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Doctor Beninato's Leadership Styles

Decent Essays

“While a manager relishes his position at the head of the group, leaders often stand within and behind their followers, acting as a critical crutch to propel everyone towards greater good” (Beninato, 2016). Despite the stark contrast between Doctor Beninato’s corporate realm of dental firm management, and the educational realm which Doctor Theodore Burk, a biology professor at Creighton University resides within, the values of leadership expressed in Doctor Beninato’s wisdom mesh closely with those held by the biology professor. Amongst the numerous parallels in both men’s leadership styles and beliefs, however, a disconnect is apparent in the manner through which both leaders interact with and handle follower’s failures, providing evidence …show more content…

This is significant to note, and most likely explains Doctor Beninato’s approach to follower failure at Premier Dental. Unlike Doctor Burk, who often is faced with “the difficult task of telling individuals they are not cut out for the career path which they have had their heart set on for most of their life” (Burk, 2016), Beninato is often able to dance around this direct assessment of failure as he “tries to shift the follower’s failure into a you, not me break-up scenario” (2016). However, in Doctor Burk’s educational realm, as noted in the his previous quote, while unfortunate, often educational leaders are faced with delivering harsh and life altering news in times of follower failure. Addressing “individuals who simply won’t succeed at what they have set their heart on” (Burk, 2016), Doctor Burk becomes strapped with the enormous, unavoidable burden of communicating significant follower failures directly. Refrainment from close interpersonal relationships, is one method to reduce the doctor’s burden, as personal experience tells us that delivering harsh news to an individual is far easier when you do not share an important interpersonal relationship with them. It is perhaps not surprising then, that interpersonal aspect of leadership so present in Doctor Beninato, is conversely mostly absent in Doctor Burk. As the dichotomy of the significance of follower failure extends beyond just these two individual’s followers, though, it would hardly be shocking to see this incongruity reflected between all leaders within the corporate and educational realms

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