MSLD 633 Module 7 - Leader Follower Relationship

Leader Follower Relationship

Complex Adaptive Leadership (CAL), differently from other leadership approaches, shows how different behaviors and strategies can be blended for greater effectiveness. (Obolensky, 2014). At a first stage, a leader needs to diagnose the problem/challenge in order to direct the strategy. There are technical problems (where the solution is “known how”) and adaptive challenges (where people are part of the problem, forced to a collective response, when only technical solutions is not enough). (Heifetz, 2009).

Although Coutu and Kaufman (2009) show through researches that coaches, nowadays, are hired primarily to work with executives on the positive side of coaching (developing high-potential talent and facilitating a transition in or up), which I believe is great for the continuous progress, I also believe that a coach on the diagnosis process would play a crucial role, in most of the organizations, especially those where a leader is directly involved on the challenge, and might miss the chance of being more often “on the balcony” seeing the big picture, the important fine points, and keep the goal at the center.

After identifying the depth of the challenge, through a meticulous critical thinking evaluating all the 8+ elements (Nosich, 2012, p. 48), a leader needs to define the strategies to be used to deal with it. Obolensky (2014) says that there are mainly four strategies (telling, selling, involving and devolving), but the most important strategy is being able to shift around the strategies effortlessly and constantly, according to the needs, and allowing flexibility on the decision made throughout the entire process.

Analyzing the strategy I tend to apply (in a scenario with a high killed and motivated team), I found that I would rather be involving when challenges arise than using other strategies. It would depend on the occasion, but most of the times I would allow others to discover the solution, when time is not pressing and there is a good opportunity to educate and develop people’s knowledge and skills further (Obolensky, 2014). This matches with the main passion I have (training and teaching) so I believe the questionnaire results were accurate.

I think my perspective changed throughout the past six weeks, mainly when related to devolve strategy, where a follower has high skill and will, and is already living in the fifth level of followership. Although I ask for opinions and suggestions, I usually do not encourage shared opinions while making more difficult decisions. I rather talk to another formal leader asking for advices and showing my point of views, and then gather the team for direction and guidance. Heifetz (2009) says that people are part of an adaptive challenge, and as so they need to be a direct part of the solution, for embracement and ownership, as a collective decision. I still struggle to apply the art of inaction (“wu wei”) when any challenge arises, and this trait is shown on the results of the questionnaire as well (the second most scored strategy: “telling”).

Although I do not know the source of my behaviors (if is the nature of my job or my personal nature), I believe that telling is a rooted trait, and comes from the desire to educate and develop people of the involving strategy. The issue is that telling is not necessarily the best way to do so, even though it is the traditional way. So this is a perspective changing as well.

So far, the main theoretical learning point of the course, is the importance of having the ability to step back when a challenging situation arise. As I like control and I am very active per nature, I intend to step over and act. For the future, I want to put this learning in practice, not only for technical problems as I already do, but for challenging ones. In my current job, I find it hard as I do not have time to know my “subordinates” well enough, and I do not have time to build a collective and adaptive culture (Heifetz et al., 2009) due to job nature. I strongly believe that building this type of culture is crucial for the effectiveness of any other strategy used in challenging situations. In my opinion, if the adaptive culture is not built, it will affect, sooner or later, the flow of the changing process, if the goal is achieving a collective adaptability.

On the collective subject matter, Hill (2014) presented examples of her researched made along the years,  stating that visionary leaders understand the importance of collaborative problem solving, they know how to do discovery-driven learning and they know how to do integrated decision making, nurturing the bottom-up and not let it degenerate into chaos. A leader must set direction and make sure that no one deviated from it, while aggregating viewpoints and creating the space where people are willing and able to share and combine their talents and passions.

Going away from a traditional view of leadership, contemporary and visionary leaders should stop giving answers and providing solutions. Instead, leaders should see the people at the bottom of the pyramid, the young sparks, the people who are closest to the customers, as the source of innovation (Hill, 2014). The role as leaders is to set the stage, not perform on it, creating the space where everybody's slices of genius can be unleashed and harnessed, and turned into works of collective genius.

