Leadership Reflective Essay On Contemporary Leadership Theories

Question

Assessment Description
Throughout this subject, you have been exposed to many aspects of people, culture and contemporary leadership. An important part of undertaking postgraduate study, especially a subject like this one, is that you actively reflect on what you’ve been learning and how it could be applied in your life. This learning should have especially been most profound in the following ways:

1. The theories you were taught, such as those for recruitment and talent management.
2. The online resources you accessed, such as videos, podcasts and textbook chapters.
3. The industry guest in Week 6 who demonstrated the application of theory in the real world.
4. The in-class activities you participated in, such as discussions and cognitive exercises.
5. The assessment feedback you received following your performance in the first assignment.
6. The psychometric tests you completed, particularly for leadership and interpersonal traits.

During this time, you should have been writing a weekly diary, chronicling your experiences – both positive and negative. It is now time to convert those diary entries into a reflective journal that answers the following question: What type of leader am I and how could I improve?

To ensure success in your reflective essay, make certain you incorporate the following:

• One example that resonated with you from each of the six categories noted above.
• Paragraphs that don’t just describe your experiences but that critically analyse them, too.
• Evidence that demonstrates not just your strengths as a leader but also your limitations.
• Language in the ‘first person’ since this is very much a case study on you as an individual.
• Areas for improvement supported by specific actions on how to enact those improvements
• Referencing that adheres to the Harvard format.

Answer

Introduction
The idea of leadership has changed over the years and in contemporary times it has gained immense popularity because of the level of informality and casualness that has tiptoed in the process. I mentioned the term tiptoed in the above section of this leadership reflective essay because I felt that, still there is a certain section of the population who prefer the traditional idea of leadership which includes the concepts of maintaining a formal and direct relationship with the leader by the other group members and previously I involved myself in this certain section of the population. After these sessions on people, culture and contemporary leadership, my idea of leadership or rather the perspective of leadership changed completely and these sessions made me realize that the world has progressed to the zenith of development and enhancement of culture (Rosenbach, 2018).

In this leadership reflective essay I have observed that the traditional times described leadership to be only that quality that included the action and purpose of leading and motivating a group of people and providing them with proper but limited direction so that the use of the group is fulfilled in the best manner within a short period of time. This idea is applied to every organization that operated around the globe regardless of the size or gravity of the work that takes place in those organizations. But contemporary leadership ideas are revolutionary in a sense; it has become much more dynamic in its approach.

Theories: Since this entire process was a learning experience for me, I will attempt to apply the prevailing norms and contemporary leadership theories in my future career and aspire to incorporate the same in my personal lifestyle as well and portray them all in this leadership reflective essay. I have learned that nowadays leaders participate and involve the other group members as well in various activities so that the group members receive some practical experience and at the same time the desired organizational goal could be achieved in a fun manner. I believe this approach could be applied in talent hunting and management and my idea was appreciated and applauded during the class lectures (DiPaola, 2016).The theories which were elaborated to us again through various activities are the trait theory, situational theory, transformational and transactional leadership. I related most to the situational theory because it suggests that if the situation demands, the leaders should become more firm in their approach in getting the desired quality of tasks out of the group members. During the class discussions, a prime aspect came to the fore that unlimited and uncontrolled informality might lead to casual approach towards the work which might fail to harness the best potential of the employee(Narikaeet al. 2017).

I learned that the leaders must also maintain a balance between striking a healthy relationship among the group members and the holding on to the status of a leader who can become firm as per the situation. The sessions also explained the leader's member exchange and servant leadership which is likely to be used by the human resource department of multinational organizations for the recruitment process (Alvesson, et al. 2016). In these forms of leadership, active listening is done and the opinions of the group members are incorporated in the operations of the company. I found this fact very fascinating for this leadership essay as the employee will automatically strive to work harder and attempt to brainstorm so that solution to every problem could be developed and all the effort comes without the push of the leader. I will always ask, especially the experienced employees with regard to their point of view in a particular situation and incorporate their expertise to invite growth and emancipation in a situation. This form of leadership can effectively contribute towards friendly community building if we refer to the contemporary leadership theories (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015).

