My Philosophy of Leadership Effectiveness - Coursework Example

PART I My Philosophy of leadership Based on the learning obtained from this course and based on personal experiences, I have come to believe that leadership is a way of life unique to every individual. The essence of leadership lies in achieving one’s vision and goals with the help of other people in a manner that every individual involved in this activity achieves what he/she had aimed for. True leadership should provide a firm platform for every individual to demonstrate his/her abilities through which the ultimate goal is achieved; therefore, true leadership is a mutually beneficial matter. However, other essential elements in leadership are positive attitude, encouragement, decision making, communication and connecting with people, critical thinking and empowering others. During childhood, parents and teachers teach and provide guidance in learning new activities; encourage and appreciate for good job done; and reprimand for any mistakes. But this phase is only viewed as learning experience, and has minimal chances of making big mistakes or taking big risks. However, later part of life is full of obstacles, greater risks and has lesser chances for ‘learning’ but more of taking ownership for our actions and results obtained. This is where true leadership emerges. Taking the example of a job context, a person in leadership role is responsible for the organization’s performance, team members’ performance and behavior, key business decision making, assessing profits and losses, and achieving organization’s goal. Here, the leader will not have anyone to guide or teach what actions to take in order to achieve the goals. The leader owns all these responsibilities and is expected to achieve the goals/results. For this, the leader will have to chalk out his own plan, in other words, define his/her goals; coach and guide others (followers); encourage through appreciation, empowerment and support; have trust in their followers’ capabilities; and monitor their work by giving periodic feedback; understand and know the members by establishing good connection through talking, listening and encouraging others; effective communication of tasks and timelines; build an awareness of business, analyze the approaches, and think innovatively. My leadership effectiveness: Among these core leadership skills, I have learnt that I possess very few traits. For example, I have a vision of what I want to achieve in my life in the long term. I also possess qualities of emotional intelligence such as managing my emotions, self-awareness, empathy and managing social relationships. I realized this through my interaction with the teller at the bank who created the wrong draft, which I corrected by communicating in a friendly manner instead of showing frustration or anger. The teller was pleased and thanked me. For me to achieve my long-term vision of owning a good townhouse, I need to take minimum risk initially by going for smaller townhouse; this will enable me to check risk factors of mortgage involved in longer term. Here, I have used critical decision making skills by appropriately assessing risk factors. Further, I have also assessed goal-setting abilities based on my studying goals. I have decided to complete the degree courses first and then complete the CGA courses. This way I will be able to concentrate on all studies and complete them in specific time. This way, I have set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART) goal. In order to make good connections with people, I will have to improve my communication skills. Although I have a vision, I need to set timelines to achieve it. For innovative thinking, I am in the process of thinking all possible ways to achieve my long term vision. I need to increase interaction with different people, which will help in obtaining different views. I am yet to test my decision making skills. I feel that the information and knowledge that I will obtain after interacting with various people will help me in better decision making. I need to trust in others abilities and empowering them to take decisions on my behalf might also help. I possess more qualities of Theory X, i.e. believe that people are generally lazy, and tend to work only if they are supervised and controlled. However, if I involve others in my vision and decision making, they will communicate openly about their ideas; work with me with full commitment, and may come up with creative solutions to my problems. My action points: For me to acquire effective leadership traits, I need to develop and improve certain key skills such as positive attitude, communication and interpersonal skills, improve trust and motivation, and learning from past mistakes. I will adopt a step-by-step approach to develop these skills. To adopt a positive attitude, from right now, I will focus on brighter aspects of others and self; praise others good work; and will ensure I am interacting with positive people more often. To improve my communication skills, I will start interacting with people more often and will ensure I listen to and observe others, and try to understand their perspective of thinking and acting. I will also start talking to people in a way that they clearly understand my points and I understand them clearly. I start this by communicating my vision, goals, skills, intentions, and expectations to others. I will also ask questions, feedback and opinions on points that I spoke; I will also share my views openly and honestly. Here, I will also keep in mind speaking skills such as language, grammar, tone etc. To improve trust and motivation of others, I will start assisting others in recognizing and utilizing their abilities, skills, and potential. By helping others recognize their potential, I will be able to improve the group’s energy and increase vitality of my projects thereby moving towards achieving my goals and vision. To improve motivation of group members, I will use Theory X and Theory Y. I will constantly guide and monitor people who are new to the job, so that they are doing right and improving. For experienced group members, I will give additional responsibilities which will motivate them to work better and achieve greater results. Here, I will empower them with critical decision making tasks, give them additional work, and appreciate them for good job. As a leader, I will also I am continuously learning from my mistakes. For this, I will continuously take feedback from my team members and work on their feedback. This way, I can work on my weaknesses. In short, I will set SMART goals and make a clear plan of how to accomplish that task. I will work towards improving my communication skills, constantly seek feedback, involve others in decision making and trust their abilities. I will constantly motivate myself and team members and develop a positive attitude. Most importantly, I will review my progress