UJAK

JOSEPH S. NYE JR.: THE POWERS TO LEAD

Theory of Media

Fernando Jesús García Hípola

1. Leadership

What is leadership? We call leading to the ability of a person or

persons to influence the behavior of others. In every human society is

structured in such a way that always gives some form of leadership.

This can be a hierarchical structure vertically, horizontally, or even

simply be dynamic. The book in question is rationally explain what are

the underlying principles for a person to be a leader, and how does this

affect human society. We will have our interest focused on why the

media will have great power in today's society.

To begin with, we must distinguish leadership fame: not always a

celebrity have to be a leader. A model can be world famous and yet not

have any influence on the behavior of people. Einstein, for example,

developed a theory that has been very important in the development of

modern physics. However, many of his ideas were met with skepticism

and had little influence on their political views on the dismantling of

nuclear bombs. On the other hand, there may be leaders who are

barely known, but they have a great power over decisions in society.

Probably no one knows the name of the president of the WHO, but

certainly he has a great influence in global health.

Leadership is something that cannot be studied with the inevitability of

science: there are plenty of variables that explain leadership, many of

them beyond the reach of the leader himself. Many depend on the

context: Churchill, for example, was a great leader during World War II,

when he finished this, also ended the context, and it was so tactical

leadership of Churchill were not so effective: it was re-elected

president despite his achievements.

There is a belief that leadership is an innate ability and acquired. An

experiment demonstrated the interaction between acquired skills and

innate abilities: he asked a group of entrepreneurs who will hire a

group of people who had been categorized according to their beauty:

indeed, the most attractive people were chosen. Later, he repeated the

process, but only showing the curricula, not pictured: the beauty of the

people obviously did not influence the decisions of employers. Finally,

they were asked that will select after having telephone interviews.

Surprisingly, people chosen were the most attractive. The explanation

is that the security they had the most attractive people to be more

attractive was manifested in his voice. Thus, it was demonstrated that

attitudes are often purchased based on the confidence that has a

person itself. Therefore, a quality that every leader should have is self-

confidence and determination, qualities that can be learned.

2. Power in Leadership

There can be no leadership without power. The power could say it is

the ability of a leader to control in part the will of a group of people, the

followers. However, there are different forms of power: one is the

power that is achieved by the use of force, threats of force the will of

others. On the other hand, is the power achieved by persuasion, or

donating resources. We will study two types:

-Hard Power: power is achieved through coercion or threat. It

characterizes leaders who are dictators or leaders who control their

employees through threats (if you do this you're fired). In a sense it is

the most effective form of power in the short term, but also the most

expensive, amoral and probably the last that should be used. All

nations can use this power in their armies, but this is obviously a last

resort to be used.

-Soft Power: power is achieved through persuasion and dialogue. For

example, "A Goverment May try to persuade young people to forgo

drugs With An advertisment campaign featuring attractive celebrities,

but if the soft power fails, the hard power of law enforcement

Remains." We should also include here the power achieved through

payments, example, the power that I have on an employee that I pay. In

the latter case there is a disguised form of Hard Power, because the

threat is always there for you to withdraw these payments: "As for

Hard Power, Threats and inducements are Closely related. Inducements,

rewards, and bonuses are more pleasant to receive as Threats, but the

hint of Their removal can Constitute and effective threat. If I can pay you

a bonus, I can Also threaten to take away your bonuses. "

Sometimes a leader has Soft Power simply because it shares some

goals, a set of beliefs and values shared with his followers: "Soft power

can Provide what fund-raisers call the power of the ask:" Someone

calls and asks you to make a donation. Sometimes you say yes because

is a good cause or in a Exchange of favors, but sometimes you do so

simply because of the moral authority of the person asking. "

Power is not a one-way relationship: the leader's followers also have

power over him, especially in soft power. Fans always have the

capacity to threaten the leader with stop following if this does not

change their behavior. Power is also transitive: the leader can impose

on their followers to be leaders turn to other followers.

3. Power and Networks

Human society can be viewed as a network in which nodes are its

members. Power is not more than the capacity of a node to influence

other nodes. This is done through the ties between different nodes,

that is, information channels. There is evidence that it is easier to share

information between individuals (nodes) that maintain a strong

friendship between no. The advantage of this data, therefore, is to

provide reliable and steady. However, it has been found that it is better

for leadership weak links between nodes, since they provide latest

information. Thus, a good leader should try to keep a greater number

of ties that provide new information. For example, between a television

viewer and journalist who writes the news there is a weak link:

however, the information given is less recurrent than that which can

give the viewer a friend, then that information will be recurring,

monotonous, and less specialized. The information is being shown as

the instrument of power of the XXI century. Says one sentence: "Wars

are won not with tanks and bombs, but with the influence the media

have on public opinion." It is for this reason that each are leaders

should rely more on soft power of communication to the hard power of

coercion.

