The Life of a Leader
Joseph Davis was born on 3/3/87 in New York. He is a Christian with strong Christian values. As a member of the Deliverance Church, Joseph believes that everything in this world is God-driven. Joseph is married to Lillian Chris. The couple lives in London with their 4-year-old son. Joseph is a hotelier by profession. He is employed as an executive chef in a hotel in London. He is also a chairman of a community-based organization that helps the less fortunate members of society. He is the founder of Kigwa Community organization that is locally based. The primary objective of the organization is to promote access to basic needs, relieve poverty and eradicate drug addiction among the poor. Joseph has roles and responsibilities as a community leader. As an executive chef, Joseph supervises junior chefs at the restaurant and oversees kitchen activities. In addition, Joseph is a treasurer of the local Deliverance church. There are many followers under his watch. In this case, Joseph has several leadership roles and qualifies to be interviewed for this assignment.
Lillian Chris is Joseph’s wife. They have been married for seven years. She was born on 8/3/1989. Lillian is a sociable lady, outgoing and friendly. Joseph describes his wife as the most beautiful, caring, and adorable and obedient wife. He married Lillian after five years of courtship. Lillian is also a Christian. She is God fearing and a follower of the Deliverance Church. Joseph believes his wife is a leader in everything she does. She is the chairperson of the cousins’ welfare in her extended family. She is also a women group leader in town. The group has several welfare activities that include visiting the sick members, participating in celebrations, fulfilling different functions a member has and helping the needy people in the society. Lillian is a deputy principal in one of the schools in town.
Leadership Definition
Joseph defines leadership as a process of planning, defining and establishing policies and objectives of a particular organization. Leadership refers to a number of accomplishment methods, machines, people, money, and materials to achieve organizational goals (Howell, 2012). Joseph believes that leadership involves motivating and directing a group that an individual is leading. In this case, Joseph views leadership as a process of controlling and supervising the performance of activities and ideas in a particular group that one is the head of. On the other hand, Lillian views leadership as a process of securing utmost satisfaction with the group that one is leading, and providing people with the best services that the organization can manage.
Lillian views leadership as a process of directing, guiding and unifying human activities and efforts with an aim of realizing definite goals and achieving results. Both Joseph and Lillian agree that leadership involves different elements that are intertwined. They also agree that leadership is aimed at achieving results. However, Joseph disagrees with Lillian’s perspective of perceiving leadership as an “intellectual, continuous and rational process.” In his view, leadership is a process of logic decision-making and does not have to be continuous. Joseph perceives leadership as an action in some situations. It does not have to be continuous since sometimes one assumes leadership for a short duration of even ten minutes if the situation dictates so (Bens, 2006).
Life of a Leader
Joseph is a Christian with strong values. In this case, he attributes his leadership to the will of God. Joseph believes that leadership comes from God. According to the Bible, a person cannot be a leader unless God approves that. Therefore, leaders are chosen by God to help them direct people in the right direction. In this case, Joseph leads people with sincerity. He prays and seeks the face of God before making any crucial decision. Joseph does not favor anyone on the basis of his or her background, ethnicity, gender or age. He believes a leader as an image of God who should equalize all people as God does. Joseph is never involved in corruption. It is not possible to bribe him because he believes that God sees everything. Quoting the Bible, Joseph says that, “Everything done in darkness shall be brought to light.”
Thus, leaders should only do what is right because the wrong things they do in secret cannot remain in secret forever. As a leader, Joseph believes that he is a role model for the society. He is concerned with his behavior wherever he is because he knows people are watching him. As a Christian leader, Joseph believes that he represents God, who chose him to lead people. Therefore, he does everything with an aim of serving God. He wants people to respect God that selected him to occupy the position he has. He encourages people to be good leaders and role models just as Jesus was. According to Lillian, Joseph, being a great believer and an active Christian employs faithfulness, trustworthiness and obedience in his day to day life. He is prayerful and humble. He always seeks God’s consent in his decisions. Joseph is very strict to observe his Christian virtues.
