Leadership: Action & Purpose

By: Brent Stackhouse, MBA

The Stackhouse Agency, LLC

www.StackhouseAgency.com

August 22, 2015

Content

--Leadership, Choice, Action, Project Management, Purpose

A thoughtful consideration of Leadership provides a tableau of the influence and direction of particular or general arrangements of stimuli. Purpose is a distinguishable characteristic within the arc of manifestations of leadership. Organizations utilize various dimensions of leadership styles. Culture is one of the major areas related with various types of leaders. Distinguishing or contrasting leadership styles may benefit the inquirer through goal establishment, success measurement, and by providing a context for interaction and understanding impetus.

Praxeology is “the study of human conduct.”[1] Analytics allow huge dimensions of desires, actions, and results to be elucidated or illuminated. Complex structures can be understood in a clear way. Human Action by Mises discusses praxeology. “For praxeology data are the bodily and psychological features of the acting men, their desires and value judgments, and the theories, doctrines, and ideologies they develop in order to adjust themselves purposively to the conditions of their environment and thus to attain the ends they are aiming at….”[2]

Generally (speaking), leaders act purposefully. To understand action and choice, methods such as project management or data analysis may be utilized. A leader takes action. A leader makes decisions. A leader understands the context of self and what takes place within a given department, organization, market, or region. A leader also takes action with purpose. A leader influences.

“It is true, praxeology and economics do not tell a man whether he should preserve or abandon life….The subject matter of praxeology is merely the essential manifestation of human life, viz., action,”[3] as signified in Human Action.

There are various dimensions of leadership styles.

In The Lives of a Cell, author Lewis Thomas wrote, “If you could label…all the bits of human thought that are constantly adrift, like plankton, all around us, it might be possible to discern some sort of systematic order in the process….” (142-143)[4] He expounded, “[W]e have seen the assembly of particles of exchanged thought into today’s structures of art and science. It is done by simply passing the bits around from mind to mind, until something like natural selection makes the final selection, all on grounds of fitness.” (144)[5]

We live in a complex world. Theoretically, en masse, we have many choices. Leadership is about taking action with purpose.

Representation of specific organizations is not implied.

Written by: Brent Stackhouse, MBA, Consultancy Firm Manager - The Stackhouse Agency, LLC - www.StackhouseAgency.com August 22, 2015.

[1] The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary. S.v. "praxeology." Retrieved August 22 2015 from

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/praxeology.

[2] Ludwig von Mises, “The Data of the Market,” in Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, The

Scholar’s Edition, Ludwig von Mises, narrated by Jeff Riggenbach (Ludwig von Mises

Institute, 2010).

[3] Ludwig von Mises, “Economics and the Essential Problems of Human Existence,” in Human

Action: A Treatise on Economics, The Scholar’s Edition, Ludwig von Mises, narrated by Jeff

Riggenbach (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010).

[4] Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell (New York: Penguin, 1978), 142-144.

[5] Ibid.