Deconstructing Leadership
Deconstructing Leadership: Guts by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg Knowledge acquisition, the first goal of successful leadership, has been a subject of inquiry since the ancient Greek philosophers. In more recent history, the study of knowledge acquisition has been explored mainly through two perspectives of psychology: (1) the cognitive perspective, which focuses on memory, categorization, problem solving, and decision making, and (2) the behaviorism perspective, which focuses on consequences of behaviors (Bennis and Nanus, 1985). This paper, by referring to the works of Kevin and Jackie Freiberg (2003), Warren Bennis (1994), and James M Kouzes, and Barry Z. Posner (2003), examines the traits that a modern organization requires to develop leadership characteristics and create a sense of belonging among its employees while closely following its policies and fulfilling its objectives.
To continue, another important goal of a successful organization is to bring about changes in attitudes. The field of social psychology serves as the major basis for the content and processes used for management development with this objective in mind. In the 1920s and 1930s, the study of attitudes was considered to be the central concept defining the field of social psychology. Although the field has broadened its focus since that time, attitude work has continued to have major importance. Research on the concept has been centered in three major areas: formation, measurement, and alteration or change.
The third goal of leadership, behavioral change, has been influenced by a number of psychological concepts and approaches. Lewin’s change model has been applied to behavioral change as well as to attitudinal change. Additionally, the “OB Mod” techniques, based on B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism, have had a tremendous impact on management development (Kouzes and Posner, 2003).
Underlying many of the experiential techniques and approaches are a number of hypotheses relating to the ways adults learn; the ability to use learning and to change behavior on the job; and the forces which motivate workers and managers to work together cooperatively and productively. They also assume the existence or desirability of a workplace value system which is a combination of the values of scientific management and political democracy.
There are a number of techniques that an organization could use in order to motivate its employees. Role-playing is a technique in which participants assume an identity other than their own to act out real or hypothetical problems in human relations and other areas. Role-playing is an activity simulation. This development was used to give participants experience in one-on-one interpersonal relations in an environment which encouraged experimentation with alternative ways to react to a stressful situation (Freiberg and Freiberg, 2003).
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