Online resources: The sessions went on for several weeks and included many educational and informative videos which changed my insights about the people and the changing culture among the populations around the world and provided a broad overview in drafting this leadership reflective essay. While the leadership, people and culture videos by Mark Zuckerberg, Angela Markel, Aung San Suu Kyi were shown to us and all the videos with other things reiterated the similar perspective that the world has become very complex and volatile. The duty and responsibility of the leaders have broadened and changed. The culture of any company is most directly impacted and influenced by the leaders who head the various departments in those organizations. But the one aspect that touched my heart was provided in a speech by Simon Sinek. He said that the contemporary times have become very competitive, so the first job of leaders is to make the employees safe and secure in their job profile. Many books also gave valuable information on leadership like ‘’Be more Pirate: Or how to take on the World and Win’’ by Sam Coniff Allende(Hartnellet al. 2016).

Industry guest: A very dynamic leader YYYY also came for an interactive session with us and shared with us practical experiences about real-life situations when the knowledge of leadership was challenged and the rational and practical approach had to be adopted to cope with the situation. This interactive session provided me with a realistic perspective that life will not always follow the rule given in the book.

In-class activities you participated in, such as discussions and cognitive exercises
Leadership is identified as that aspect of personal and professional build up attribute which gradually got shaped though my varied classroom exposures. As a student of coursework I had diverse involvements in different activities field. Be it in sports, social group interactions, cross cultural experiences or internship are conducted. I got involved in varied voluntary activities so that made me evolve in various leadership impacts. I eventually developed the signs of understanding the significance of leadership which I endeavored to imbibe within my own practices (Huda et al. 2018). My passion towards varied academic projects was actively allowing me to come to terms with leadership traits. My personal experiences have evolved my learning to take a gradual shape in the definite direction regarding leadership. Being a student within the academic field I feel that my potentials have evolved ever since I tried to voluntarily active in varied cognitive and discussion related activities.

There are varied extracurricular activities that are fostered within by classroom courses which have helped me in this manner. The invaluable talents and traits are possible to get evolved and shaped through my practical skill acquisition programs. I believe that leadership is possible to find the way of growth and development if they are related with self-discovered manner. It is through voluntary participation in active team working efforts that can enable me to get aware of the strengths. The team roles that I have played have provided me with the impetus to develop and imbibe the leadership traits. The natural comfort that I developed through active team roles has impacts upon the team. There are needs for leadership for valuable team player attitude to be developed through equal essential activities to achieve and succeed the same. I was been able to portray all these ideas in this leadership reflective essay

• Carrying out independent projects: Leading a project to address the areas of interests shall enable me in gaining the insight and acquiring sufficient experience. Organizing and leading is necessary to participate in the project runs. The work related experiences that I gained have shaped the courage within me.
• Getting involved in voluntary activities: There are leadership skills that I volunteered in which have eventually been refilled within me through extracurricular activities. The voluntary opportunities have allowed filling in the passionate sense of experience being applied within the organization (Emmer and Evertson, 2016). There are o compulsions that I developed to get involved in the experiences. A better leadership opportunity is possible to be embedded so that essential qualities shall enable in establishing comfort in my academic classroom sessions.