Leadership requires a leader to balance his leadership roles and family life (Markwell, 2013). Joseph is a father, a husband, and a family man. He recognizes the tremendous leadership roles ahead of him. However, he is very cautious not to fail in his family roles because of the leadership roles he has. In this case, Joseph tries to find enough time to be with his wife and son. He believes that leadership starts at home. In this case, it would be worthless to be a good leader at the workplace; a perfect chairman of the community-based organization and an active treasurer in church, but a good-for-nothing father and irresponsible husband. To avoid the above, Joseph has set aside three days a week that he has to spend with his family without handling the leadership roles.
On Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, Joseph spends his evenings with his family. He does not cater for the leadership chores unless there is an emergency. This way, he has enough time to be with his son and wife. The family has time to have fun and enjoy his presence. He also gets time to bond with the family and solve issues concerning him as a family head. At family level, Joseph does not want to be taken as a leader outside there. He believes that leadership he has outside home should not be brought to the family. He works hard to see his family see him as a father and a husband, not as a leader as the society does.
Thus, Joseph maintains a good relationship with his family. In fact, Joseph is seen as a role model for the family members. He manages to be a good leader outside the home and a perfect family man too. He does not neglect his responsibilities as a leader but does not forget his family chores. He is intelligent and coordinates his family well. He efficiently runs family matters without failure. Lillian points out that she is comfortable with how “he behaves as a family head irrespective of the leadership roles in his life.” He involves his wife in decision-making on family matters.
Joseph has many leadership roles in his life. As a head chef, he has to guide the trainees who are newly employed. Since he has the qualification, Joseph supervises even those people who are more than ten years older than him. However, he humbly does his work without humiliating the juniors. He believes that leadership is providing service to people. In this case, he does not boss around in the organization. His role as a chief chef earns him great respect in the organization. However, this does not prohibit him from socializing with his juniors whenever there is time to do that. As the CEO of Kigwa Community Organization, Joseph has a lot of responsibilities. The community-based organization receives funds from donors and the government to help the needy in the society. The position he holds in the organization is reputable.
However, Joseph has to be humble for him to be able to work with the poor and less fortunate in the society. As a church leader, many people come to Joseph for spiritual guidance. In this case, Joseph spends much time with his clients. Joseph believes that it is only through humility and commitment that leaders can achieve their goals. The leadership roles that Joseph has have made him a public figure. He is renown in the entire town and its environs. In fact, famous people such as politicians and activists often sought his advice and support. However, Joseph is very cautious not to involve himself in politics and other activities above his duty to serve the community. According to Lillian, leadership is challenging and demanding and can only be effective if the leader is ready to sacrifice. Joseph points out that criticism arises from different sides, but leaders have to stick to their calling.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the life of a leader has two opposite sides. A leader has to balance his leadership roles with his family life. He has to be a family person and a leader at the same time. This calls for commitment, wisdom, and skills. The virtues, beliefs and attributes a leader has contribute a lot to his leadership. Joseph in the above case is a father, a husband, a Christian leader who also has other leadership roles. However, he manages to be a good leader and a responsible family man. Lillian is also a leader. She supports her husband in the leadership roles that he has. Lillian understands her husband, and this makes work easy for him. It requires the family to understand their members who fulfill leadership duties because they have to be committed to their work. Joseph uses his Christian virtues in leadership. He believes that God gave him responsibility because he could bear it.
Therefore, he does all he can to ensure that he succeeds in his roles. Leadership is a process that involves skills and knowledge. Every leader has to apply skills and knowledge while dealing with people. Leaders cannot depend solely on intuition. In addition, leadership means creativity. Management is a personalized process. Every leader has his technique and approach depending on the environmental conditions and perception. Leadership deals with dynamic conditions and human behavior (George, 2006). Therefore, leadership is multidisciplinary. However, leaders who perform the functions of leadership are much more visible and tangible. Leadership is a social process because it deals with interpersonal relations. Human factor is the most important element in leadership. A good leader is a servant, not a boss. It is pervasiveness of the human element that gives leadership a distinctive nature as a social process. The essence of leadership lies in the coordination of individual efforts into team effort.
Live Chat
Affiliate Program!