Personal Leadership Development Strategy - Research Paper Example

? Leadership Personality Development Introduction The idea behind leadership development as an individual capa developmentstrategy is anchored from the need to promote an individual’s capacity to make and drive decisions, to take actions and steps that are necessary in further pursuit for the human individual or collective human goals. Thus the ultimate objectives and desires of leadership development should include inclusive participatory human governance, improved service delivery and effectiveness and a feeling of value addition within an individual as a valued asset within an organizational or societal context all levels. The vision of leadership therefore places more attention on the relationship between an individual leader and the groups, while at the same time placing more emphasis on collective development. In these contexts, leadership’s relationship to capacity development is often viewed in three levels: individual, organizational and societal. Of these three main levels, societal leadership development often offers the most sustainable change, but also the most difficult to reach, monitor and by an extension evaluate. This paper analyzes personal leadership development, my current leadership state, weaknesses and strengths and it will take to reach an ideal leadership state. Success does not come on a silver platter. It only comes when you are able to face your challenges obstacles which are associated with being a leader. This process entails having adequate information of your strengths and the weaknesses that are inherent within you. Listed are my weaknesses which have contributed or hindered my personal leadership growth, skills which I intend to enhance my course at the end of my studies; Being compassionate Hardworking Sociable Action oriented and practical High level of integrity Forgiving Having a high level of personal and social intelligence. Leadership Reviewed When looked from an organizational perspective, leadership is the ability of guiding a group of individuals that are in the organization, and thus involves creating and instituting a very clear vision and outline for an organization (Grohmann & Kauffeld, 2013). In this context, sharing a vision with other people or employees in the company aims at creating a unified platform so that fellow organizational employees can follow the company’s objectives without any compromise, and offering information, and other parameters and methods that are required for the accomplishment of the company’s vision. Additionally, leadership involves the process of organizing and coordinating various program actions and activities, and other inherent conflicting positions that may derail workers and organizational stakeholders from achieving the desired organizational levels. On the other hand, leadership management involves the process of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and control both human and non-human resources in an organization so as to achieve the required organizational levels. Management of people in the organization therefore is the art of planning, organizing and coordinating people and resources in the organization without compromising organizational goals and resources (John, 2002). When examined exclusively, management bears certain characteristics that define organizational efficiency and effectiveness: it involves a continuous process that is often in motion; the leader has to undertake certain functions and responsibilities in an ongoing process and allocating resources to ensure that organizational objectives are met without compromising the objectives of individual employees in the organization. The modern concept of organizational management views management and leadership as synonymous. In this understanding Neirott & Paolucci (2013) contend that leadership is a result driven process that is multidisciplinary in nature; it is a process that embraces focus in achieving the intended organizational goals and results through working with and by people that have diverse personality traits and varied individual interests. Management and leadership process in an organization thus involves managing people rather than managing individuals, and thus leadership process is situational in nature. Being situational therefore implies that involves activities that are able to adapt to different settings. This further re-affirms how management is dynamic in nature, as it is able to adapt to various situations using professional approach, thus enabling organizational results to be accomplished through people. Again there is a general consensus that leadership process should be persuasive, and cannot be seen and touched by everyone, and it is thus an individual undertaking (Ellen, 2010). While researching on leadership, Mitchell Grant Rothstein (2010) argues that leadership goes in hand with achieving organizational goals. It should therefore be in agreement with the various aspects of the surrounding organizational environment, and should be designed so that it is responsive to organization’s changing environment. In its pursuit for service delivery, leadership provides that organizational activities are undertaken without disruption. It also ensures that organizations are in a position to adjust to the dynamics of changing business environment without seamlessly affecting the direction of the organization. In order for leaders to be able to effectively manage their organizations, then leaders must go through a leadership development program (Rothstein, 2010). Thus leadership management is understood as a process of enhancing and harnessing leadership skills among people in any organization so as to increase