In my case , I find it hard to change a culture in a team, when the organization keeps reminding through actions the strong authority, and how it plays in the system in order to get what expected. Punishments, cut-offs, favoritism, so forth, go against the idea of CAL if applied to extract behavior from employees. Changing policies and procedures, improving structure, enhancing technology and many other fixing solutions will not solve an adaptive challenge. They are all a response for technical problems, which will not last (Heifetz, 2009) and will not change the mentality of the organization as a whole.

As I cannot change the organizational culture only in small operational team, it makes hard for me to apply any adaptive strategy, but this teaches me another lesson: the best way to apply CAL is to have all its traits applied from the beginning, still when the organization is just an embryonic project.

References

Coutu, D., & Kauffman, C. (2009). What can Coaches Do for You?. Harvard Business Review,87(1),91-97.

Heifetz, R. (2009). The nature of adaptive leadership. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfLLDvn0pI8&feature=youtube, on October 21, 2018.

Hill, L. (2014). How to manage fro collective creativity. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity/transcript, on October 24, 2018.

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

MSLD 633 Module 4 - Should the "Boss" always know the answers?

Should the "Boss" always know the answers?

Leadership is not necessarily a formally ranked position, it is a choice you make (Sinek, 2014). Often the "bosses" pretend to know the answer, while people on the bottom line knows it well, and pretend they do not know, constructing a system a leadership charades. (Obolensky, 2014).Since I watched Sinek’s video, two years ago, I started sharing that with my team members on my current job (including or not people on higher rank than mine, since the people I work along changes every day). The reactions are all different (eyes tighten, brief smile, nodding, or staring) but have a common background: curiosity. I concluded that because at this point everyone starts listening in a different way, willing to listen, and afterwards they often come to me to talk about it.

Since I got the sense of curiosity I started elaborating my sentence. I explain to my team members that there is no boss in our relationship, and that everyone can lead any situation. I work with inflight service as supervisor, in a large airline, where this mentality is not common seen in an organization on this field, neither within a conservative culture where the company is based. My job requires me to be adaptive, due to its dynamism and the variety of cultures that I deal with (including coworkers and customers), but more than that, requires me to count on the leadership capacity of every and single one of my team members.

Dudley (2010) explains that every single moment you decide to create an impact, you are leading. Working with safety, security and medical situation, and being accountable and responsible for every consequence, made me hesitate to “pass the torch” of leadership to my “followers”. With time and studies, I understood that a job which requires me adaptive solutions, requires me automatically an adaptive leadership approach. Northouse (2016) says that one of the behaviors of an adaptive leader is to protect leadership voice from below. I would add a behavior on this subject matter which I believe to be powerful: protect and VALUE leadership voice from below. The author explains that an adaptive leader allows low-status members to be more involved, independent, and responsible for their actions. This will lead to more engaged people, with a sense of accountability on the planning and decision making. Since I realized all this, even in high challenging scenarios, I give my team member the opportunity and the trust they need to lead.

I am always around in challenge situations, and I set this clear during every pre-meeting when talking about leadership as an equal responsibility. I am there to guide or take over if needed, to be able to report the real facts to the office, and as an extra hand in case they need me, but one risk I am always ready to take: back up my team member on their decisions.

The impact on people’s performance, since I changed my approach, and the down or upwards feedback I get is always positive. I have faced situations where higher ranked leaders disapproved my approach, and sometimes after a long conversation, if there is no agreement on my decision, I end up the conversation with a conclusion that frequently leaves them with no reasonable argument: “whatever happens I will take the consequences”.

This brings me to the Harvard article “How to Lead When You're Not the Boss.” Leading my team and need to be under a responsibility of a boss or a leader is not always an easy task. I make my decisions, knowing that the consequences will not please, and in fact will impact upwards.

To be able to lead this way, I follow some guidelines which is mentioned on the article plus some adaptive behaviors required from a leader, mentioned by Heifetz et al. (2009) and Obolensky (2014). I have my goals clear to everyone (up and downwards), and I am constant flexible for changes, based on experiences faced at the moment, or in outcomes of my decisions. I try to think systematically, getting on the balcony and looking at all possible perspectives, diagnosing in what I believe to the most accurate reality we are facing. Afterwards, through engagement and focusing on the diversity of my team I open up for opinion and any valuable inputs, for a collective creativity on decision making or problem solving (Hill, 2014; Clinch, 2015). When the day is over (or in times of lower workload) I either ask or provide feedback as a form of gathering important information, paraphrasing positive impact, motivate the lateral leadership approach, and to avoid misunderstanding from the boss of the day.