Moreover, it says that the current hierarchical system is evolving to a

feminine culture. Indeed, more and more important for leaders

dialogue and persuasion that the use of force to influence the society.

The existence of such powerful weapons like nuclear bombs make

unfeasible the use of violence (pernicious conflict unleashed!), So

diplomatic attitude in social relationships is becoming more important.

4. Types and Skylls

We will study the possible features that can be a leader:

-Charisma: Charisma can be defined as the "fascination, glamor

exercising some people over others." However, charisma is not really a

quality present in leaders, but rather the perception of his followers. A

leader may be better or worse ability for others to see charismatic, but

the last word I have followers. How does the charisma in the soft

power that has a leader? Does not directly influence the leadership that

has that leader on followers, but the attribution of that leadership.

Before Martin Luther King was a leader that influenced the rights of

blacks, but it was Martin Luther King who would be best remembered

for this, precisely because of their charisma. We could say that the

charisma depends on three factors: the quality of leader that others

charismatic vein, the perspective of followers and context. "Followers

are more likely to attribute charisma When They feel a strong need for

change, in the context of Often a personal, organizational, or social crisis.

As Mentioned, the British public did not see Churchill as a leader

charicmatic in 1939, but a year later his vision, confidence, and

communications skills made him charismatic in the eyes of the British

people Given the anxieties They felt after the fall of France and the

Dunkirk evacuation. "

Transformational and Transactional-Leaders: We can distinguish two

types of leaders: the transformational leaders tend to change the value

system of their followers and lead to goals that they previously had.

They try to show that there is another possible reality, and encourages

them to get it. For their part, leaders use transactional existing

motivations to mobilize leaders in that direction. For example, a

president who is elected by voters usually a transactional leader: he is

expected to lead to the objectives for which voters have chosen. Martin

Luther King, meanwhile, was a person who was able to show that

white people could respect to blacks, and succeeded. Moreover, it is

possible to be both leading at once: "consider the example of Lyndon

Johnson. In the 1950s, Senator Johnson wanted to deeply transform

racial injustice in the South, but I did not use soft power to preach or to

inspire a new vision in the other senator. Instead, I have misled his fellow

southerners acerca his intentions and used to transactional style of hard

power bullying and bargaining to Achieve progress Toward his

transformational style of hard power bullying and bargaining to Achieve

progress Toward his transformational Objectives in passing a civil rights

bill in 1957 That as anathema to many of the supporters who had made

him majority leader. He did not change his followers, but I did begin to

change the world of African Americans in the South. "

Of course, the transformational leaders are more Effective using soft

power.

-Emotional Intelligence: this intelligence was described by David

Goreman and is quite different from the IQ indicator. Describe the

ability of people to understand the emotions and feelings of others. A

leader should take greater account of this kind of intelligence, and that

this other can be trained and improved. George Bush, for example, has

been something that was a factor in emotional intelligence. However,

he missed his perseverance in its objectives knew not bother to see

that his followers, and so has not gone down in history as a great

leader.

-Communication: A good leader must be able to communicate properly

are his followers. Good rethorical skills help to generate soft power.

For example, Woodrow Wilson was not a good student as a child or a

good leader, but the rhetoric that developed much later helped him

succeed. By communication we mean not only verbal communication:

nonverbal communication we formed 70% of the information to

communicate, and is closely related to emotional intelligence of which

we spoke. We must not forget that it is the flow of information that

regulates the networks that make up the social structure, so whoever

controls the media controls the power.

-Vision: A leader must have raised a vision, a model of the world to

introduce, or the prospect of seeing the world. The world view need

not be immediately expressed by the leader: be formed in the

interaction with the group. A successful leader knows the modeling

world view that informs others to adapt to the demands and desires of

their followers. The further this vision of the world's most

transformational reality will be that leader is, and the more suited to

the vision that already have their followers, more talk of a

transactional leader.