on short-term goals and ensure that the short term goals that I am achieving are in line with my long-term vision. PART II Part A: A deeper understanding of leadership effectiveness Reflecting upon the key elements of leadership inferred from this module include trust, empowerment, vision, and decision making. From the trust perspective, leadership requires trust to be established from both, leader and follower, sides. This requires significant time and effort. However, leaders can accelerate the process of gaining subordinate trust by showing confidence in subordinate abilities. Showing confidence can be done by giving them critical tasks to be accomplished; involving them in critical decision making processes and valuing their opinions. Implementing their ideas wherever relevant can also improve their trust towards the leader. Leader’s trust in followers improves when they start achieving the desired results. Hence, instilling trust always begins and should begin from the leader. Secondly, by involving subordinates in key tasks and decision making, leaders are empowering them to not only use followers’ capabilities but also enhancing followers’ motivation and commitment, without which leaders will not be successful. Thirdly, leader’s vision is like a path marked for the followers to follow; but, leaders need to ensure all members are aligned to this vision. Their values and goals need to be in line with this vision; else they will not achieve the desired goals and vision. For all these to happen, leader’s decision making plays a critical role because the leader should be able to identify people that can be empowered with additional authority; they should be able to identify tasks that can add value to the members in the form of additional learning and/or match with subordinates’ skills and capabilities. For these reasons, trust, empowerment, vision and decision making stand out as the key elements of leadership. Part B: Midpoint learning in this course This course has been very helpful in making me realize the flaws or weaknesses that I have with respect to leadership qualities. Firstly, I realized that every leader must have a vision, or should know what he/she wants to achieve. This could be achieved by aiming for smaller goals in short period. I learnt that I had to develop the process of forward looking, which will help me in assessing the situation in advance and being prepared to face the potential challenges. The five practices of exemplary leadership proposed by Posner have made me understand what leadership is all about. Through Theory X and Theory Y, I understood the significance of being autocratic and democratic as well as the importance of credibility, control, motivation, and encouragement. By following these practices, I am confident I can cultivate leadership qualities that will be effective. The primary learning at this point that I need to undertake is cultivation of a strong vision and mission. I also realized that self awareness is the most important tool that will help me in progressing further. Firstly, I need to understand what I need; then assess what qualities I already possess and what qualities are to be adopted. A continuous self evaluation will help in keeping me aligned to my vision. This, I realized after learning Posner’s assertion that authentic leadership cannot come from the outside in. It comes from the inside out (Posner, 62). So far, I have felt the need to improve my time management skills so that I can accomplish more in available time. Next, I also realized that I should be able to create harmony between others values and needs and my vision. PART C: End learning in this course Finally, I have realized that vision is a big picture of my goals. It has to be firm and achievable. Hence, I need to dedicate sufficient time and effort in creating a vision that is achievable. This can be achieved only by setting SMART goals that are clear and precise; these goals must be achievable. Secondly, I have realized the flaws in my communication. I will work towards improving my speaking, listening, understanding, and writing skills. Thirdly, I realized that I always avoided taking risks in terms of getting work done from others and hesitated to take help from others. I have realized that this trait does not fit into leadership qualities. At the end of this course, I have realized the significance of communication and positive attitude in leadership. I have to improve interacting skills; improve knowledge and awareness on situations and/or subjects relevant to work; practice setting SMART goals; improve time management, discipline and be focused towards the goal. As a leader, I need to cultivate the habit of critical thinking by identifying changes that can bring about positive change; being open to changes; and challenge others to try new ideas. Before taking critical decisions, I need to ensure I have relevant information and understanding of the situation. In case of emergencies, I need to involve more people so that decisions can be taken quickly. Finally, I need to practice empowering others, by trusting in their abilities; thereby, I should practice taking up risks after good assessment of the situation. Part D: Opinion and Feedback Students attending the next session of this course will be greatly benefited if they came to this course without any presumptions of leadership as this could create conflicts between their experiences and learning for effective leadership that this course entails. I came to this course believing that leadership is born and cannot be adopted, which was false. I also believed that leaders should not take risks as this will affect their work and others, which again was not true. To come with an open mind in this class, one should firstly believe that they are going to ‘learn’ something new. Secondly, one should be open to change as this course brings forth completely new outlook to leadership concept. Openness will help in adopting the new learning and practices more easy and effective. Thirdly, discipline with respect to completion of the course contents on time, submission of answers/journal entries, and regular revision of learnt content are extremely important. The most common and avoidable error is negligence with respect to time and completion of required assignments. Secondly, everyone should participate in all session actively as it will enhance learning and also make learning a very lively experience. Thirdly, pupils may keep referring to specific cases relevant to contemporary leadership that may be discussed during the session, which will not only help in active participation but also introduce them to present day organizational issues. Overall, instead of looking at this course as a learning session, an active participation from everyone will make overall learning experience more effective. Works cited Posner, Kouzes. Leadership Challenge. Wiley-India; New Delhi, 2006. Read More