I am aware that directly I impact in a very small portion of the work force, the human beings whose run the organization, but I believe that being an adaptive leader is not giving up on solution which can be lasting, no matter how far your attitudes can reach, and how demotivating can be when the system (or the people within it) not always backs up you actions. Clinch (2015) says that people is often a solution for problems and adaptive changes, and I believe that the way I lead every day, even my small team, will have a greater impact than policies and procedures impacts, because our challenge is adaptive and not technical, and changing peoples mind and behavior towards a more horizontal leadership, will define the long term success of our organization.

References

Clinch, M. (2015). Adaptive leadership. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xxvqwv_p2g&feature=youtu.be, on September 30, 2018.

Dudley, D. (2010). Everyday leadership. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership/transcript, on December, 2016.

Heifetz,R. A., Linsky, M., Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for changing your organization and the world. Business Harvard Review

Hill, L. (2014). How to manage for collective creativity. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare, on January 2, 2018.

How to Lead When You're Not the Boss. (2009). Harvard Management Update, 14(3), 1-2.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice. (7^th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

Sinek, S. (2014). How great leaders make you feel safe. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe, on October 5^t, 2018.

MSLD 633 Module 1 - Leadership Gap

LEADERSHIP GAP

I believe leadership requires a two-ways relationship between leaders and follower. Since childhood I unconsciously faced leaders as teachers, parents and older relatives in an approachable way, not as hierarchy.

I can recall one phase that my own attitude toward a leader changed my life. I started in a company as a trainee, and due to my experience in the field and commitment I became a full-time employee. Each day my relationship with my manager was getting stronger and more personal. We became friends, and with that I conquered full trust from her. I started, informally, taking over her roles, and slowly doing her tasks. While people were labeling her as lazy and opportunist, I was taking the opportunity to learn new things and to show what I was capable of. After resigning she recommended me to the directors to fill the gap as manager since she was leaving, and the director accepted her recommendation. Although it was stressful, challenging and overwhelming at that point, it was my first leadership direct experience and I carry my lessons to the current days in my organization.

While considering leadership traits differences across generations I can think of one major trend, which leads to other: communication. The communication channels are more variable and more open. Slowly, people started having freedom to express themselves in all senses. Even in traditional families, the dialogue between generations are more frequent and wider. This trend leads to the point made by Obolensky (2014) when he mentions the transition from anarchy to oligarchy and then to polyarchy. As the relationship across generation become more opened, consequently the leadership attitudes become more polyarchic.

The main reason behind this trend, in my perspective, is the general discussion and fights for freedom, equality and technology, which make younger generations think they have more knowledge, and with that they have something to add, to teach and consequently being able of decision making, even if partially.

This, as many other questions are hard to answer precisely. For an instance, why we have an apparent gap in the quality of our leaders, if we live in a world with more information about leadership and leadership practices?

The reason I can think of, is the fact that leadership studies is something new, comparing with other business subjects. Still, people in the corporation environment are more concerned about technical knowledge than subjective one. We still live in a world task-oriented when comes to business. As all effective changes, a good and contemporary leadership approach will happen in a slow process. One way to close the gap in the quality of our leaders, is the educational leaders (consultants, trainers, coaches, so forth) change their mindset first. Changing their selves f to be able to change organizations effectively. (Heifetz et al, 2009)

References

Heifetz,R. A., Linsky, M., Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for changing your organization and the world. Business Harvard Review Press.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

MSLD 520 Module 1 - Self-Awareness Blog

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is a subject studied and mentioned over that past millennia, as described by Whetten and Cameron (2016). Understand oneself is the key to understand the world that surrounds and consequently be able to lead anyone and anything.

The same authors list Five Core Aspects of Self-Awareness. Core self-evaluation which assist on identifying underlying personality attributes, values that identifies personal standards and moral judgement, cognitive style which is an aspect that enable to identify information acquisition and evaluation, attitudes towards change relates to adaptability and responsibility, and emotional intelligence which in linked with emotional awareness and control. (Whetten & Cameron, 2016).

