Introduction
Who holds good leadership style is a major subject of debate to many people. While many people tend to think that a person is born with leadership qualities, others believe that leadership skills are learned, acquired and nurtured during a person development. However, despite the form in which leadership is developed, there is a clear distinctiveness which good leaders are endowed with. Thus, leadership can be termed to incorporate intangible elements such as trust, inspiration, personal character and attitude among others.
Some of the precise core positive leadership attributes include; self-awareness, self-regulation, emotional intelligence, empathy skills, social skills and motivational skills. Positive leadership skills refer to the behavior and attitude that allows one to achieve his or her set goals and on the other hand, positively motivating the followers. This paper seeks to examine the leadership skills of Rolf Stahel, who was once the Chief executive officer of Shire Pharmaceutical plc Company from 1994 to 2003.
Rolf Stahel back ground information
Shire is an international specialty pharmaceutical company with a special interest in innovative therapies. It majors in selling and marketing of medical products such as calcic hew and a wide range of calcium supplements. Until 1994, the company could barely make a sale of over three million dollars. It is in the same year that Rolf Stahel took reign as the chief executive officer (Innovaro, 2012). Rolf is one of the most respected and successful leaders in the European bio-technological industry. He served the company for over seven years in the capacity of a CEO. Rolf in one of the interviews described Shire Company at the time he took reign as one of the privately owned loss making company with only seventy employees that had only majored in marketing and development for the United Kingdom and the Irish(Innovaro, 2012).
Positive leadership attributes as portrayed by Rolf Stahel
It is under his leadership that Rolf transformed Shire at an early stage from a private company to a multi-billion global company with over six mergers and over one thousand eight hundred employees. He was able to do this because of his exemplary leadership skills. He was confident and diligent in what he did. He portrayed his social and motivational skill in his work premise and was enthusiastic about his job. During his tenure, he displayed good communication and analytical ability. He is described as to having a track record of outstanding creativity and solid leadership attributes.
Self-awareness is an attribute that allows one to understand not only his or her own emotions, but also the impact they can have on work performance and general relationship with coworkers. On the other hand, self-regulation is the ability to control emotions that are counterproductive to the achievement of set goals. An empathetic skill entails the ability to understand an individual from his or her point of view concerning a particular concept whereas social skills can also be termed as effective networking kills in a work premise.
Rolf as a leader exhibited these qualities in his work place. He portrayed exemplary characteristics and was able to socialize with fellow colleagues.
He was confident, upheld the integrity in his dealings, and was enthusiastic. A pessimistic leader is liberal of doubt and embraces composure besides being steadfast in situations that are beyond his/her control. He needs to be committed to excellence and should possess an outstanding analytical ability. It is no question that Rolf had this attributes (Innovaro, 2012). He was a source of inspiration just a principled leader ought to be.
Negative leadership attributes as portrayed by Rolf
Despite having all the outstanding qualities mentioned above, Rolf was accused of recruiting members of the board who were not competent and hence the company was run with an unstable management team which led to lack of confidence in the team by the employees. He is said to have divided and ruled the company on geographical and political lines. Was it not for this negative leadership attributes; he would have taken the company to a far much higher level. This led to his stepping down from his position. (PRNewswire, 2012)
Negative leadership attributes may be classified into two broad categories; Autocratic and coercive leadership respectively. Autocratic leaders are characterized by the saying “do as I say” they do not believe in consultative leadership and make a decision all by themselves whereas Coercive leaders demand an immediate compliance by use of threats to input pressure to coworkers. Such types of leadership have a negative effect to the working environment. Rolf as a leader failed to provide adequate support by allowing the dishing out of orders, rules, policies and targets to force employees work as per the management expectation. He as well was unable to accept criticism in a positive manner.
I commend Rolf for his positive leadership attributes which led to an increase in productivity in Shire Company, I, however, would recommend that he becomes a team player and be able to work with others. He should hire competent staff for a better management and learn to positively accept criticism.
Conclusion
In conclusion, all leaders may lead in either a positive direction or a negative direction with a full spectrum existing from exceptionally detrimental to exceptionally good. Rolf’s no exception; he can choose to change his negative skills just as any leader ought to.
References List
Innovaro. (2012). INTERVIEW – Rolf Stahel, Chief Executive of Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc. Web.
PRNewswire. (2012). Shire Board Appoints New Chief Executive. Web.