Paper Example on Leadership: Strategies for Successful People Management

Introduction

The leadership of people is a much demanding process that requires great preparedness of the leaders in they are to stand out and turn out as effective leaders. Many leaders fail in their leadership mainly because they don't employ the strategies that will help them carry out the leadership in a way that will be effective on the people they lead. To become an effective leader, one requires great combination and skill in handling the people and, most importantly, in solving the arising problems. One of the most successful leaders who made a good world record in leadership is Oprah Winfrey. Various ways made her successful in leading the people. This paper, therefore, aims at analyzing the various things or factors that made Oprah Winfrey a successful and outstanding leader throughout all her leadership period. Moreover, the ways that she addressed diversity, productivity, and the strategies she used to embody effective leadership are analyzed in the paper.

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The Various Leadership Strategies Oprah Used

There are various secrets that most people don't know about the leadership of Oprah Winfrey, and so many have not yet been able to understand how she managed to emerge such a successful leader. The unique thing with Oprah is that she purposed to become a leader of her kind through the strategies that she made use of in her leadership. The leadership style that she employed made her a great leader in America as she is known. Oprah Winfrey was a show host, a proprietor in the American media, a producer, an actress, a philanthropist as well as a well-known businesswoman (Winfrey, 2016). She had so many titles she could be described with, and all of these titles came from the duties and responsibilities she was attached to and the way she was able to perform her duties impressively. She has always been categorized and recognized as one of the influential and successful women all around the globe. From her leadership, she was able to bring change and influence the people in so many positive ways, and she was inspired people through her outstanding ability in leadership.

Thus, from her traits, Oprah Winfred became a great leader with many achievements and was all times different from the other leaders in entire America and the world generally. According to research that was conducted about the unique leadership of Oprah, it was found out that she was always making use of the leadership philosophy, which gave priority to the people, values, and visions that she had. Oprah Winfrey impacted so many people, and very many current time leaders have emulated her manner of leadership so that they can try and achieve as much as she did throughout her leadership (Butts, 2018). Many leadership strategies helped Oprah Winfrey to perform well in her leadership throughout all the years that she was involved in leadership;

Characteristics, Weaknesses, and Strengths Oprah Was Equipped With

The leadership journey of Oprah Winfrey relied on all the strengths, weaknesses, and also characteristics that she had been equipped with. Some of the main characteristics that clearly explain the success of this woman in leadership are that; she was always open to the new experiences she would come across; thus, she was able to play her duties and roles in the best way possible. In the first place, she was able to take every experience in her leadership and try to make the best out of it no matter how challenging the situation was. In this regard, therefore, Oprah succeeded in achieving positive results even in the negative and hard experiences she came across. Even up to the present day, Oprah is conscientious in all the things that she chooses to do and tries as much as she can to be fair to all the people in different areas of life. Caring about other people is another character that Oprah proudly possesses; thus, she has managed to create so many charitable organizations to exercise charity among all the people and advocate for it. The charitable organizations started by Oprah made her get the presidential freedom medal, which is the top civil honor throughout America. She remains energetic, has an adorable personality; she encourages all people that interact with her; she remains positive. She has all her attention directed on the people around her, and all she strives for is to make sure that she is aware of her people around her. With all the characteristics, Oprah Winfrey has been an exemplary transformational leader throughout her time in the field because she leads and rules others by using inspiration, which leaves them changed and impacted positively.

Charisma and Transformational Leadership of Oprah Winfrey

Oprah is a charismatic and transformational leader with the confidence to inspire the other people that she leads and impact positive changes in them in various ways. The inspirational motivation of Oprah has been an important tool in her leadership because it has enabled her to inspire all the people she leads by motivating them and showing them the need to have high expectations at all times (Martin et al., 2018). In addition, Oprah has got an individualized consideration, which makes her listen to the concerns of other people carefully, thus making her followers love her leadership. All people want to have a leader who pays attention to their concerns and problems then put forth measures to address those concerns within the shortest time, and Oprah has been such a leader. She has not been associated with neglecting the issues of other people, whether they appear major or minor.