Assessment feedback you received following your performance in the first assignment.
The performances that I undertook in leadership dimension are likely to inculcate feedbacks which improve further practicability. As I voluntarily extended my efforts through team involvements, discussions, meetings, gaming and sports performances or project configurations, there are sufficient feedbacks that are generated against each of them (Hellison, 2018). Every field of performance was effectually maintained so that effective outcomes are possible to be yielded in terms of new leadership related learning. The joint sport team participation has allowed me to obtain feedback against my efforts. I have possessed sufficient leadership skills while playing as a head team member in the joint team. I understood how I can exert the instruction upon the fellow team mates, coordinate the efforts and comply with justified reasoning (Priest and Gass, 2017). The valid feedbacks I gained from my sport mentors and seniors assisted me sufficiently in orienting my newly acquired leaderships to achieve proper outcomes. My future attempts were necessary to be enhanced through seriously emphasizing and attending upon the feedbacks that I received. I am supposed to reflect upon the feedbacks which make me aware of my leadership trait shortcomings. I have been able to test my leadership skills as to whether are appropriately able to secure the outcomes as per desired levels through the feedbacks that I received. I have been able to gain productive outcomes through I have eventually generated this understanding from the feedbacks that leadership is that attribute adhering to which only application limited to work field. I have understood that strategic leadership abilities have helped me in inculcating the source of inspiration into diverse fields (Epstein et al. 2018).

The management and soft skill production are found to be my potential strengths as per the feedbacks that I have received.

The psychometric tests you completed, particularly for leadership and interpersonal traits
Psychometric assessments have enabled me to provide a quantitative report towards leadership to validate my outcomes regarding my potentials. I was administered with leadership questionnaires which include essentially 50 distinctive items against which my responses are required to be produced. Such responses are necessary to yield my leadership qualities and potentials that shall get reflected through value processed manners (Komives and Wagner, 2016). My specific personal characteristics are necessary to be processed with regard to present trait score that I shall yield through candidate abilities. There are several online leadership competency tests that manifest equivalent to psychometric tests. Whether leadership traits are predominantly present within me and the skills which are strong shall reflect from high scores. There are personality tests which evidently depict the leadership skills present within me. It is through the successful leadership that I understood my performances were effectually oriented. It is through the proper administration of the psychometric test regarding leadership questionnaires that summary of my dominant traits shall get evolved (Macpherson, 2015). If I prove to be potent in my leadership abilities that is likely to get prominently reflected through my psychometric test results strongly referring to the contemporary theories of leadership. The high scores in the specific characteristics areas are likely to depict that I have strong hold in those abilities and thus have strog leadership capabilities.

Conclusion
It has been concluded in this leadership reflective essay that, leadership has become much more informal as well, both from the point of view of clothing to the extent of the tone of the conversation that takes place between the leaders and the other members of the group(Grint, et al. 2016). Although the ground rules remain the same that the leadership ideas and methods depend a lot on the leaders and the situation but recent times have altered this very dynamic to be more influential in the sense that mutual and positive effect and inspiration between the leaders and the other group members are encouraged and appreciated. This aspect of mutual influence and common determination to reach the goal results in better collaboration among teams. Together with that, this leadership reflective essay has also revealed that this change of perspective and more openness have resulted in much more significant and higher levels of motivation. The ideas of contemporary leadership have brought about the real change with the people and culture of the world society as observed in this leadership reflective essay (Antonakis and Day, 2017). Leadership reflective essays are being prepared by our management experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable essay writing help service.

References
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Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress.Routledge.

Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership.Sage publications.

DiPaola, M.F., 2016. Multicultural Leadership. The William & Mary Educational Review, 4(2), p.5.

Emmer, E.T. and Evertson, C.M., 2016. Classroom management for middle and high school teachers. Pearson.

Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G., Sheldon, S.B., Simon, B.S., Salinas, K.C., Jansorn, N.R., Van Voorhis, F.L., Martin, C.S., Thomas, B.G., Greenfeld, M.D. and Hutchins, D.J., 2018. School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Corwin Press.

Grint, K., Jones, O.S. and Holt, C., 2016. What is Leadership. The Routledge Companion to Leadership, p.3.

Hartnell, C.A., Kinicki, A.J., Lambert, L.S., Fugate, M. and Doyle Corner, P., 2016. Do similarities or differences between CEO leadership and organizational culture have a more positive effect on firm performance? A test of competing predictions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(6), p.846.

Hellison, D.R., 2018. Teaching personal and social responsibility through physical activity. Human Kinetics.

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