Leadership Assignment: Reflection On Own Leadership Journey

Question

Task:
Write a leadership assignment critically reflecting on your own leadership journey personality traits that you have developed while working in a business organisation.

Answer

Executive Summary
The present leadership assignment is based on a reflection on my own leadership journey. The study reflects the way in which my leadership skills and personality traits have developed along the coast of the leadership journey. The feedback received regarding leadership traits from the pairs and team members are presented and the leadership style is also critically evaluated. Based on the weaknesses in leadership traits identified from the refraction a continuous development plan has been developed following the Whiteman GROW model.

Introduction
Dynamic Leadership is an important element in any business organisation, in modern day business scenario, given the tumultuous situations and business environments that the leaders have to handle and encourage the employees in achieving the organisational goals and objectives, at the same time. According to Tooey (2017), a good leader must have the ability to adapt to the changes in the environment and must be flexible, while a dynamic leader needs to connect with the workforce, take firm decisions and stand by the same at all times, be creative and take full accountability of the performance of their teams. The dynamic leaders need to be tolerant, be aware of their personal values, and be able to efficiently maintain gender equality and indiscrimination in the workplace while encouraging the uptake of advanced technologies for creativity and innovation in the processes and working systems of the team. In the present study, I have presented a reflection on my own leadership journey and evaluated my own leadership style based on its effectiveness and potential. Apart from that, I have also presented the freedom of the assigned partners in my leadership style and skills. On the basis of my own leadership abilities, I have developed a continuous development plan for 2 years on the basis of the Whiteman Grow Model.

Reflection on own leadership journey
Along the course of my career, I have encountered different touch points that have influenced as well as shaped my perspectives towards leadership. According to Hoyt and Burnette (2018), it is the role of a leader to develop a vision that candidate the activities of the leader to word the team of an organisation. Fundamentally, I have experienced my responsibilities as a leader to be a person who can articulate and develop a vision that can motivate others to join in a specific task in the future. Along the course of my leadership journey, I have identified that the instability of resistance to the vision has greatly influenced me to reshape my thoughts and focus regarding leadership as I have fought to overcome challenges. Hence I have perceived leadership as a dynamic distributed prestige among the actors. Across my leadership journey, I have also identified some fundamental principles of leadership that have internally promoted my belief regarding leadership. One of the most important principles about leadership that guided me is that “leadership is behaviour and not a position”. I strongly believe that dynamic leaders are the person who can take the responsibility to make decisions and successfully manage the changes in an organisation. In this context, Broome and Marshall, (2020) have explained that leaders are able to empower people for discovering and using their greatest potential, however, it is only possible with certain behaviour and not through a particular position. Hence I think that the leaders are highly judged based on their attitude, behaviour, and actions.

Another important leadership principle that has helped me to shape my perception towards leadership along the course of my career is that “the best way to influence is to set an example, while being resilient”. Based on this particular principle, across my leadership journey, I have tried hard to set examples to the followers so that I can motivate them in order to achieve the team goals and exhibit resilience. Throughout my journey to lead a team, I have faced numerous challenges, like miscommunication amongst my team as well as managing a team with varied capabilities and specializations. However, all these challenges have shaped my perception of leadership rather than de-motivating me from the position of a leader. The commitment towards problem-solving and firm decision-making for the team was a challenging job initially but as I began to explore the overall process of leading, the process seemed to be much easier than before. The identification of the roles and responsibilities of a leader and the principles associated with leadership has greatly helped me to recognise the way in which I can lead effectively and potentially to meet the team goals. In the view of Kiarie, Maru & Cheruiyot (2017), it is essential for a leader to share his own thoughts with the subordinates and invite them to consider things as well. Moreover, it is also evidence that entering into strong relationships with the followers can help the leaders to motivate the followers in an effective way. Based on this perspective, I have also shaped my own leadership style and tried greatly during my leading role to develop a strong relationship with the team members.

I can recall the bittersweet experience to become the leader of the team. I had been positioned as a leader for a team that was determined to develop a particular project based on the course. During the dynamic leadership role, I had worked cooperatively with the other members of the team. I have identified the operational problems and created strong recommendations that can be used for addressing the problems in the project. When it has become difficult for the team members to complete specific tasks within the time, I have positively utilized the motivational strategies to inspire them towards the achievement of the team goals. Apart from that, I have also utilised my creative and innovative skills to provide new ideas that can be used in providing uniqueness to our project. In the view of Ekpe, Mat & Adelaiye (2017) a leadership role can be regarded as exerting influence in such a way to encourage others to follow the instruction for reaching the desired outcome. This particular perspective has greatly followed along the course of my own leadership journey.

Feedback from assign partners and other trusted sources
According to Gutierrez (2018), a number of personality traits are indispensable to possess to ensure that the leadership activities are efficient and potential to make positive changes in the organisations. In a similar perspective, Joseph, Romager & Hughes, (2017) has mentioned that identification of the personal traits is a major function that the leaders must undertake to enhance their own leadership style, skills, and traits. I have identified that collection of feedback from assigned partners and other trusted sources like peers, tutors, professors as well as family members is very important to identify personality traits.

I have collected feedback from four peers regarding my personality traits and leadership activities. In the view of the first peer, my choice of a dynamic leadership style is a very unique approach to lead the team. The second peer has explained that my ability to motivate others is an effective skill that is helpful in building a strong leadership skill. On the contrary, the third peer has mentioned that there is a lack of an active listening skill with me that prevents me from understanding the problems among the followers. Both the second and third peers have mentioned that there is a lack of patience within me as a leader as sometimes I lose hope regarding specific tasks. In the opinion of the fourth peer, effective communication skill is very important for the success of a leader and as a leader, there is a lack of effective communication within me.

