The Outsider Transformational Leader in the Making - Personal Statement Example

My Self-reflective Insights Report My Self-reflective Insights Report (The Outsider Transformational Leader in the Making) Section 1: My Professional Experience goals and roles, my leading insights PE Goals and Related Goals Without a goal, a leader’s direction for the growth and development of his organization can hardly be identified (Aubrey, 2007). It is for this reason that I started off my roles by setting professional experience goals that I aimed to achieve. Generally, I named these the triangular goals of an outsider leader. This is because the goals; though could be made up of several specific objectives were categorized into three major thematic goals, listed as follows: 1. To work collaboratively with director and gain insight into the leadership role of a director. 2. To have a further in-depth insight into administrative and management roles/duties and responsibilities. 3. To improve my communication skills and show respect to all staff, children and families. A critical overview of my PE goals would reveal that they were structure to span around three major aspects of my roles and leadership experience. The first of these is an individual goal that aims for my personal development and growth as a leader. The second is an organizational goal that aims for the growth and development of the institution where I was working. The third goal is a social goal that aims for the betterment and wellbeing of the larger society through all staff, children and their families. Reading through my personal experience goals, it would be noted that they are related directly to me service learning. This is because through the practicum, there has been a number of enhanced learning experiences that have relate to the objectives. The first of these is the service learning on how to work in collaboration with a superior. There is also service learning on the daily administration and management of an early childhood institution. The final one is learning experience of how to relate with parents and other staff members at the centre. With a careful overview of my work plan as presented in Appendix 1, it would be noted that as posited by Smales (2002), I am more of an outsider rather than an insider. This is because most of my work plan was focused on establishing common grounds goals with the other staff so that our collective interest would be achieved rather than my personal interest. The first two activities listed in the work plan for each day from Monday to Friday gives a clear indication of such need to collaborate with other people. As Rodd (2013, p. 63) emphasised, a state of belonging as I tried to achieve as an outsider helps in personal capacity development, which was of course an important aspect of my professional and related goals. In a related manner, a number of ‘so whats’ can be identified as the meanings and relevance of my goals in terms of what I want to be as a future leader. First, my collaborative goals would mean that in future leadership, I shall be more comfortable as a democratic leader (Culkin, 1997). Next, my urge to have further in-depth insight into administrative and management roles means that into the future as a leader, I shall be aspiring for the highest possible positions that can get me to the very top (Healy et al, 2001). Finally, my goal to improve communication skills and respect for others means that I shall be a people-centred leader in the future. Insights on Leadership The creation of a leader’s profile has come to me with so much importance and relevance. This is because it has helped me in identifying some key professional insights as a leader and why these insights are worthwhile for me. In the first place, it was through the leader’s profile that I have discovered the type of leadership style that I shall be more comfortable as a future leader. As noted by McCrea and Ehrich (1999), leadership styles come in several forms and perceptions but applying the wrong leadership style in a given situation would be just as bad as not having a leader at all. The leader’s profile has thus become worthwhile for me because by identifying the leadership style that works best for me, I am on my way to becoming an effective leader. The second key professional insight that I have gained from the creation of a leader’s profile is that it has totally changed by view and perception about the relevance of leadership. Before my placement, I viewed leadership as a privilege, rather than a responsibility. To this end, I only saw leadership from a positional perspective. However with the leader’s profile and some of the specific roles that were demanded on me in the profile, I have now come to admit that leadership indeed be shared or distributed, and presents itself as a responsibility to work with others to ensure the achievement of a collective goal (Healy et al, 2001). From my currently gained insight on leadership, I have come to realise that when leadership becomes self centred, the leader becomes less effective and efficient (Culkin, 1997). This is because whiles working in collaboration with other staff and the director, lots were achieved within very small time frame. Section 2: My potential leadership style and metaphor Future Leadership My future leadership is speculated to be one that will be very interesting and one that attracts people because of the approach from which it shall be perceived. Generally, I noted from my experience and practicum that when leaders are very open with their subordinates and allow for an all-inclusive leadership, they become much loved