The most important thing to Oprah as a leader is to make sure that everything concerning the people she leads is in order. As a result of this, she stands out among the many leaders in the whole America since she seems to possess the consideration that has not been seen in the other leaders throughout the time, especially women. The idealized influence of Oprah makes her a good leader for the people because she attracts them and inspires them to admire her in so many ways. Through this idealized influence, Oprah has managed to change the perceptions and lives of so many people in different ways (Winfrey, 2016). In other words, her leadership has helped in making the people of America become better citizens over time by emulating this exemplary leader in all the aspects. Finally, adding on the characteristics of transformational leadership that have been shown by Oprah, she has the value of intellectual stimulation in that she can encourage her followers about innovation and creativity. Having this value makes her able to change many people under her to see possibilities in situations they thought that nothing good would come out of them.

Leadership Strategies of Oprah

The leadership of Oprah Winfrey combines a couple of strategies that help her be the kind of a leader that she is. The performance she has been able to display in leadership for all the years she has been in leadership proves the workability of these strategies and shows how organized the leader is to make sure that she does a great job as far as leading the people is concerned (Butts, 2018). The first and main strategy that has been utilized by Oprah Winfrey is the strategic selection of members who are to be involved in her team of leadership and other such affairs. Most of the time, she makes sure that the people she puts in her leadership teams have the talents that are required to help them perform their best in those teams so that her leadership will not be affected negatively. Oprah does this when hiring team members and only considers working with the people who have the capabilities and the ones she believes in.

For example, considering Liz Dolan, Suze Orman, and Dr. Oz, who are a few of the people who work closely with Oprah Winfrey, it is clear that they all have certain kinds of skills, experience, talents. Thus Oprah is sure that having such people in her team will lead to positive results in her leadership at all times. The importance of having such people is helping to boost Oprah's brand and giving a lot of exposure, which is vital in her leadership (Fry, 2017). Considering the fact that most of the team members that Oprah offers to work with are the most powerful and successful women in the globe, she has an advantage from this because she receives a wide range of opinions from these members which keeps her informed and prepared to handle all the situations that she faces in her leadership. She gets ideas and advice from these powerful women, and combining this with her talent and experience; she ends up being a unique leader in America.

The second strategy of leadership that is used by Oprah is that she puts a lot of value in excellent and impactful mentorship. She depends on several mentors who give her advice on the way that she should carry out her duties in leadership. For example Oprah says that Jeff Jacobs had a lot of contribution in her success as a mentor. In addition, she has established mentorship relationships with different experts in various industries. Therefore, she has got a source of inspiration and mentorship which gives her the motivation to carry out her roles and duties with confidence because she has role models and advisors who have succeeded in what she is doing. Through this, Oprah proves that as a leader, she has to make use of other inspirational people who are above her so that she gathers what is important and applies this in her own leadership (Egel, 2017). Over the years she has made good use of this strategy and it has made her a loveable and admirable leader among the American people since she is always guided by her mentors in all that she wants to do. Consulting is the first thing that Oprah Winfrey does before making decisions about certain aspects in her leadership and for this reason she has had a better performance of her duties over and over again. She believes that she needs help from other people as far as her leadership is concerned because no one can do all things on herself or himself. This strategy of consulting always makes Oprah make informed decisions which are well thought and prevents negative results from occurring in her leadership.

Valuing Customers and Other People

According to Oprah Winfrey, the people that she leads and her customers in business come first before anyone else and thus she places a high value on them. In terms of business, the clients are the ones who bring profits to the business and there will be no business or a company without the clients (Martin et al., 2018). Therefore there is always need to have the customers or rather clients treated well with respect and their concerns worked on to make sure that they are satisfied. Due to this, the clients and excellent service delivery to the customers is given the first priority in the business world according to what Oprah knows and follows.

There are other things that Oprah Winfrey does apart from valuing the customers and this is that she extents to give them some generous gifts more so in holidays and other times when there are no occasions. Listening to customers and her viewers and accommodating their concerns is another things that Oprah is focused to do. So many viewers and studio audience who have known Oprah have always admired her because of the admirable things that she does for them and this makes others wish that they could become studio audience for Oprah. This concern for the studio audience and in other business areas by Oprah Winfrey has been extended to her leadership and she always ensures that she listens to the people around her and then addresses their concerns to the best of her ability (Klenke, 2017). The desire and interest of any person is to get a leader who shows them concern and is always ready to liste...