With respect of these five core aspects, I can easily say that my level of self-awareness increased for the past month, since I started the MSLD (Master of Science in Leadership) program. There main reason behind this progress is the self-value in this course. While a lot of Master programs prepare the students with either a professional (business) or scientific perspective, this program focus mainly on self-leadership (so far). At the beginning I was surprised and wondering how effective would be the course, however I realized along the way that self-leadership, which is intrinsically related to self-awareness, is essential towards any human interaction.

The group discussions, the self-reflection blog and mainly my conscious daily interaction with others, assisted me on evolving my self-sense. These activities helped me understand how my personality affects my decisions, how my emotion is inherent to my actions and reactions, how my values interfere on the way I see the world around me, and how I act towards this point of view. On my personal and professional environment, I keep evaluating myself, on a daily basis, trying to understand what led me to, for and from a situation. It happened naturally in my mind, but looking back, before I started the program, I did not have the knowledge to evaluate myself. As my knowledge increases, my conscious self-evaluation evolves.

It is interesting how my co-workers react to my leadership skills, and my self-sense when dealing with a situation. I work with a different team every day, or every three days, and I rarely meet the previous co-workers ever again. Working with new people constantly is challenging, however, as usually, it has its down and up sides.  I get the opportunity to see directly and indirectly, how people act and react to my blended personal and professional performance, not based on any outside aspects but almost entirely to my skills, to the self-awareness of my objective and subjective responsibilities.

My personal relationships improved as well, since understanding myself allows me to take conscious decisions, build conscious relationship and work constantly on my weakness, which is always appreciated by the ones whose surround me. The most amazing part of this program, is that it is applicable for any purpose, no matter in which aspect oneself desire to apply the knowledge. Self-awareness progress and self-leadership development is an open door to any way towards the success.

References

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking

        across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson

 Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills,

        9^th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.

MSLD 511 Module 9 - Course Reflections

Course Reflections

Two months ago, in my conception, leadership was a process in which an individual (leader), focused in a holistic and systemic view of the organization, influence a person or group of people (followers) to achieve a common goal based on the mission and vision of the organization itself, while taking in consideration not just the goal but the individuals involved.

          Nowadays I would not change my definition, but add two considerations while explaining it, based on my studies, discussions and self-reflection throughout the course. Starting by organization, the term is not only related to the political and corporative world. Organization in this definition includes your own self, the core of every relation in leadership, where all the theories is applicable, since we influence our own actions, emotions and mind, learn from self-reflection, ask ourselves question and act towards changes.

In the matter of influence, a leader, seeking for effective leadership, influences a follower by building a relationship. This relationship must be genuine and based on trust empathy, and consideration, through emotional and rational intelligence.

In my professional environment, I can say I am situational leader, who try to consider every possibility, analyzing the situation and the people involved to make the best decision, being a decision for a final goal or for the process itself. This way, there are times I am directive, others I am supportive, when time permits I teach my followers (which comes along with the coaching style, even if the components of coaching cannot be applicable in my work environment due to lack of time) and constantly I delegate tasks to everyone who is willing to learn something new or improve the performance in a specific area. Being situational, I am as well an authentic leader, and I lead by example. I aspire to trust more my followers when I am not around, but with the history of the department it is a challenging task to aspire. Still, I think I can influence the situation to make sure things are done when I am not present, being more directive in some occasions, more supportive in other and delegate even more.

In my personal life, I can say I mix all approaches and styles, again, according the situation. I am passionate about helping and assisting on making the way clear to ease some arduous steps for those I love (path-goal). I roll my sleeves up and go out in the “dirty” not measuring anything to make people around me happy (servant). I am very social, charismatic and I love interaction, and often I am a way of transformation on people’s life - being on changing a point of view or dealing directly with hard moments (transformational). I try constantly to adapt to environment, conditions and factors which influence the situation (adaptive). I aspire to be more emotionally intelligent, controlling my emotions while dealing with challenging situations, and to be more considerate towards others' feelings.

