Leadership Assignment: Reflective Journal On Personal Learning About Leadership

Question

Task: You are required to prepare a leadership assignment presenting a reflective journal will focus on two or three vignettes which you will describe and analyse. These vignettes come from your own experience of leadership and may involve either your experiences as a leader, or your observations of other leaders in action with whom you have associated. Each vignette will contain a summary of the story which you want to highlight, and then a scholarly critique of that story using relevant leadership theories from class discussions. Use the first person in your Journal and disclose your thought processes and feelings. Your journal should demonstrate scholarly reasoning, reflect class discussions of particular theories will inform your reflections and you need to show these in your Journal. For the concluding section review your bio posted on Day 1 and all the group tasks you have done. Has your story evolved? Has what matters to you changed? Why? Have you revised your values? How? Show how your thoughts have changed or remained static over the time of studying this paper.

Format:
Brief opening statement which summarises Journal.
Two or three vignettes with a scholarly critique, using the literature.
A final section which summarises your learning over the semester and discusses things that have changed in your understandings of leadership.

Answer

Introduction
Leadership is defined as the ability of an individual or a group to influence other people within the organization. It is evident herein leadership assignmentthat the leadership skillsdevelop with the observations and experiences (Kiersch & Peters, 2017). The proper understanding of the employees and guiding them for the best interest of the organisation is essential. The different incidences that are evident in the workplaces reflect the ability to lead in difficult scenarios and thus ensure that the execution of the seamless service can be fetched. In this section, the demonstration of three distinct vignettes is done. The scenarios took place during my part-time employmentin a retail store last summer. The changes in my leadership approach with a better understanding of effective leadership have been successful due to the experiences that I gathered during the semester. The study also reflects my personal learning about leadership in a coherent manner.

Vignettes
Vignette 1
Harry was the store in charge, and while seeking my employment as the sales executive in the local retail stores, I was working under his guidance's.Boerma et al. (2017) stated that leaders are not made but born. The character of the leaders is seen in their personalities. I notice how Harry is seamlessly executing all the activities of the store with a smiling face. His positiveattitude towards work was something extraordinary about him as he handled rush hours with proper teamwork. On my second day at work, while I was unable to cope-up with the increasing crowd in the store, he came up to me with a smile and suggested I need to handle one customer at a time so that I could serve all the customers with full attention. In the views of Rubens et al. (2018), problem-solving is one of the essential factors that leaders need to have. The suggestion Harry gave me to manage the customers has helped me to serve the customers better and thus keep them satisfied. In the guidance's of Harry, I learn time management as well as problem-solving skills. I used to observe him.His leadership actions were huge learning for me. The easy-going attitude, even in a chaotic situation, is categorised as a leadership skill(Hasan& Rjoub, 2017). Harry, for me, is a leader who has the ability to deal with a difficult situation without losing this temper. He treated his employees well and always tried to help him. I was impressed with Harry and his excellent leadership skill. The duration of the three months of part-time employment has been helpful in developing a skill of lairdship that I will be using in my future employment.

Vignette 2
Two sales experts, Kitty and Jiya, were not on good terms. They did not talk to each other much. The situation got worse when there was a huge fight among them. The brutality of the fight between them was evident in the sales figures. Whenever Kitty handled any customers, Jiya used to disturb the customer and ensure that the sales were affected. This contributed for weeks, making it difficult to handle both of them. As per the comment of Al-Malki& Juan (2018), the lack of communicationleads to confusionamong the team, and it is the role of the leader to ensure the smooth execution of the communication practices. Harry was very much fond of me, so he asked me to handle the situation and showed me skills of leadership. I was nervous as both Kitty and Jiya were my good friends. I, therefore of handled the situation one by one and asked both of them and encountered that there was a miscommunication better and that both had their own side to the enmity. It was thus essential to arrange a meeting better both of them so that the fight could be resolved. I used the skill of negotiation. Guzmán et al. (2020) commented that the skills of negotiation areessential to execute the leadership measures and thus convince the employees to execute effective services. I called both Jiya and Kitty to a private house party where both of them were offended seeing each other. I then explained to them how miscommunication was the main reason for their fight, and the intention of both did not wrong. Jiya felt bad for her actions and apologised to Kitty. Kitty, on the other hand, felt sorry for the wholeincident. The next day, Harry was suspired to seebothJiyaandKitty working together. He called me and said he was proud of me and was seeing a good leader in me. His words mend a lot to me, and I wish to use my intelligenceand thus gain effective measures in building my skills of leadership.

