Psychology

There is no doubt that leadership qualities are mostly inborn rather than learned where as, management qualities are learned. We have read about many leaders who  through their immense leadership qualities  emerged as a source of change or revolution in their times. Some great leaders of the past include Napoleon, Gandhi, and Quaid-e-Azam, who at their times brought about significant changes in their circumstances, led the people or followers, and influenced them in such a way that their actions became inline with the desired purpose. Of course, the role of time and place played a significant role in their leading and influencing the people.

In this paper, we would talk about a great iconic personality who  with some vision, hope, and rigidness  changed the course of his life and emerged from nowhere as a leader and a great influencer, who is acknowledged as a great cyclist and leader. And that great personality is of Lance Armstrong, who was at the peak of his success and achievement when he was just 25 during the period of 1995. Then he had testicular cancer which is the most common cancer in men who age from 15 to 35 years (Rodriguez, 2002). Though he got late in diagnosing the disease due to which he had little chances to live nevertheless, he kept his spirits on and affirmed himself as a cancer survivor, not a cancer victim.

As far as the influences of heredity and environment are concerned over Armstrongs life and his psychological development, both played equal role. The area that was most influenced in his psychological development was the moral part. Since the leadership qualities and sheer determination to achieve something was inborn in him, hence his morality and dignity was even more influenced and developed. Heredity also played a great role in his psychological development, building up his morality, determination, leadership qualities, and the sheer quality of not giving up because the qualities were inborn.

Answer  2 - He was a great cyclist before, he never thought of founding such an organization that would be very fruitful for the cancer patients. After his successful treatment, he decided to come back in action (cycling) with full confidence and hope, and therefore won three consecutive Tour de France titles. What made him hopeful and confident, was the crucial time and situation when he became a cancer patient. He never gave in and decisively kept on believing more in God, hope, and optimism. He  by his courage, bravery, and hopefulness  motivated and influenced many people including his cycling competitors, who gained the lesson of not to give up and continue on with the hard work and full concentration.

He believed in God, surgery, and doctors, and was hopeful that one he would be fine and would return to compete and win more cycling titles, and thats what he did. Before having a complete and successful surgery, he founded Lance Armstrong Foundation with a vision that he had in his mind and that vision most probably was the result of the time and circumstances that he was facing.

He used to communicate to others and always asked others to be hopeful, brave, and optimistic in addition, he used to model that vision and advice so that others get inspired from him and strive for the same strategy or vision. By forming the organization, he really changed the patients mentality, the way of thinking, and filled them with the hope to be cured and all right in the future. Therefore, we can say that there were the social support systems that played somewhat role in shaping the developmental growth and adjustment of Armstrong.

Answer  3  two different theories of personality are Type a personality, and Type B personality. People who possess type a personality normally possess the following qualities and traits. First, high sense of time urgency impatience. They normally get frustrated and are very conscious of time that whether it is being utilized properly or not. Secondly, these people are aggressive in nature and become hostile and rude at times. In other words, they are competitive possess strong need for achievement and certain traits that result from stress.

Type B personality people are a bit relaxed and calm by nature and have low sense of urgency for time. They can sit without doing anything with any guilt or shame whatsoever. Third, they have the tendency to prolong or delay their work that they have to perform in a given amount of time and they dont get stressed out easily.

Applying these theories over Lance Armstrong would not be an easier task. It is because he possesses the mixture of both types of personality traits. From type a personality, he is competitive, has high need for achievement whereas from type B personality traits, he is calm, cool, determined, and dont get stressed out or demotivated easily.

Answer  4  As far as other leadership theories are concerned, leadership perspective that can be applied to him is the Charismatic leadership that is having interpersonal attraction, whereby followers develop a respect for, and trust in, the charismatic individual (McShane and Travaglione, 2003). His cycling competitors learned a lot from him and tried to adapt to his leadership, constant improvement skills, and his personal traits. Some of his skills include, the nurturing of his nature, improving the way of performing tasks, and overcoming the weaknesses second, focus similar to a laser and keeping the vision or aim in mind abreast third, commemorating the individual or a team on success and fourth, maintaining of lucid and elastic roles without any ambiguity or confusion (Jensen, 2005).

Lance Armstrong possessed many leadership and achievement related skills, capabilities, attitude, motivation, abilities, and values. Or in other words, he had all vibrant qualities that a competent leader possesses  qualities that come under the leadership contingency. First, he owned the quality of Drive, which is the inner motivation to pursue goals. As we discussed earlier, he never thought of giving up even when he was entangled by testicular cancer in fact, he became more eager, willing, and excited to compete and win the titles after the recovery. Second, he had self-confidence in himself, and was quite determined and focused to put great effort towards his objectives (Cordair, 2004) he kept himself focused and on the path to success and always worked hard and differently from others.

Another theory that shows this need for achievement is Maslows hierarchy of needs. This theory consists of five stages psychological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Armstrongs need for self-actualization seemed to be pretty high as compared to other needs the need to prosper, flourishes, and achieve. His aim was to be the best among the other cyclists, win more titles, and even to support other team members to win (Jensen, 2005). The act of supporting and helping out his partners and competitors is one of the key leadership qualities that must be there in order to reconcile the differences among people with himself and to guide and lead others in the way we want and what others think is suitable for them.

After all the discussion, we come to know that whether the person is short in size, weight, or have any other flaw, he or she can become an outstanding leader by appropriately using the skills and abilities, learning from the time, place, and situation, and creating vision, communicating it, and modeling it then. Lance Armstrong was just a cyclist, but due to his immense hard work, focus, determinacy, courage, optimism, hopefulness, and the firm belief in success and achievement, he became the best cyclist of his time. Later, he also managed to fight with the disease that was severe and spread to his brain too. He continued the hope to be cured, and even he opened his own organization, along with the development of thoughts regarding to the future cycling career.