Individual Leadership Growth Reflection - Essay Example

Individual Leadership Growth Leadership remains one of the most researched topics with regard to management of organizations. These studies aim at defining good leaders. They evaluate the factors that promote effective leadership. Organizations look for leaders who have the ability of constantly improving the organization’s performance with regards to its objectives. At an individual level, it is largely believed that leadership provides a means to improve on professional, social and personal life. In the same way, I seek to improve my leadership skills and style so as to benefit in the same lines. In this paper, I give the self-discoveries I have made from this course with regard to my growth as a leader in terms of power, coercion and management functions. Various ways exist in which to define leadership because of the variance in the meaning attached to leadership under diverse contexts. Nonetheless, the bottom line of leadership entails a focus on the processes of a group. It entails how an individual’s behavior or personality perspective interacts to cause transformation. Additionally, it entails the power relationship between the leader and the followers. Therefore, the definition of leadership as a process of an individual influencing a group of individuals so as to achieve a common objective by Northouse (2010) adequately covers all aspects of leadership. This means that in this evaluation of my leadership, I look at how I have been able to influence various groups of individuals to achieve the intended common goal. It will involve an analysis of my leadership traits and how I have used such traits to influence groups. First, just as is human nature to love power, I have sought to acquire power under various capacities that would give me the command and thus the leadership. Without power, it would be difficult for me to cause transformation in a group. After all, Northouse (2010) defines power as the capacity to influence. Without this potential, it implies that it would be difficult for me to control any group. Borrowing from the traits approach to leadership, some of my physical traits have greatly contributed to my leadership positions. Being tall and well built has always been a way in which people have opted to give me legitimate power in many groups. The most recent is the position of chairmanship of a group of a minority represented in the school. Through this power, I was able to bring about changes among the minority students, empowering them to occupy executive positions in the school’s students’ council. This way, the minority would be able to equitably enjoy the opportunities availed to the other students. It is also through this position that I became likeable among the students. Being bold enough to represent their issues of the minority students not only to the student council but even to the school’s administration earned me the title of a savior. The aim of my action was to see that the minority students get recognized in the school and their way of life respected. I now appreciate the importance of personal power in leading a group. Without such powers, I would not have been successful in transforming the life of minority students in the school. However, in my course of leading groups, I have exhibited some ineffective leadership traits. I remember back home when I was mandated to lead my cousins in an investment project, I failed to exhibit effective leadership. I was chosen among my other cousins because of my experience in business, having engaged myself in various businesses before. This was a responsibility given to see me set up a distributorship enterprise for the family, distributing agricultural produce from the family farm to the surrounding retail outlets. I was particularly in charge of monitoring the income against the expenses attributed to the business. This expert power made me feel important and more knowledgeable than my other cousins. It was an opportunity for me to push forth my agenda without consideration of the input from the other members. I made personal decisions and imposed them on the group. While I was well equipped with investment knowledge, particularly in managing retail outlets, I had no adequate knowledge in agriculture. Thus, most of the decisions I made were uninformed and thus ineffective. After one year, the group was performing poorly with no cohesion among members. The farms were poorly managed with crops performing poorly. Through this course, I have come to appreciate that coercion does not result in effective leadership. This form of leadership encompasses use of force in effecting change. Going by the definition of Northouse, coercion refers to “influencing others to do something against their will,” including manipulating associated rewards and penalties (2010, 9). The reason for my use of coercive force in leading my cousins in their investment was informed by my uncle’s leadership. As a local county administrator, he ruled his people dictatorially. No one challenged him. Apparently, he was able to cause desirable effect on his followers, initiating critical projects within his administrative jurisdiction that gained him popularity. I thought that coercion would thus be an appropriate leadership style for any leader seeking to be successful and thus copied my uncle’s leadership approach in leading my cousins’ investment group. However, this course has helped me appreciate this kind of leadership as ineffective to a greater extent. Coercive leaders seek to promote their selfish interests and not the interest of their followers, thus hampering servant leadership. To have effectively led the group, I should have appreciated leadership as an on-going learning process. As such, I should have sought to learn how to lead the agricultural project, this being a new environment for me. I should have listened to my cousins, these being my followers, particularly those who had experience with agriculture. It would have been beneficial to include them in the decision making process and have their views considered in the final decisions. If anything, I was supposed to persuade them to follow my views but not coerce them into doing what I thought was right from my personal perspective. This way, I would have built a community; causing these people to have teamwork. Working as a team would cause us success as opposed to working in division. Despite my challenges in leadership, some contexts have called for me to rely on my personal experiences to lead. The 21st leadership seeks authenticity. As such, I have strived to develop self-regulation, self concept and self knowledge. These are the components of authentic leadership according to Northouse (2010). Because of growing up in a family of businesspeople, my mother and father having been successful entrepreneurs, I had to use the leadership skills learnt to lead the agricultural investment group into making appropriate investment decisions. I was the one who suggested the investment in agriculture because, as learnt from my parents, viable projects entail investing in projects where resources and some level of expertise are available. Agriculture was a viable project because of the vast land that our grandfather gave us for the project and most of my cousins were farmers, hence, they were to provide the expertise. Therefore, despite the hitches in implementation, it was and remains a viable project. This agricultural project was an opportunity to measure my management skills. Though closely related, this course has helped me appreciate leadership and management as different concepts. Management entails organizing, planning, staffing and controlling (Northouse, 2010). As a manager, I should look for followers who can promote the vision of the group being led and influence them to do the expected so as to achieve the vision. Modern managers seek change and not conformity among the followers. As such, I have adopted transformational leadership as a way to cause my followers to undertake a given task for a specific reason. This way, leaders seek not just to be effective leaders but exceptional. Northouse (2010) observes that to be a transformational leader, that is, a leader who posts exceptional outcome, there would be need for such a person to be a role model to the followers, referred to as idealized influence. The leader should cause the followers to conform to the vision through inspirational motivation and encourage creativity and innovation by challenging normal practice, referred to as intellectual stimulation. Finally, such persons should exhibit individual consideration where they act as advisors and coaches. Therefore, as I continue leading various groups, I seek for exceptional performance. It is not enough to seek just for the desired performance, but to go beyond the expected. Perhaps, if I had implemented this kind of leadership with my cousins, I would have realized exceptional outcome. The four aspects learnt from this course of transformational leadership would thus lead me to ensuring that I am a role model to my followers, inspire followers to conform to the vision, encourage creativity and act as an advisor. Conclusion This course has provided an appropriate platform to evaluate my leadership skills. I have learnt that some of the leadership positions I held were inspired by my physical traits and that coercion does not result in effective leadership. To achieve the goals of the group being led, I should include my followers in decision making. Appreciating leadership as an on-going learning process, I should strive to learn modern leadership approaches that strive to achieve exceptional outcome. As such, transformational leadership offers an effective leadership style that I should seek to learn henceforth. Reference Northouse, P. G. (Ed.). (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Read More