efficiency and quality of leadership within the organization and at an individual level. This idea revolves around tutoring leadership skills in an individual. These skills widely encompass; ability to motivate fellow workers in the organization, managing and coordinating people to achieve organizational goals and encouraging more people to take up leadership positions in the organizations. Various organizations adopt leadership development programs because of their ability to enhance and expand capability and ability of people to undertake their leadership responsibilities within the organization. The roles that leaders undertake in the organization are those that shape the direction of the company, through providing alignment, winning the mindshare and up scaling the abilities of the people to meet organizational goals. The leadership development programs thus provide future leaders with both formal and informal responsibilities that they can play in order to enhance the leadership level of the company. In the formal perspective, these are the roles that are in harmony with an individual’s decision making abilities and to take responsibility arising from those decisions thus promoting the organizational welfare. On the other side, informal roles entail those roles that one undertakes in his capacity as a person and in their official capacity as leaders. The person must therefore negotiate and listen through influence and motivation in every angle and capacity of their life. Literature Reviewed: Transactional Leadership style Leader is someone with the abilities to influence other persons and the leadership is therefore what the leader does in order to influence the organizational members to achieve some designated organizational goal. Leadership as such is therefore one of the core functions of management which call that every organizational manager must be a leader (Robbins & Coulter, 2009). Performance of the activities of a leader thus requires that being a leader involves making decisions at every step of the organization’s lifecycle so as to gain the confident of employees, one of the characteristics of being an effective leader (Tatum et al., 2003). As far as leadership is concerned, contemporary theories of leadership outline varied approaches to leadership and include; (i) transactional; (ii) charismatic; (iii) team leadership; and, (iv) transformational leadership styles (Robbins & Coutler, 2008). These approaches characterize leadership in terms of behaviors and style that is inherent of a leader (Robbins & Coutler, 2009). At the same time, Vroom (2008) argues that as there are different approaches to leadership, it also implies that these leaders also have different decision making characteristics that can be predicted based on their leadership styles. However, many research theories generally contend that transformational leadership style has a positive impact in influencing employee performance and behavior and as such is often considered the ideal leadership style desired for an individual. Similarly, an ideal leadership style is one that takes into consideration the relationship between leadership behavior and decision making within an organization. As such a leader, an individual desired model recognizes the behavior and participation of employees in decision making. Transformational leadership style is a style in which a leader invokes up group awareness and the interest of people, boosting their confidence and makes an effort to get the concentration of his members towards the achievement and realization of organizational goals (Bass & Avolio, 2000). Additionally, transformational leaders struggle to create a vision from their subordinates and are charismatic, giving their followers an inspiration to seek questions on the status quo and promote creativity. More often than not, transformational leaders are role models to their followers and always admired, command respect from members and are trusted by their followers. As such Bass and Avilio (2000) also concurs that transformational leadership is composed of five main components such as (a) an idealized influence which entails communicating and inculcating a sense of vision and mission on the organizational members. Members are then able to display confidence on the leader and value him or her for their roles. (b) An ideal behavior and influence on the members- here the leader’s acts as the main role model, displays impeccable leadership and his followers display obedience and act in line with the instructions provided. (c) Motivational skills – in this aspect, the leader is able to communicate inspirational futuristic vision and goal of the organization, clarifies ambiguities and obstructions and exploits referent power in order to persuade organizational members in achieving organizational tasks. (d) Simulation – an ideal leader will aim to support creativity and encourage participatory efforts in problem solving and constantly urging members to adapt to new ways, giving confidence in the followers and adopts a rational reasoning and suggestions. (e) Personalized consideration – a leader will show empathy among his followers by showing considerations in their individual needs, offering care and individualized attention and constantly empowering members to face challenges with dignity. Furthermore, Kedia and Nordtvedt (2002) suggest that there exists a direct relationship between decision making styles and leadership attributes. In effect, transformational applies more comprehensive and participatory approach in decision making. Other related research studies have also established that transformational leaders are more rational thinkers (Tambe & Krishna, 2000) and do not negate decisions (Steplen & Roberts, 2004). Spice and Sadler (2005) thus concludes that transformational leaders make decisions without much haste and are more effective in their decision making roles. Generally transformational leadership is often considered more effective when compared to transactional leadership. There are more intelligent and committed towards the affairs of the organization. They are also associated with high degree of success rate and use positive approaches in enhancing participation of their followers with a high level of trust and maintain a high degree of cooperation and interpersonal interactions between them and their followers (Abraham; George, 2000). Methods of developing strategic leaders a) Leadership development through self – assessment Leadership self-assessment is a strategic leadership program that aims at displaying a person’s strengths and weakness, in an endeavor to improve the individual’s leadership abilities (Dubrin, 2010). The leadership development self – assessment utilizes a set of tools including the use of questionnaires and other relevant aptitude tests and self-assessment check lists. The program enables an individual to have a clear vision of their leadership progression in terms of leadership qualities, thus fostering leadership talent development. In the end, it enables an individual to identify the areas that require development and training to enhance their leadership skills. This will also enable a person to acquire the pre-requisite competencies and skills that will ensure their survival so that they are able to influence their followers to achieve organizational goals (Ellen Van Velsor, 2010). b) Leadership development through self – discipline Self-discipline is understood as training for a person to stick to the acceptable leadership code of conduct and behaviors that re agreed within an organization (Dubrin, 2010). Self – training therefore develops an individual’s traits, habit and skills that are pertinent in them becoming effective and respected leaders; this can be achieved in the organization through coming up with strategic goals and standards that are agreed by all members and setting up continuous monitoring benchmarks so as to understand the progression of an individual. When this strategy is adopted, it enhances consistency in the attainment of mutually binding organizational goals through the use of people in an acceptable way. This is in turn fostered through creating an enabling environment and training approaches, and by not bending to constant pressure from senior management or appearing to be appealing a particular segment of other employees. Leadership development through self-discipline thus involves adhering to the set standards, schedules and timelines for achieving the set organizational goals and visions. Above all, leadership development through self – discipline enhances the leader’s priorities. An analysis of my current leadership style My leadership analysis takes into consideration my weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and strengths that work towards enhancing my leadership abilities or contributing towards making me an ineffective leader. The results of this analysis were based on an interpretive report conducted using “Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).” The MBTI personality assessment is an in depth personalized description of an individual’s personality preferences derived from an individual’s participation in the instrument. The MBTI theory proposes that individuals have opposite ways of gaining energy (extraversion or introversion), gathering information (sensing or intrusion) deciding or coming to a conclusion about the information (thinking or feeling) and dealing with the world around us (judging or perceiving). This self-assessment analysis provides my personality information based on seven main areas of focus: Communication skills Making decisions Managing change Managing conflict Putting together the personality traits to work in a harmonized manner Integrating information from communication skills and making decisions Using the information to gain a better understanding of my leadership personality After carefully and selectively looking into my personality and all the covered units in this course, I am in a position to identify areas that I still need to focus on as I interact with others to enable me become a better leader. Areas that I realize that I need to look into include empathy, conflict management, communication skills and listening. Empathy is widely understood as the action of understanding, and being sensitive to one’s needs, thought and experiences. This seems to be a very hard concept for me to put into practice. I have tried putting this into action in many settings, and even to use my imagination to try and put myself into other people’s situations. However, I am constantly improving in my listening ability, though I still need to challenge myself further with regard to broader communication skills. Last of all, managing conflict is also a skill that I have made little progress towards. This interpersonal skill often flows out of the window for me and I find myself becoming too emotional. One of the ways that I have adapted to dealing with this situation however is to avoid such conflict situations at all, to me conflict is such a powerful act that I can never gain control of. It so happens that when I happen to think that a problem is under manageable levels, that is when it gets worse and I get emotional over the whole issue. Personality characteristics analysis Communication skills Decision making skills In terms of receiving, focus on task to be done rather than social expectations Expressive ability: Saying what