For gaining understanding regarding my own dynamic leadership traits I have taken feedback from 3 of my followers in the team. According to the first team member, my ability to develop a vision and motivating others to function in synergy with the vision is very effective. The extent of tolerating ambiguity, as exhibited by me, is also commendable, according to my peer. On the other hand, the second team member has indicated that my skill to manage emotions in an effective way is not much strong and must be strengthened to ensure success in leadership. The third team member has explained that my ability to recommend creative and innovative ideas and solutions to problems is highly beneficial for the team. All three members have stated that my ability to make a decision is moderate but I am resilient enough to stick to a particular decision and guide them through the same, while being able to come to conclusive decisions successfully, even under ambiguous situations, though the response time might be a bit long and thus, needs development.

I believe that the feedback received from my peers as well as the team members can be implemented to develop a plan through which I can strengthen my leadership abilities. Apart from that I also believe that with this analysis of the personality traits, I can effectively discuss my own leadership traits and leadership style and compare them with the external resources. In this way, I can define a leadership style that would provide a view regarding the way in which I can effectively lead my followers. Hence, it was important to collect feedback as it helped me to identify strengths as well as weaknesses.

Evaluation of own current leadership style
Along my journey of leadership, I have also identified a number of skills that are potentially important for leading a team. Phaneuf, Boudrias, Rousseau & Brunelle, (2016) have mentioned different skills like strategic thinking, wisdom and knowledge, people management, change management and innovation, communication, justice, courage, strong decision-making skills and temperance, along with humanity, to be essential for dynamic leaders. During the leadership activities, I have compared my own leadership skills and abilities to the particular skills that I had identified from different relevant sources. By comparing the leadership skills I have recognised that I lack a number of skills that are important in the leadership role, while a few skills I have potential strengths. Therefore, I think that it is important to develop a practical plan for personal development in leadership. According to El Toufaili (2018), leadership style is defined as the manner and approach to provide a direction, apply plans and inspire people to achieve a common goal. In subsequent research, Syed, Rehman & Kitchlew, (2018) have mentioned a number of leadership styles such as autocratic, democratic, transactional, transformational, strategic and lastly, dynamic leadership style

From the starting of my leadership role, I was highly motivated by the theory of dynamic leadership. As opined by Kaarbo (2018), the dynamic leadership style relates to the function of a leader who works with the team for the identification of the needed change, and creation of a vision for guiding a change with motivation and performing the change in tandem with committed group members. Therefore, by following the principles of dynamic leadership style, I have always tried across my leadership role to incorporate creative changes in the functions of the team. Apart from that, I have also tried to motivate the team members for the acceptance of the change in a positive way. Therefore, the motivational skill was one of my key strengths in my leadership role. However, I have identified that my decision-making skill is somewhat weak as in many challenging situations I have faced problems in making decisions. Based on this perspective, I think that the use of a democratic leadership style wherein the followers are also included in the process of making decisions regarding specific tasks, could be beneficial in strengthening the decision-making ability.

Plan for continued development as a leader
Selection of time frame and justification
In order to enhance the dynamic leadership abilities based on the self-reflection as well as the collected feedback, it is important to develop a continuous development plan (Reeve, Jang & Jang, 2018). I have identified that there are both short-term and long-term approaches to develop leadership abilities through the implementation of the continuous development plan. I have selected to implement the plan within 2 years. The reason behind the choice of the time period is based on the nature of the skills and traits that I want to develop. The different skills that I want to strengthen through the continuous development plan are listening skill, effective communication skill, patience, managing emotions, and decision-making. I think that the time period of 2 years is enough for the development of these skills additionally; by developing these skills early I can implement them in my career earlier.

The Whitman GROW model
According to Abdallah and Jibai, (2020) the GROW model can be regarded as a process or a simple method to set goals and solve problems. The GROW model was established by John Whitemore in the 1990s. Although the model has application in goal sets and problem-solving it is extensively used in corporate coaching for the leaders. The different stages of the model are Goal, Reality, Options or Obstacles, and Way forward (Yount et al., 2018). This particular model has been chosen in the present study to develop the continuous development plan as it enables to set goals that are both challenging and inspiring rather than being only specific, measurable, receivable, realistic and time-bound. Apart from that the model also enables to examine the current reality and explore the available options for transforming into action steps to reach the goals. For developing the different skills identified along the course of self-reflection and feedback collection three different goals have been set and the grow model is presented below:

Table.1: GROW model for continuous development plan
(Source: created by the learner)

Evaluation and Monitoring
An important part of leadership development is evaluation, wherein the progress requires to be checked after specific intervals and feedback needs to be collected, to improve the backlogs. In this case, I aim to undergo personal evaluation after every 15 days, by collecting feedback from my peers as well as by maintaining a reflective journal and checking through the day-by-day developments. I would like to utilize Kolb’s experiential learning cycle to conceptualize the lessons learnt through the experiences in the workshops and simulation classes, and apply them in practical life, to improve my performance and my capabilities as a dynamic leader.

Conclusion
The present report has provided an overview of my own leadership abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, the report also presents the continuous development plan regarding leadership based on the weaknesses identified along the course of the reflection. For developing the continuous development plan I have used the Whitman Grow Model. By reflecting on my own leadership journey I have identified that as a leader there is a lack of patience and active listening skill within me. Some other additional leadership skills also identified as lacking along the course of the reflection and evaluation of the feedback received from the peers. Therefore, it was important to develop continuous development for the mitigation of the challenges that could be faced from the lack of appropriate leadership skills in the future. The successful implementation of the plan would help in strengthening the skills that are weak.

References
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