-Organizational Skills: the way the leader has to organize his followers

influence the success of your leadership. Every leader, with all his

followers, creates a proto-institution or institution. How to organize

this institution will be how to organize the behavior of the network it

manages. The leader and followers depend choose a leadership

structure more or less centralized, the first leader relegate more

responsibilities, and make your skills more crucial in the proper

functioning of the whole. In contrast, a less centralized structure will

be more stable to depend more on the behavior of all followers, but

give less power to the leader.

-Maquiavellian Political Skills: David McClelland has shown that

leaders who absolutely need to have to make better leaders, but only if

they develop an internal strategy to control the need for power. In this

regard, the Skills Maquiavellian become useful. Arguably one of the

premises of these skills is to use the insecurities and weaknesses of

followers as instruments of power. In turn, "the end justifies the

means" and there should be no moral barriers that prevent the normal

development of the power of the leader. There is a famous phrase of

Machiavelli says "being loved depends on others, but be remido

depends on the leader himself." With this assumption legitimate use

versus Hard Power Soft Power. Not every leader must have these

qualities on moral grounds, but no longer useful in some of them.

Hitler, despite the barbarism committed, was a good leader in that

knew influencing attitudes of the German population. In this sense,

every leader must forge its own ethics when it comes to choosing how

to send.

5. Contextual intelligence

At one point of our discussion where we stated that the qualities of a

leader depended largely on the context. A good leader is one who

knows how to exploit the surrounding circumstances. For example

General Electric is notable for good CEOs who have led, however, when

one of those CEO have migrated to another company, have not

succeeded in this. Why are leaders who succeed in one context but fail

in another? Each leader will be good in a particular area, as each level

requires certain characteristics that leader may or may not have.

Contextual Intelligence call the leader's ability to adjust to a new

context.

Success in a given context depends on the accuracy and completeness

with which the leader develops a mental model of the situation, and

applies anticipating problems that may arise. Anthony Mayo and Nitin

Nohria have defined contextual intelligence as the ability to

understand a dynamic environment. Politically it can be said that a

good leader is one who knows how to interpret the underlying logic in

universal history, and use of social movements in their favor. If Hitler

had set out its ideas in a time of economic prosperity in Germany,

probably would not have succeeded.

But the other leader to maximize the context, can also influence it to

your advantage. If the leader wants to create change in their followers,

a good method is to create a sense of crisis for the group of followers

believe external pressure to make that demand change. On the

contrary, if the leader wants to maintain its influence in the same

direction, you should try to convey a sense of stability.

Is where play a crucial role media. They are best able to communicate

to his followers the vision of a context they want: by setting the

agenda, can manipulate the concerns and demands of the people. They

can also create context thus influencing what kind of leaders will

emerge. An indirect way of leadership is choosing what kind of leaders

you want to stay, as this represents an establishment of your interest

on the rest.

There are five dimensions that a leader has to understand when

applying contextual intelligence:

5.2. Culture

"Culture is the recurrent pattern of Behaviour by which groups

transmit knowledge and values". Culture sets the framework within

which leaders must act: "Culture and leadership are two sides of the

same coin in cultures create yourself first leaders That When They create

yourself groups and organizaciones. Once culture exists, THEY determine

the criteria for leadership and Malthus determine who will or will not be

a leader. "Attribution of charisma that leaders give their followers

depends largely on criteria established by the culture. Gandhi is known

that greatly influenced the ideas of Martin Luther King, but their styles

were very different, molded by Indian culture and American

respectively. To illustrate how important it can be for the leadership

culture, will this example: in 1990. Two new Mexico movements

emerged to improve the conditions of the population. The Zapatista

Army of National Liberation was successful, while the popular

Revolutionary Army did not. The commander Marcos, leader of the

first group, had spent a decade in the jungle and it had changed his

ideas (without losing their esencia9 to fit in with the ideology of the

Mexican population. Another example is how many older people left

Chrysler after. they merged with Daimler-Benz in 1998 IBM for its part

has a program of indoctrination of employees on cultural issues but

not only found differences in the cultural level of the country, but also

of institutions Following the attacks of September 11th..; management

was ineffective in part by differences in communication between FBI

and CIA: the philosophy of the two institutions difficult communication

between them.

The language is closely related to culture: a good understanding of the

culture will be a good understanding of language, and therefore a good

way for the leader to express their ideas and understand it without

ambiguity.

Have been identified up to four macro cultural patterns Europe, which

can assist in understanding the world: anglo market orientation, french

pyramidal structures, scandinavian consencusal approach, and German

machine efficiency. A European must understand these differences: for

example, a two-hour meeting in Germany in Italy can take all day, even

being called "two-hour meeting."

