Analysis of Leader-Follower Relationship Perhaps the success of Southcentral Foundation (SCF) is in part due to the resilience and dedication of its President and CEO, Katherine Gottlieb to take care of her people, her family. In her article about Dr. Gottlieb, Ms. Toomey (2015) gives a poignant story of how, as a child, Katherine came from troubled, humble beginnings and took it upon herself to care for her siblings as their parents were unable to; their father was a workaholic and their mother, an alcoholic. She took it upon herself to make sure her siblings were fed and properly clothed for the cold. Dr. Gottlieb is half Aleut and began her career as a health representative in the remote village of Seldovia, Alaska where she was raised. Seldovia is only accessible by boat …show more content…
In 1991, she began her journey as President and CEO of SCF and since then has transformed a problematic, bureaucratic healthcare system into one that is renowned as a model for healthcare delivery and redesign worldwide; known as the NUKA System of Care. Not much is written about Dr. Gottlieb’s leadership style or the leadership heroes she admire. Suffice it to say, first and foremost, Dr. Gottlieb can be considered the consummate charismatic leader for the Alaskan Natives and her organization; and perhaps this leadership style is the salient rock that carried her and her organization through the epic transition into the NUKA model. According to Ledlow and Coppola (2011), “charismatic leadership inspires followership through intangibles in personality that cannot be measured directly in an individual”. Nohria and Khurana (2010) described a charismatic leader as “an individual as perceived by others...lies in what is thought to be his connection with some very central feature of man’s existence…and meaning is rooted in the fact that both [charismatic leadership and meaning] are concerned with the contribution to and reproduction of a