No matter in which sphere, I am always an authentic leader. Not necessarily as follower but always as leader. The important learning, in any time we are acting as leaders or followers, is to understand and respect other’s perspective, believing that there is a reason behind every decision, and do never judge the individual around us, independent of formal rank, without taking in consideration all possible variables, the ones affecting or being affected by the situation, directly or indirectly on the decision.

We all need to give a vow of trust to people around, to our organization and to ourselves, and from this point on work on more possibilities, alternatives and different perspectives, through a deep critical thinking.

MSLD 511 Module 7 - Inner Work for Authentic Leadership

Inner Work for Authentic Leadership

Authentic Leadership focuses on whether leadership is genuine and “real”. Northouse (2016, p. 195). This leadership theory, as Servant Leadership, can be combined with distinct types of theories and even being blended with one another, since both of them involves a specific condition from the leader point of view, independent of situation or followers. And this is not a matter of coincidence. William George (2003), known as Bill George, found through interviews with 125 successful leaders that authentic leaders have a genuine desire to serve others. (Northouse, 2016, p. 197).

          George studies about authentic leadership goes in accordance of Northouse (2016) opinion, when he mentions that currently people demand for trustworthy leadership, which make the studies timely and worthwhile. According to George (2012), this was realized even from the leaders’ point of view since the financial crisis of 2008.

          On the subject of Authentic Leadership, George (2012) says the practice of mindful leadership gives you tools to measure and manage your life as you’re living it. On an interview with Daniel Goleman in 2012, George says that to be an authentic leader we need to do an inner work, to develop our self-awareness, which for George includes processing internally real world experience, through self-reflection and honest feedback from people we trust and have an intimate level and not a superficial relationship.

          For me, the real-world experiences which have been most instructional is my relationship with my fiancée, where I need to be myself, to share my thoughts, to face challenges, seek for development and continuous improvement as a human being, as friend, and as woman. I need to practice daily my communications skills (active and passive), my forgiveness, and my patience, review my weaknesses, abdicate from my self-interests, learn how to receive, and practice constantly on how to give. On my other relationships (professional, personal and social), there are times where I do not go an extra mile to improve, to listen actively or to be honest and sincere, since sometimes will take a long way to be understood or it will bring challenges I do not want to face, however on my conjugal relationship I need to be my-self which instruct me to be authentic.

          Self-reflection it is what I do most regarding to my relationship, which has its downtimes, as everything we do in excess. I am in an ultra-long distance relationship for three years now, and I live alone, apart from being away from my family as well. These factors and my job conditions give me a long time to think and rethink about everything. I do not really need to look for time, space or condition. My self-reflection is constant and more than once daily, which is good since I am always reviewing my actions, the consequences and the alternatives to a better outcome. What I need to control is my imagination found on my fears and insecurities. Excess of free time alone and constant self-reflection can bring negative consequences as well and this is a variable neglected on this type of studies, since does not affect majority. As a point to make, for an instance, related to this specific life-style as air crew (unknown for people outside the field) is the amount of people diagnosed with depression and alcoholism, plus the ones who hide the symptoms fearing the consequences. I do not really know if there are studies on that, but as someone inside the field, in touch with the human beings working out there, observing behaviors and comments, I can easily say the rate is high. My though in this illustration is: maybe this is an excess of self-evaluation unaccompanied of action-plan? Simply a hint to think about.

          Honest feedback, in my case, independent of the sphere of my life, I receive from my fiancée.  We constantly talk about ourselves as active partners inside the relationship, we share our thoughts regarding to our professional life looking for each other’s counsel, and we touch in points as family issues and circle of people around us (how they affect and is affected by us). There are two points to make related to feedback, which is a general rule in my opinion, but personally, me and him practice constantly. When and how this feedback is provided is crucial for its effectiveness. The person giving the feedback needs to considerate several variables while choosing the words, tone of voice and time to do so. The person receiving needs to open its mind for listening, since constructive feedback, when necessary, might hurt or touch in areas inside us where we do not want to be touched. The other point I would like to make, which is linked with the previous one, is the humility we need to have to ask for feedback and our self-awareness while doing so. Using my own example, I usually ask for feedback when I am feeling good from inside and when I am craving for self-development. I always choose a time when we are alone, usually while on bed in the end of the day, when we are physically together (not in phone calls or text message) and first I evaluate myself if I will be able to handle things I do not want to hear, probably developmental points I already know, subconsciously, I need to work on and do not want or know how to face this challenge.

