Clarence Walton was the Dean of General Studies at Columbia University for a num
ID: 448390 • Letter: C
Question
Clarence Walton was the Dean of General Studies at Columbia University for a number of years, and then President of the Catholic College of America. He was also widely respected because he tended to express complex ideas in short but memorable terms. This characteristic is well illustrated from the following quotation taken from The Moral Manager, Ballenger Publishing Company, 1988, p. 4:
Leadership, an ill-defined word, comes from understanding and respecting four crucial ideas: equality, justice, truth, and freedom.
Do you agree with Professor Walton, or not, and why? If you don’t agree, what four “crucial ideas” would you substitute?
Explanation / Answer
No. Leadership is not all about equality, justice, truth, and freedom. There is something more fundamental and crucial factors in leadership
Leadership is a sociological in nature and not psychological phenomenon. Leadership is the function of a situation and not personal traits. Moreover it is the function of communication between the person and the situation.
Leadership is more of a leader and a follower and not just a follower. He believes the leadership is all about influencing the people in a group context. Leadership is the role of personal attributes, influencing people, form of persuasion, power relation, etc.
According to Hollander and Julian (1969), the features of Leadership are as follows
1. A social influence relationship
2. Communicator between two or more people dependent upon the situation to attainment of certain mutual goals, bound together within a group situation.
3. Leadership is built over time and is a dynamic in nature
4. It involves an exchange between leader and follower providing direction for goal attainment.