HUMANBE

Reaction Paper
Darwyn Albert T. Mendoza C33 Prof. John Andrew C. See February 19, 2013
Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection
The nature of business leadership is both a complex and compelling phenomenon.
Many discussions of leadership confuse personality, important objectives, formal
position and specific behaviors with acts of leadership. It may involve certain
characteristics, but leadership is not confined to these characteristics; rather, its all
about influencing others in a substantial way. True leadership in business is a subtle
quality, and thus we often confuse management duties with personal style with
leadership. Management and leadership are related, but they are not the same. You
can be a manager or a leader; you can also be both or neither. The biggest difference
between managers and leaders lies in the way they motivate others. When executing
plans as a manager, you focus on supervising results, comparing them with goals and
correcting deviations. In contrast, as a leader you focus on energizing people to
overcome hurdles in reaching goals. Effective leaders hunt pressing issues such as
influence, power, dependence, and policies for change.
This 32-pages volume is designed as a vade-mecum, for business leaders trying to
integrate their faith with their work, as well as for professors in formative moments in
schools and universities. In the article, I thought of it that when businesses and market
economies function properly and focus on serving the common good, they contribute
greatly to the material and even the spiritual well-being of society. Recent experience,
however, has also demonstrated the harm caused by the failings of businesses and
markets. The transformative developments of our eraglobalisation, communications
technologies, and financialisationproduce problems alongside their benefits:
inequality, economic dislocation, information overload, financial instability and many
other pressures leading away from serving the common good. Business leaders who
are guided by ethical social principles, lived through virtues and illuminated for
Christians by the Gospel, can, nonetheless, succeed and contribute to the common
good.
In the article, Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection, I had learned many
strategic leadership skills. I think for me, its a well worth reading article. One of my
favorite parts of the article is its warning against leading a divided life, and exhortation
to servant leadership. Being a leader doesnt mean that you can do all the things you
want. There are things that are meant to happen in the right place and in the right time.
If you would show a good example to your followers, they would consider you as a great
leader with compassion and intelligence, that which results to good distinction to the
followers and the leader.