and thus attract people to themselves (Morgan, 2006). From my brief experienced gained in the early childhood field, I have come to realise that the interest of children and their parents, and for that matter the larger society is best served when a concept of leadership that attracts people to itself is practiced and used. Until taking my place at the institution, not much had been discovered about my personality in relation to how it could make me a good leader in the future and the specific leadership styles that would best meet my professional goals. By completing my placement however, I have come to gain a concept about leadership that makes me have a strong convection that I would function best as a leader, practicing the transformational leadership style. According to Geoghegan (2003), “transformational leadership emphasizes on the significance of the person, and their personal traits in bringing about social change and cultural change.” Meanwhile at the institution, I worked in a collaborative effort at the institution, seeking for people centred changes rather than individualistic changes. This means that I am going to be more comfortable with transformational leadership. For the proposed and purported leadership concept and leadership style touched on above to come true, there are a number of specific activities that need to be performed to ensure that these are achieved. In this context, the specific activities are named ‘so what’, and they are believed to have relevant professional implications for me. One of the most important ‘so what’ is the need for me to constantly have a practicing field where I shall be exercising and experimenting with leadership. The reason for saying this is that leadership is a continuous and daily affair that must be performed without stress (McCrea and Ehrich, 1999). The absence of constant practice before one is met with an actual leadership position would therefore mean there could possibly be sluggish performance. On a personal note, I shall ensure that I use my family, my friends, and any list opportunity presented to practice the act of being a great transformational leader. Professional Metaphor A metaphor is generally something that is used to represent another thing to make meaning in a given context. To this end, a professional metaphor on leadership would seek to find a situational context from which my future leadership approach can be represented with. In this situation, I represent my leadership approach to a magnet. It would be noted that a magnet is a substance that has the potential to attract some types of objects such as metals. A magnet does not however attract certain kinds of substances such as wood, plastic and rubber. Generally, it may be inferred that magnets attract more valuable and heavy substances. In effect, as a leader who wants to practice transformational leadership that is guided with an open administration, there is the likelihood that I shall always have been attracted to me. In a typical institution, leaders are not often attracted by lazy and non-performing staff and stakeholders (Aubrey, 2007). Such groups of people who may not support the need for collaborative efforts in achieving the common goal of the early childhood institution will therefore not be attracted by me. In relation to my style of leading, it would be noted that transformational leaders work well with the input and contribution of subordinates (Morgan, 2006). This means that to be successful as a transformational leader, human capital development is very crucial. As a magnet, I shall be in a position to draw people, most of whom will be hard working subordinates to myself so that I can give them the needed human development capitalisation to promote the growth of my outfit. As far as human capital development is concerned it has also been stressed that after the human resource receive the necessary competence training and development, they must be given the chance to practice on the job (Morgan, 2006). Meanwhile, such room for practice cannot prevail if I do not behave like the magnet, freely opening up my office and my affairs for the trained staff to try their hands on something within the workplace. In conclusion, my effectiveness as a transformational leader shall not be realised if like a magnet, I do not open myself up to be attracted by people who work under me. Picture of a magnet attracting nails to its self Source: X Factor LLC (2013) References Aubrey, C. (2007). Leading and managing in the early years. London: Sage Publications Culkin, M. (1997). Administrative Leadership- In leadership in Early Care and Education. National Association for the Education of Small Children, 4, 23-33. Geoghegan, N., Petriwskyj, A., Bower, L., & Geoghegan, D. (2003). Eliciting dimensions of educational leadership in early childhood education. Journal of Australian Research in Early Childhood Eduction, 10 (1), 12-22. Healy, L., Ehrich, L., Hansford, B. & Stewart, D. (2001). Conversations: a means of learning, growth and change. Journal of Educational Administration, 39 (4), 332-345. McCrea, N. & Ehrich, L. (1999). Changing Leaders’ Educational Hearts. Education Management and Administration, 27, (4) , 431 – 440 Morgan, G. (2006). The challenge of metaphor. In: Images of organization / Gareth Morgan. Updated ed. Thousand Oaks : London: Sage Publications, 2006 Rodd, J. (2005). Leadership in early childhood. Maidenhead: Open University Press Smales J. (2002). Insider or Outsider Researchers ? Early Childhood Matters.100(5), p. 19 X Factor. Non- Profit Marketing Sustainability Board Governance. 2013. Web. 13th September, 2013 Read More