisperings and subtle cues that give them a sense of what people want, dream about, and value.

To truly hear what constituents want means spending unstructured time--having coffee, breakfast, lunch, breaks--with constituent groups to find out what's going on with them and what they hope to achieve from their relationship to you, your product, your organization.

Discover and Appeal to a Common Purpose

People stay in organizations because they like their work and find it challenging, meaningful, and purposeful. These are common values that link people together. The best leaders are able to bring out and make use of the deep human yearning to make a difference by helping people understand the meaning and significance of the organization's work and the importance of their own role in creating it.

Visions are not strategic plans-strategic planning is not strategic thinking. The most successful strategies are visions, not plans, because they uplift people's spirits. According to McGill University professor Harry Mintzberg, leaders "engage people in a journey [so that] everyone on the journey helps shape its course....Strategies take on value only as committed people infuse them with energy."

Leadership scholars say that leadership that focuses on committing is called "transformational leadership" because it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration-transforms-both leaders and constituents.

The most admired leaders know that people aspire to live up to the highest moral standards, so to enlist others, it is essential to find and focus on the very best that the culture of the group or organization shares in common and what it means to its members. This communion of purpose reminds us of what it means to be part of a collective effort and gives us a sense of belonging, particularly important in tumultuous times.

Give Life to a Vision

Leaders use powerful language, a positive communication style, and nonverbal expressiveness make the intangible tangible, breathing life into their visions. They use metaphors and other figures of speech; give examples, tell stories, and relate anecdotes; draw word pictures; and use quotations and slogans.

Constituents want leaders with a can-do attitude, who make us feel good about ourselves and what we're doing. The most admired leaders are electric, vigorous, active, and full of life, with a positive attitude and communication style. The authors point out that people who are perceived to be charismatic are more animated than others-they smile more, speak faster, pronounce words more clearly, move their heads and bodies more often, and are more likely to make physical contact with others during greetings.

Complement your position by using your other leadership textbook in the course and other resources found on the Internet.

Write a paper exercising your ability to enlist others. Recording your vision for yourself and organization. Must be 2-3 pages in APA Style format. Use above information and other sources.

Book Reference: Kouzes, James M. and Posner, Barry Z. The Leadership Challenge, 5th Ed. New Jersey: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 2012.