Leadership: Mastermind Conference 2010 Abraham B. Akpalu

LEADERSHIP
MASTERMIND
CONFERENCE
2010
Abraham B. Akpalu
LEADERS
• strategic thinkers
• look forward and create visions
• challenge
• motivate
• inspire
LEADERS MUST BE
DREAMERS
• It’s a dreamer’s world. The future you cannot picture you
can’t feature. Life without a dream is doomed.
• Great leaders always live in the reality of their future
before they arrive there. A dream is a picture of the future.
• I believe it is your mental picture that determines your
actual future for the bible says; as a man thinketh in his
heart so he is.
• Show me a greater thinker and I will show you a leader in
the making. This is because every great dreamer ends up a
world changer.
INFORMATION
• In my opinion, nothing empowers like knowledge. To be
informed is to be transformed. Information is the gateway
for man’s advancement and a cure for all his frustrations.
A leader must be well informed and have great level of
judgment. You can’t fail with facts.
• Every candidate writes something in an exam but it is
those who write facts that get the marks. There is no
substitute for information in your quest to be a great
leader.
INFORMATION
• Being informed is not just knowing some facts. It is the
possession of a working knowledge. Until you know how
your information is applied, it holds no value to you.
Information is the force that rules the world. Your speed in
life is determined by the quality of information at your
disposal.
• How far you can see determines how far you can go. The
more informed you are the more results you command.
Information is the currency of every leader. It determines
your purchasing power.
LEADERS CONTINUE TO
LEARN
The news you acquire today determines the moves you
generate. The moves you generate determines the waves
you cause and the waves you cause determines the news
you make. You can’t be genuinely informed and without
making appropriate moves. Many people stop learning as
soon as they graduate from school. Abraham Lincoln said:
“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today
than he was yesterday”. We live in ever changing world
so you have to keep pace with current knowledge. If the
information at your disposal is obsolete, then it can’t
produce any current results.
LEADERS CONTINUE TO
LEARN
• Henry Ford said: “anyone who stops learning is old,
either at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning
is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind
young.”
• T L Osborn said: “from the day you stop learning you
start dying “ that is to keep one’s mind open to new
insight and information that will bring solutions to you as a
leader in your area of endeavor.
LEADERS CONTINUE TO
LEARN
• Information demands discipline, as it doesn’t jump on
people. It is only available to explorers. It is a product of
intelligent search.
• Nobody is responsible for where you are today but you;
not even the devil. The main problem is lack of
appropriate information. Jesus said you shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. But the discovery
of the truth always demands discipline.
LEADERS ARE READERS
• People will say I don’t have time to read. The question is
do you find time to eat? Everybody gets time to eat.
• It has been proven beyond any doubt that committed