Meanwhile, "the GLOBE project 17300 Administered questionnaires in

sixty-two societies, and On That basis indentified ten clusters With

Different Cultural characteristics: Latin America, Anglo, Latin Europe,

Nordic Europe, Germanic Europe, Eastern Europe, Confunian Asia,

Southern Asia , Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle east. And Within

each of These clusters, national, regional, local, religious, organizational,

and other subcultures exist. Leaders face daunting challenges in

understanding national Differences in cultural context. "

5.3. Distribution of Power Resources

Another dimension that forms the contextual intelligence is the ability

to sense the distribution of power in a group. A leader is leading a

group of followers who already has a hierarchy. In this sense, we can

distinguish internal power (which comes from within the hierarchy

itself) and external power sources, which are those that come from an

alien hierarchy and generally restricted group behavior. Culture

influences the distribution of power in Arabic and Oriental cultures,

there is a strong legitimation of power, which subordinates remain as

subordinates of their own volition and are maintained as

subordinating subordinating. In other cultures the followers may

question much power structure, and rebel against the establishment.

Also good for a leader to understand their own power to handle it.

Sometimes a leader believed to have much more power than he has

(which generates disobeying orders), or having less than it actually has

(leadership inefficient).

5.4. Followers Needs and Demands

It is important to understand the demands and needs of the followers

so that they remain faithful to the leader. In turn, when the leader has

to make painful decisions and sacrificed they will not like his followers,

he should know that reasons can justify such decisions.

Vroom distinguishes the following five types of leadership in the

consideration of the followers is concerned:

-Leaders who make decisions alone.

-Leaders who decide after a public consultation (but which the leader

decides).

-Making in the context of a query.

-Facilitate decisions to others (for example, they give the options and

choose one leader)

-Leave-making in the hands of the followers.

These types are ordered according to the power that he gives to

followers. However, which one is best depends on the context. For

example: "In my own experience as an academic administrator, I had to

learn Which decisions (sometimes important tones over budget and

fund-raising) the faculty did not want me to bother them with, you and

which ones They insisted on having key gift input (faculty

appointments).

Sometimes fans ask autocratic leader decisions. If it reacts with

openness, may be seen as a sign of weakness. Conversely, sometimes

fans ask more active, and if it gives them can rebel against the leader

holds power.

Usually in routine and recurring situations the leader should make the

decision alone. In novel or complicated situations should consult their

followers. A very worthy tactic is that the leader is already determined

to choose a decision, but to make a query only to legitimize the

decision (which was going to make anyway).

6. Crisis and time urgency

"A Crisis is a turning point in an unstable situation, and it IMPLIES

Generally urgency in terms of time. But sometimes means an

importunate urgency Merely pressing problem or That Persists over long

periods, and people use the term "crisis" as a metaphor for long-drawn-

out challenge precesses That important values "When a crisis arises

slowly, leaders have more time to face and respond efficiently. We said

that sometimes leaders try to create a sense of crisis because it relaxes

the obstacles that restrict their power. If a leader, for example, wants

control over his group of followers, a good way is to create a feeling of

insecurity for these demand more security measures in a sense

diminishes freedom. "Creating a sense of crisis, is one of the ways That

leaders use to educate followers about the need for adaptive change".

The medium rare communication contribute time to relax a crisis

usually exaggerate. That is why so many times the leader need only

create the impression that there is a small crisis to be the media that

distribute the. We can differentiate between routine crisis and new

crises. A hurricane or California earthquake in Japan is a routine crisis.

The system and institutions are so standardized to fight it that quickly

solved. In these cases the importance of the leader is rather small:

"Studies of airlines flying pilots Because Routines That shows are so

standardized and technologically controlled, the performance of

cockpit crews is Little Affected by Differences in Normal captains

under circumstances."

In new crises, not being so standard modus operandi of the group

leader's influence is much greater. He is responsible for how the group

will act, and the consequences of their decisions are your

responsibility. Has also been shown that standardized routines can be

unproductive novel crisis. For example, "New York firefighters

heroically fought the fires in the Twin towers simply as an enlarged

version of a fire leaderboards. They missed the novelty of the

structural damage fairly high up that would lead to the collapse

Rapidly of the buildings. "

Leonard and Howitt notes that routine crisis, better leadership must

consist of a hierarchy that generalized models applicable to specific

situations. In the novel crisis is best a lateral and horizontal structure

in which several people involved in leadership to find creative and

efficient solution.