Vignette 3
Lemoine et al. (2019), behavioural approaches of leadership are essential in developing an interpersonal relationship among the employees and thus ensure that effective working measures are developed among the employees. During my summer part-time employmentin the local retail stores, I came across an accountant, Peter. He was very rude to the staff and was not at all friendly. He treated everyone bad, and all the employees of the store didnot time him. Although he was excellent with his job, his behaviours isolated him from others, his strict attitude was very annoying for the younginterns, and they bullied him most of the time. Peter has his own corners where he did his work and did not interact much. I observed him for one month and thus was very much interested to know about the reason for his behaviours. I discussed his behaviour with Harry as well. He asked to be to understand his cultural belief before questioning his behaviour. This was something that was notknown to me. In the views of Becker et al. (2017), the cultural belief of the people shapes the behaviour of the person. It is a must for the leader to develop a transparent idea about the leadership belief of the employees before taking any decision or developing any perception about three employees. During my inspection, I can to know that Peter belongs to a community with strict lifestyles that were restrictedand wereconsidered as the essentialfactors to lead life. Coming from a minor community, Peter has worked very hard for his employments, but he is unable to adapt himself to the western culture. This was the reason for his irrational behaviours. I went to Peter and had a conversationwith him. He expressed how bad he feels when younginterns say mean wordsto him. I hugged him and asked him to keep a smile on his face. This incident has been a hugelearningexperience. I havedeveloped my observation skills and thus have been a huge opportunity to develop a better understanding of leadership.

Summarises of learning
The semesters have been huge sources of leaning. I was able to develop a clear idea about the different leadership styles and approaches. The better understanding of the character that a leader needsto adopt in handling difficult situations has been helpful in conducting self-audit and thus taking proper action to develop my personal skills to enhance my leadership skills. In the views of Kokko (2019), the skill of communication is much for the leadership. I have taken initiatives to work on my skills of communication, so my ability to handle the difficult situation as a leader can be improved. During the semester, I came across different leadership theories. I was very interested to know about the transformational leadership theory. I have been productive in fetching better outcomes in the recent era of digitalisation. As stated by Ewell (2018), the theories of transformational leadership aredetermined to be productive in providing proper perception to involving the employees in thetechnologicalimprovement within the origination. The leading has been helpful in developing self-confidence in me. Willing to develop my career in management, I was doing part-time employmentsduring holidays. It has also improved my excellence in practical skills and knowledge about leadership. The theoreticallearning during the semester has been helping develop a detailed idea about the dos and doesn’t of leadership and thus has been productive in fetching with an opportunity to improve my personal skill and excellence in the areas of my drawbacks. The learning materials and the lectures of the semester played an active role in building my ability to lead in difficult work situations. The need to develop flexible relationships with the employees and understand their points of view by observing their behaviours has been a huge leanings. This has developed my ability to understand leadership skills and thus improved my ability to handle the workplace better.

Conclusion
The entire duration of thissemesterhas been an interestingexperience for me. It has contributed to developing my leadershipknowledgeand provided me with an opportunity to build a better career in the managementfield. Thelearning from this semester will be executed by me during my futureemployment to handle real work situations.

Reference List
Al-Malki, M., & Juan, W. (2018). Leadership styles and job performance: A literature review. Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, 3(3). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bojan-Obrenovic/publication/335516811_Leadership_Styles_and_Job_Performance_a_Literature_Review /links/5d6a089045851508860139fc/Leadership-Styles-and-Job-Performance-a-Literature-Review.pdf
Becker, J. C., Kraus, M., & Rheinschmidt-Same, M. (2017). Cultural expressions of social class and their implications for group-related beliefs and behaviors. Retrieved from https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/zgc7r/ Boerma, M., Coyle, E. A., Dietrich, M. A., Dintzner, M. R., Drayton, S. J., Early, J. L., ... & Williams, N. T. (2017). Point/counterpoint: Are outstanding leaders born or made?. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 81(3). Retrieved from https://www.ajpe.org/content/81/3/58.abstract
Ewell, J. (2018). Revitalising a Student Organization by Applying Transformational Leadership. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(3). Retrieved from https://journalofleadershiped.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/17_3_Ewell.pdf Guzmán, V. E., Muschard, B., Gerolamo, M., Kohl, H., & Rozenfeld, H. (2020). Characteristics and Skills of Leadership in the Context of Industry 4.0. Procedia Manufacturing, 43, 543-550. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351978920307472
Hasan, A., & Rjoub, H. (2017). The role of effective leadership styles in crisis management: a study of Erbil, Iraq. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, 5(4), 107-121. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Husam-Rjoub/publication/317825573_THE_ROLE_OF_EFFECTIVE_LEADERSHIP_STYLES_IN_CRISIS_ MANAGEMENT_A_STUDY_OF_ERBIL_IRAQ/links/594cfcaaa6fdccb19e6c5726/THE-ROLE- OF-EFFECTIVE-LEADERSHIP-STYLES-IN-CRISIS-MANAGEMENT-A-STUDY-OF-ERBIL-IRAQ.pdf Kiersch, C., & Peters, J. (2017). Leadership from the Inside Out: Student Leadership Development within Authentic Leadership and Servant Leadership Frameworks. Leadership assignmentJournal of Leadership Education, 16(1). Retrieved from https://journalofleadershiped.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/16_1_peters.pdf
Kokko, M. T. (2019). Leadership interaction skill development through equine experiences. Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/172863
Lemoine, G. J., Hartnell, C. A., & Leroy, H. (2019). Taking stock of moral approaches to leadership: An integrative review of ethical, authentic, and servant leadership. Academy of Management Annals, 13(1), 148-187. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1160430
Rubens, A., Schoenfeld, G. A., Schaffer, B. S., & Leah, J. S. (2018). Self-awareness and leadership: Developing an individual strategic professional development plan in an MBA leadership course. The International Journal of Management Education, 16(1), 1-13. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1472811716301732