For my 11th DEJ post, I chose to look at the article from Emerald Insight; It’s how leaders behave that matters, not where they are from by Barry Posner. This article discusses the depth of leadership and how many leaders or individuals working to become leaders often believe there is a need to adapt to your leadership environment to become an effective leader. The article, however, shares that it is truly the leaders ethical behaviors and values that determine their leadership effectiveness. A quote from IBM leader, Caroline Wang, shares her experience working in various companies internationally; “when it comes to leadership it is not about the leader’s personality, it is all about how that individual behaves as a leader”. This statement truly encompasses much of what we have learned in this course. It is clear from Wang’s international experiences that she gained much perspective from her various roles internationally and realized that to be an effective and ethical leader she had to focus on her ethical values and behaviors from within rather than putting her focus into adapting to her environment/country she was leading in. This is similar to my experiences studying abroad. I interact with various leaders, many of which were in a classroom/educational setting. These professors and leaders who I interacted with had strong ethical values which made them effective leaders in their environments to diverse groups of students. As someone who hopes to work internationally at some point in my career, the advice from the article and Wang gives me guidance in hopefully developing strong ethical leadership qualities one day.

It’s how leaders behave that matters, not where they are from

Leadership & Organization Development Journal- Emerald Insight
It’s how leaders behave that matters, not where they are from
Barry Z. Posner