TPC-Journal-V2-Issue3

The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 3 229 It is important to note that most of these attributions of leadership emerge from the perspective of the leader. However, in making a new judgment on what can be considered to be leadership, it is necessary to understand that it also involves people who are non-leaders—that is, those who are led. A leader is not leader if he does not have the led; this means that leaders and the led are interdependent (Barreto, 2009. The term led is preferred, instead of followers or subordinates , since led serves the intent to increase participation, autonomy, achievement, equality, responsibility and fairness, whereas the other terms imply fascination, oppression, disability, domination, submission and inferiority. In this sense, and according to Barreto (2009), Freire (2005), Heider (2004) and Ingenieros (2002), the led are at the other end of leadership; they complement the leader, and articulate and execute transformation and re-engineering. While the leader can serve as a guide and helmsman, the led have the force of the propeller. The led are the reason for the leader. Therefore, leadership is an interaction between the leader and the led, conditioned by the skills, qualities, processes, abilities, characteristics and interests of both parties; where reciprocal influences exist, leaders seek to open and develop the processes of growth and improvement for themselves based on a clear vision and concrete objectives. As noted by Barreto (2009), each person is a source of energy; adding together all the energies present in a group (family, society, organizations, and work teams) will produce a whole set of emotions, abilities, talents, skills, potentialities, wishes, psyches, bodies, souls and spirits that must be inexorably well-managed to ensure maximum well-being. Consequently, one should consider leadership as an interaction of human energy that wishes to be developed and prosper. Human energy is the intelligent and rational force that promotes the transformations and re-engineering. Not only is it a physical energy, it is also a mental, emotional and spiritual energy. Before this redefinition of leadership as an interaction of human energy with the intention to prosper and to perfect, and thanks to the principles assumed in counseling, the leader must be construed as a Manager (M), Educator (E) and Motivator (M) able to manage knowledge, clarify objectives, establish effective communications, evaluate various scenarios and risks, make decisions, and manage changes (Barreto, 2009). The MEM Leader: Manager, Educator and Motivator First, it is imperative to clarify that the leader is neither the head nor the patron, nor is the leader necessarily one that is being followed by a group or somebody who holds a managerial or executive position. Leadership is arguably more than that. A leader is a stimulator, guide and protector of human energy (Barreto, 2009). Ontologically, the leader is a person with an unquestionable ecological sense of the human being, and perhaps for that reason the leader is somebody who revives and renews the concepts of “hope” and “prosperity” that are necessary for the human being to transform with enthusiasm and willingness. For that reason, each leader must be somebody with a set of characteristics, skills, abilities, qualities and talents that allow the leader to initiate and pursue the complex network of processes that comprise the interaction of human energy. For Barreto (2009, 2010), a leader does not have to be a dichotomous person, nor is a leader simple product of a juxtaposition of characteristics, skills or behaviors. The leader is a triune: a holistic combination of a manager, an educator and a motivator. A manager has the distinction of converging action toward an objective where energies are put in active tension to obtain an expected end. A manager-leader is responsible for the achievement of goals and objectives