7. Information Flows

Cherner Barnard notes that each group has a formal system of informal

information or other information. For example, governments produce

thousands and thousands of documents, but often is more important

oral communication. Moreover, gossip makes up an important part of

the flow of information throughout company. Many times leaders can

know what fans want to hear from him controlling the information

channels. Franklin Roosevelt described himself as a "political juggling"

in the sense that it was able to manipulate the flow of information in

their favor. The more you one free, more chances to choose.

Sometimes it is more important to the quality of the information

quantity. In the battlefield commanders need little information (but

accurate) in the shortest time possible. New applications like Twitter

make it necessary to synthesize information and understand that

information synthesized. Similarly, it is important to know how the

followers understand what is communicated: thus may provide a much

less ambiguous and more effective message.

8. Good and Bad Leaders

In judging whether a leader is good or bad, we can do based on two

criteria:

-The influence of degree of influence that had the leader in his

followers.

-Ethics in the form of direct leader.

For the first criterion, Adolf Hitler was a good leader. For the second,

was disastrous. The Machiavellian Skills we mentioned above were

effective at the time of leading a group of followers, but to what extent

is it ethical that the end justifies the means?

H. Brunham leaders distinguishes three groups according to their

motivation:

a) Those who want to meet their goals.

b) Those who want to have good relations with the rest even at the

expense of not accomplish his goals.

c) Those who are more concerned with control followers.

The third group turns out to be the best leaders for the first criterion

but not the second. There is a psychological syndrome called

"Bathsheba syndrome", and that is that the leader feels no need to be

ethical when wields great power. This would explain how dictators like

Muammar Gaddafi, who at first defended values such as equality and

freedom, became authoritarian and oppressive.

Moreover, there is a public and a private moral leader: if you really

want to lead, must comply with the public, unless you want to change

it, a common dilemma for leaders is the phenomenon of dirty hands.

"To advance the interests of the group For Whom doing lot fiduciary

responsibility, leaders May Have to do Things They would not be

willing to do In Their private lives". An example:

Imagine you are an observer of the UN in Darfur and you've reached a

village where a commander has sent twenty people run. One of them

knows who killed a soldier, and that's going to amatar all. You go and

try to stop it naturally. Then the commander gives his gun and tells you

that if you kill one of the people, not kill the rest. What decision should

be made in this case: to kill one person, it would probably be innocent,

but save the rest, or let the cruel commander kill twenty people?

9. Relation Between Leaders and Followers

As a leader influences his followers, the followers influence their

leader. A leader becomes so because the followers decide to follow, so

that how to be a leader depends on the followers. It is for this reason

that in these cultures find themselves leading patterns. "But certainly

bad produces bad leaders help followers and constraint good ones".

The behavior of a leader depends largely on his followers. We can

make the following types of fans depending on their attitude to the

leader:

Low Loyalty High Loyalty

Independent thinking Alienated Empowered

Thinking Compliant Passive Conformist

By Compliant thinking we mean that fans will always think the same

think the leader, while independent thinking means that you simply

follow the leader because they want "One executive Told another:." If I

point my hand to the north and say "go", four thousand employees will

march obediently, even over the Cliff. The second executive Respond, "if I

were to point my arm to the northeast or northwest so we avoid going

over the cliff" ".

So in an empowered group of followers, tend to threaten to leave the

leader if it changes its decisions not only disagree, but also to take on

the right track. The aligned just drop the leader when this does not

answer your interests. Liabilities are always agree on the decisions of

the leader, but do little to help. The conformists are good followers, but

also did not help much the leader. Thus, the best fans you can have a

leader are empowered.

It's very different to want to have power over others who have shared

power with others. So a leader who shares power with his followers

will have far less chance of being wrong than one who does not.

Moreover, if you are wrong, its ruling will not be reprimanded by his

followers, as these helped in the decision.

The media make much use of these strategies in order to align

followers with their leaders, or confront them. Thus, a newspaper can

get voters to support a candidate showing that their errors were

actually a result of a common consensus. The sample mean is as

powerful tools for leadership.

Another use is the Model Two-Steps. It media messages are aimed at

the so-called opinion leaders. These are those who accept or reject

such messages and distributed by the population (by having

knowledge of the communication flows to a more interpersonal level).

Bibliography:

S. NYE Jr. Joseph (2008). The Powers to Lead. New York: Oxford

University Press.