Kouzes And Christian Reflections On The Leadership Challenge

A good leader is paramount to a strong organization. If an organization does not have strong leadership it is often destined to fail.

The biggest leadership role model in my life would be my manager Lana. Kouzes and Posner write in Christian Reflections on the Leadership Challenge that in their research they have determined that leaders when at their best “model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart” (Kouzes & Posner, 2004, pg. 2). I have seen many examples of each of these things out of her in my time working for her. We both came into our current positions around the same time, so I have watched her grow into this role. One of the biggest ways that I have seen this out of her was the recent overall of our quality process. When she

Through a lot of outside consulting and planning she decided the best way to overcome this was to change the way we do our jobs. Kouzes and Posner state “Exemplary leaders find their voice by clarifying their personal values and then expressing those values in their own style, then they set the example by aligning their personal actions with shared values” (Kouzes & Posner, 2004, pg.10). Lana was brought in because management wanted to take a step in this direction and they recognized from her previous interactions that she would lead by example. Before we ever began changing the way we handled coaching others, she first demonstrated a better way in the way she coached us. She was quick to praise and focused on what we could do to improve the situation going forward, rather than what we did wrong. By demonstrating to us first hand and giving us a tangible example of what she wanted to accomplish with our team, she could get our buy in. It was a slow process that did require challenging the way things had already been done, she also did not