readers are those who become leaders. Remember
common sense at its best will only produce common
results. Dedicated readers and information hunters are the
ones that become great leaders.
LEADERS ARE READERS
• Even the gift of wisdom can become stale if you don’t
learn from others because iron cannot sharpen itself; it has
to be sharpened by another. If you don’t rub your mind
with others, it will soon become dull.
• With common sense, a leader will only head for a common
future. Everyone aiming at outstanding future must be
committed to rubbing his little mind with greater minds
thereby becoming sharper by the day.
LEADERS ARE READERS
• Even the gift of wisdom can become stale if you don’t
learn from others because iron cannot sharpen itself; it has
to be sharpened by another. If you don’t rub your mind
with others, it will soon become dull.
• With common sense, a leader will only head for a common
future. Everyone aiming at outstanding future must be
committed to rubbing his little mind with greater minds
thereby becoming sharper by the day.
LEADERS ARE READERS
• You will be the same that you are this year in five years
time except for two things-the books you read and the
people with whom you walk.
LEADERS ARE
DISCIPLINED
• You will be the same that you are this year in five years
time except for two things-the books you read and the
people with whom you walk.
LEADERS ARE
DISCIPLINED
• I believe discipline is the capital price you pay for every
desired change you seek in your quest to be a leader.
Discipline in my view is doing what is required to get what
is desired. It is doing what is demanded not what is
convenient.
• George Washington said, “Discipline is the soul of an
army; it makes small number formidable, it procure
success to the weak and esteem all”
LEADERS ARE
DISCIPLINED
• Discipline I believe is all about accepting full
responsibility for every outcome for one’s pursuit.
Someone has said you are not a failure until you look for
whom to blame. Leaders are proponents of change with
discipline. Only those who believe in the need for change
remain in charge. Leaders lead with example.
• Mahatma Gandhi said, “we must strive to become the
change we want to see”.
LEADERSHIP THEORIES
TRAIT THEORY
• Based on great men you can examine
their personalities and behaviour to
develop traits of leaders
• Plausible BUT flawed
• Little correlation – in attempting to
identify and model behaviours
POWER & INFLUENCE
THEORY
• Approach concentrates on networks of
power and influence generated by the
leader
• Based on assumption that all roads lead
to the leader
• Negates role of followers & strength of
organizational culture
BEHAVIOURIST THEORY
• Emphasizes what leaders do rather
than their characteristics
• So we look at what they do and how
they behave
• Advocates- Blake and Mouton (creators
of the Management Grid) and Rennis
Likert
SITUATIONAL THEORY
• Views leadership as specific to a situation
rather than a particular sort of personality
• Based on plausible notion – different
circumstances require different forms of
leadership
• Champions – Kenneth Blanchard & Paul
Hersey “Situational Leadership Theory”
CONTINGENCY THEORY
Developing from Situational Theory,
contingency approaches attempt
to select situational variables
which best indicate the most
appropriate leadership to
suit the circumstances
TRANSACTIONAL THEORY
• Emphasizes relationship between
leaders and followers
• Examines the mutual benefit from an
exchange-based relationship
• Leader offers certain things like rewards
or resources, in return leaders get
followers’ commitment or acceptance of
leader’s authority (extrinsic motivation)
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
• Elevates followers to new importance
• Concentrates on factors which lie
behind the followers’ attribution of
leadership to a particular leader
TRANSFORMATIONAL
THEORY
• In contrast to Transactional (extrinsic
motivation) this theory emphasizes intrinsic
motivation
• Emphasis on commitment rather than
compliance from the followers
• Transformational leader – proactive and
innovative visionary.
VALUES-BASED
LEADERSHIP
• Helps to rebuild employee commitment,
performance and productivity
• Offers a vision to reinvigorate and restore the
heart and soul of organizations
• Employees need a reason to believe in the
values and mission of an organization if not
profits and productivity will decline.
VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP
Susan Smith Kuczmarski & Thomas D. Kuczmarski
• How to replace the feeling of anomie – disillusionment,
isolation and hopelessness
• How to reenergize employees with a renewed sense of
belonging, commitment and connection to their
organizations.
• How to reduce employee problems like lack of motivation,
low morale, “I don’t care attitude”, and low productivity
• How to eliminate 10 factors that decrease employee
satisfaction
• Tools to help employees and employers to work together
for a more satisfying relationship.
MODERN LEADERSHIP
• Suggest leadership as a skill or characteristic is
distributed generously among the population
• “Successful leadership is not dependent on the
possession of a single universal pattern of inborn
traits and abilities. It seems likely that leadership
potential is broadly rather than narrowly
distributed in the population” Douglas Macgregor
The Human Side of Enterprise
Warren Bennis
Each of us contains the capacity for leadership
and has leadership experience Becoming an
effective leader is not d ut translating is not
straightforward but it can be done given time
and application
Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (with
Burt Nanus) 1985
• On Becoming a Leader, 1989
• Why Leader can’t Lead, 1989
• An Invented Life: Reflections on leadership and
Change, 1993
THE NEW LEADER
• “Today’s leaders understand that you
have to give up control to get results –
they act as coaches not as ‘the boss’”
• Robert Waterman – “The Frontiers of
Excellence”
MANAGEMENT STYLES
• Exploitative Authoritarian – management by fear
• Benevolent Autocracy – top-down with emphasis
on carrots rather than sticks
• Consultative – UP-down communication with
decisions coming mainly from the top
• Participative – decision-making based on working
groups that communicate with each other
• (Rennis Likert –1903-1981)
The Learning Organization
• The new recipe for • In the learning
leadership centres organization the act of
on five key learning is continuous
areas:Learning, and affects , and
Energy, Focus, involves everyone
Inner Sense - Stuart Crainer -
- Phil Hodgson - Key Management Ideas
1996
The Learning Organization
• WHY? – People are taking broader ranges of
responsibility e.g Managers today are faced with
new environment – responsible for more people
working in a process-oriented organization
• Growth of ‘knowledge workers’-marketplace
is teeming with highly qualified people
• Need to constantly develop skills with
changing times-recruiting, retaining,
retraining, motivate, develop skills etc,
NOTHING DIES
FASTER THAN
A NEW IDEA IN
A CLOSED MIND
NEVER STOP
LISTENING
NEVER STOP
LEARNING
NEVER STOP
TRAINING
REFERENCES
• Crainer, S. (1996). Key Management Ideas
• Bennis, W & Nanus, B (1985) Leaders
• Ghosal,S. (1990). Organizational Theory and the
Multinational Corporation
• Handy,C (1994). The Empty Raincoat
• Kuczmarski, S.S. & Kuczmarski, T.D. (1995).
Values-Based Leadership
• Macgregor,D. (1960) The Human Side of
Enterprise
• Pascale, R. (1990). Managing on the Edge
THANK YOU
FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION

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LEADERSHIP

• It has been proven beyond any doubt that committed

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