          The practice of self-reflecting and seeking for opinion regarding to myself, helps me so much as a leader, independent if self-leadership or if leader of others. The outcomes are clearly seen on the performance of my employees, on the feedback of customers, on the results of my action and advices given to my family (specially my mom) when I need to interfere in any issue and on my conjugal relationship, where we overcome obstacles every time in a better way and avoid making the same mistakes. There is a long way to go to achieve the best leader I could be, honestly speaking, however this examples illustrate my way on the long path to authentic leadership.

“As you take on greater leadership responsibilities, the key is to stay grounded and authentic, face new challenges with humility, and balance professional success with personal success.”

Bill George

REFERENCES

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice. (7^th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

George, B. (2003). Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

George, B. (2012). Inner Work for Authentic Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmPu2LQ84ts on May 07, 2017.

George, B. (2012). Mindfulness Helps You Become a Better Leader. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/10/mindfulness-helps-you-become-a.html on May 7, 2017.

MSLD 511 Module 6 - A Leader from the Past

A Leader from the Past

As Northouse (2016) says, authentic transformational leadership is concerned with the collective good and gives more attention to the charismatic and affective elements of leadership. It emphasizes on motivation and follower development. It changes and transforms people, as a process concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals.

          House (1976) published a theory of charismatic leadership, which is similar to, if not synonymous with, transformational leadership (Northouse, 2016, p.164). For House (1976), the personality characteristics of a charismatic leader include being dominant, having a strong desire to influence others, being self-confident, and having a strong sense of one own’s moral values. Sets strong role model, shows competence, articulates goals, sets high expectations, express confidence and arouses motives, are some common behaviors of a charismatic leader (House, 1976).

Bass (1999, p.191) says that leaders are authentically transformational when they increase awareness of what is right, good, important and beautiful, when they help to elevate followers’ needs for achievement and self-actualization, when they foster in followers higher moral maturity, and when they move followers to go beyond their self-interests for the good of their group, organization, or society. 

One of the leaders of my past that exhibited some of the qualities of a transformational leader is Alexandra Caprioli, and this is one of the reason I chose her to interview, as part of my final paper tasks for this class.

The first moment I was impacted by her traits, it was in one of her speeches to students of Tourism and Hospitality, where I was the orator of the event. At this point I had not met her before, and I clearly remembered how she impressed me with her communication abilities, her professional achievements, her confidence, her technical knowledge as professor and owner of business in the field, and her open mind when she invited me to work with her.

While working with her, the main leadership traits and skills I observed in Alexandra’s was assertiveness, efficiency, readiness to face challenges, continuous self-development, humility and motivation. She was always seeking opportunities to develop other. First, she invited, without knowing me, to work with her as a trainee. Afterwards, she invited me to work with her in random events she organized, until one day, after a year we did not see each other, she contacted me to assist her in one of her most important events, which she organizes yearly.

The fact of being role-model, of trusting on me when I was only 17 years old and keeping looking for my professional contributions for three years made me work harder on every opportunity I was working with her. The fact of sharing with me her personal life, taking me inside her house while working (which is very uncommon in my culture), being so approachable and humble while being so well known in my city (owning along with her family the main bus company, event agency and an airline) transformed me professionally.

I remember my first thought when I watched her speech: “I want to be like her one day”. She inspired me to keep learning new languages, to work hard in order to achieve my goals, to keep working on my professional dreams while majority of people around me criticized the field I chose. She inspired me to be humble no matter what is my rank in an organization, treating people as human beings and with dignity, while being confident, assertive and directive at appropriate times. An example on how transformational she was, and I believe still is, is the fact she was the first leader who came to my mind when I needed to choose I leader to interview, and now, again, to pick a leader from my past.

“The way people make us feel lasts longer, because it is stored in our emotional memory”

Debora Arantes

                   

REFERENCES

Bass, B. M., Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, Character, and Authentic Transformational Leadership Behavior. Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 181–217. 

House (1976). A 1976 Theory of Charismatic Leadership. In J. G. hun & L. L. Larson (Eds), Leadership: the cutting edge (pp. 189-207). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice. (7^th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.