is on my mind to anyone willing to listen Reflective ability: communication through reading and writing Enthusiasm: readily displays enthusiasm Concreteness: detailed talk about issues at hand Accommodating: ensure harmony by being agreeable Critical thinking: ability to critique or accept a point depending on the issue Methodical-emergent mid-zone: with the ability to give or not give detailed procedures depending on the situation at hand Empathetic and reasonable characterized by desire to make decisions based on values, and may questioning motives in decision making Managing change Managing change Characterized by; Being expressive- sharing feelings with others Gregarious Concrete Realistic Experiental Traditional Tough-tender mid-zone Planful-open-ended mid-zone Methodical-emergent mid-zone Being expressive Gregarious Accommodating Critical-accepting mi-zone Tough-tender mid-zone Early –starting pressure prompted mid-zone Overall leadership personality assessment: Expressive, Gregarious, Enthusiastic, Empathetic and Accommodating (ISTJ) My overall leadership style is transactional given my ability to obtain greater decision making power within the group. I seem to be supporting implementation of interpersonal activities or transactions so as to enable achievement of expected organizational goals. Strategy for improving leadership development The first step toward improving the leadership development process is to review the current individual’s current personality traits and leadership abilities and alignment them into organization’s desires and the desired idealist leadership style. This initial step entails identifying and examining what drives your strategy, which are in most cases one’s personality traits and how these personality traits influence one’s ability in becoming a leader within an organization when looked at in the context of an individual’s strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Dubrin, 2010). The strategy of an individual improvement is often unique to one’s self, and thus an individual’s drive for change should be influenced by the vision of the organization. After which an analysis of the current and future leadership desirables of an individual will be analyzed against the organization’s vision. Difficult choices will however, have to be made regarding the direction of the desired states one requires and the strategy that will have to be adopted in order to achieve the desired levels (Armstrong, 2012). Leadership development plans will put into consideration examining a shared organizational vision and the paradigms that are desired within the organization. Creating a foundation and channel for feedback that will ensure sustainability and stability will be necessary in monitoring one’s personal development along the leadership plan. This process also requires that senior organizational leaders work closely with junior leaders. The strategy to be adopted by an individual should incorporate training and mentorship programs to meet desired leadership requirements. A well articulated employee leadership development program is effective in attracting and retaining key followers in an organization. An organization in its brightest and brilliant program will conduct its leadership development programs at various locations off location from an organization’s main offices since as this always ensures that they nurture the most brilliant brain mindset in the organization. Similarly, organizations with established leadership development programs always optimizes recruitment and employee selections process to make sure that the organization’s directions are in line with its vision, since it is generally agreed that an organizational exists to meet its aspirations and goals (Bush, 2008). Leadership development profile and desired changes: moving from transactional style to transformational style SKILLS & BEHAVIOURS TO DEVELOP: Short term: delivering desirable leadership attributes and continuously improving my leadership skills and abilities Long term: Working towards transformational leadership style LEARNING/TRAINING REQUIREMENTS: • More mentorship and training in communication, decision making, managing conflicts and managing change TARGET DATES/TIMELINES: •For review To acquire skills in information communication among peers and team members Paying close attention to all aspects of communication to enable self development in communicating ideas and driving followers to attain organizational goals Strengthen skills decision making so as to enable making of rational decisions by considering my less preferred part of personality Establishment of a functional decision making faculty able to make independent and affirmative decisions To acquire pertinent skills in managing change and adapting to new situations. Have a sense of adopting new solutions to solving old problems that affect organizational and individual performance Requires the support of followers and senior management officer To acquire further skills in organization leadership and management in preparation for much challenging and technically tasking future roles a future leader Organizational mentorship from immediate supervisor as well as other organizational workers. Continuous process Conforming to creativity and change in order to solve organizational problems Testing different solutions to a particular problem in a multiple resource setting and motivating followers towards achieving desirable organizational goals Continuous process References Abraham, R. (2000). The role of job control as a moderator of emotional dissonance and Emotional intelligence-outcome relationship. The Journal of Psychology, 134, 169-84. 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