Leadership in an organization often plays a critical role, and is frequently, though not always, one of the major drivers of the success or failure of a company. (Bass, 1990) Effective leadership helps a company through times of peril and brings a future of brightness. It makes a corporation successful. However, what is leadership? According to Kouzes and Posner, it is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations. (1995, p.30) Leaders set a clear direction for us; they help us realize what is ahead; they support us to achieve and win; they encourage and inspire us when we feel depressed. Without leadership, an organization will degenerate into chaos and unstructured because people view things in different ways. …show more content…

Inspiring a Shared Vision Leaders believe that they can make a difference. They “envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organization can become”. (Kouzes & Posner, 2001, p.3) For leaders who have the ability to inspire a shared vision, they were “captivated by their dreams and “obsessed with the need to turn dreams into reality”. (Nanus, 1996, p.461) Answers to the questions like how to grow the current size of an organization, how to realize the trends in outside world and how to draw a blueprint of the future involve vision. According to my performance, I’ve got 44 points on this dimension, which locates in the middle place of the total five and indicates my deficiency of lacking of the sense of direction.
In this section, a good communication skill is in great request. In order to inspire a shared vision, we need to know what is being “shared”. In other words, what do people want to pursue and what interests and hopes do they have. I am going to use the example I mentioned above. When we were preparing the evening party, we put endless of energy and efforts on it because it was such a grand event and the time was so limited. I asked my subordinates to come early in the morning and leave late in the afternoon in order to catch up the schedule. At first, it worked well and people came on time. But this circumstance just lasted for two days. On the third day, they didn’t come at our scheduled time and the situation went worse