Personal Reflection and Leadership Goals - Essay Example

Leadership Profile Personal Reflection and Leadership Goals I believe strongly in lifelong learning. With this in mind I have been following my dreams of pursing my doctoral degree for the sole purpose of developing my intellectual capacities and leadership abilities. I have worked with many physicians and medical facilities over the years which have brought me leadership ability and influenced my personal trajectory. While I do not have specifically defined career aspirations with the doctoral program -- as I like to leave my options open – I am extremely committed to gaining insight into myself, with particular emphasis on my leadership ability. I can visualize many different career paths from my experience that will require strong leadership skills for success. While I have worked from the bottom up and know the process inside and out, I am hoping that my research and study will help me develop a greater level of self-consciousness when attempting to assess my leadership ability and means of rectifying deficiencies and building on strengths. I have a thirst for knowledge -- I am always looking for more. It can be frustrating in one sense because there is never enough time to accomplish all that you would like to. There will always be challenges we face, but through this leadership profile and other methods of personal reflection I have develop throughout the course, I hope to achieve greater leadership ability and ultimately a higher level of knowledge about the world and humanity. While I believe I have many skills that will contribute to my success as a leader, I realize that there are many areas I need to develop and turn into strengths. After investigating my leadership style results and learning style, I have come to realize that to successfully carry my career plans to fruition I will need to become a more effective manager of people. Another significant concern I have about my future career will be to develop the necessary support to expand and take full-advantage of my life. I realize it will be necessary to cultivate a number of business contacts. I will also have to work towards developing contacts and remaining in-touch with them throughout my career. I believe this can begin now and indeed has been a focus of my life to this point, but also must be extended into my personal life, so that ultimately I must restructure my hobbies and interests to meet and develop important relationships that can potentially improve my leadership abilities. Personal Leadership Knowledge Gained Through Formal Assessments In developing a more insightful perspective into my personal traits and leadership style I undertook a number of formal assessments that offered insight into my learning style and leadership deficiencies. The first assessment I participated in was the Pearson leadership assessment. Out of a group of 500 students I placed in the second quartile. The implications for this are mixed. It does indicate that there is room for development of team building characteristics. Significant research into leadership within corporate settings attests to the importance of the development of such skills, "organizations adopting sets of practices that included teams as an important element of organizational design tended to excel on several performance dimensions (Guzzo & Dickson, p. 326, 1996)." When reflecting on these results and attempting to apply them to my own leadership style I think it’s important in great regards for team organizational ability to actually reflect a negation of traditional leadership values. It seems that to be a successful member of a team, the greatest leader will be able to subsume their inclination to assume control of the project for an identity that embraces cooperation and division of labor. It’s important to consider Franklin Roosevelt in this regard who stated, “A good leader cant get too far ahead of his followers.” I believe to become a successful leader requires me to further develop an understanding of interpersonal communication and the group dynamic. On the second portion of the Pearson leadership profile, titled “What’s My Preferred Conflict Handling Style?” there are five dividers of personal characteristics. My results reflected that I feel between the collaborating and compromising spectrum. Krasny indicates that this can be accomplished through an either aggressive or conservative approach. I realize that in my personal interactions with others a more subtle understanding of their personal learning styles, means of expression, and a general empathy and understanding of their character are traits that will benefit my leadership ability significantly in this realm. I understand that currently I possess instances of perhaps too harsh judgment and can at times even comes into conflict with others because of my lack of sufficient empathy. While this is a difficult trait to quantify and scientifically develop, my goal over the next year is to progressively engage in group situations that will allow and require me to develop more contingency on others for success. This may require finding volunteer work or similar work in group situations that will allow me to consciously assess my faults and work towards means of transcending them. I believe personal journaling would be an effective means of charting my progress and reflecting on my strengths and faults in such a regard. Research has noted the necessity of leaders to think clearly and keep the groups’ dynamic moving in the right direction (Daft, 2008). My Pearson results indicated that I demonstrated high concern for people and was task oriented. I believe this view reflects a Situational Leadership model rather than the previously discussed group centered approach, as the need to relate to diverse groups of people in diverse environments cannot be successfully developed and undertaken without significant understanding malleability and situational understanding. I see these traits as my greatest strengths as a leader. Namely, that when I engage in a new task or situation I am able to formulate clear and efficient objectives and motivate myself and others in their completion. I see my strengths in this regard, as the Pearson results substantiate, my recognition of the essential nature of leadership as true empathy for people coupled with the driving force of will and determination. Perhaps this concept was better formulated by ex-football coach Tom Landry who stated, “Leadership is getting someone to do what they dont want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.” The fourth portion of the Pearson assessment is titled “What’s my Preferred Method of Power Assessment?” and the tests revealed that scores were “high in using legitimate, expert and referent practices.” That is, I demonstrate the understanding that the application of rewards in an work environment is a complicated processed, that can be confused by the inability to reward everyone all the time. Avolio and Yammarino (2002) argue that the transactional leadership form rewards aspects of performance, but not as efficiently as the transformational leader. That is, the most successful leadership is achieved through effective methods of rewarding progress and performance. I have conducted research into theories of learning styles and applied the findings to my own learning processes to better develop a self-conscious objectivity in relation to my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. When analyzing the Kolb Learning Cycle (Kolb 1984), which situates the learning process as a four part cycle, wherein individuals tend towards one of the four poles, I tend to learn through the observation and reflection spectrum. I have also research the Honey & Mumford Learning Cycle (Honey & Mumford 1983) and attained slightly different results after completing the questionnaire (LdPride 2008). While the Kolb Cycle indicated my reflective observation approach, the Honey & Mumford Cycle situated me on the Pragmatist end of the spectrum. This indicates that I actively apply the knowledge I have gained. It also says that I dissatisfied with long discussions. When I reflect on this I can see ways this is indicative of my personality, as I prefer to become actively engaged in a subject rather than digressing on it. I understand others may prefer verbal means of explication and if I am to develop my skills as a leader, I will have to remain accepting and open to forms of knowledge processing that incorporate long discussions and other elements along the Kolb Cycle. It seems that the two scales differ slightly in the methods of testing and while I attain much of my knowledge through reflective observation, I also implement that knowledge in pragmatic ways. I believe these are essential traits for a potential leader to possess and will benefit me greatly as I leave school and enter the work environment. Conclusion While this leadership is an effective overview of my leadership strengths and weaknesses, I understand that it is necessary to continue to develop self-conscious means of assessment to chart my progress and leadership development. In the future, I hope to use this leadership profile as a foundational element in assessing my personal leadership traits, and my meta-understanding of their formulations. I ultimately see this profile as an organic work that should be constantly revisited and developed as I correspondingly develop personally and intellectually. I believe that it’s only through such means of conscious exploration that I can realistically achieve my leadership goals over the ensuing year. I believe that by assessing my progress through this year, I will be able to realistically determine the efficacy of my personal assessments and determine areas that require greater emphasis. This journey will require not only assessment of my personal shortcomings and strengths, but ultimately assessment of the techniques I use to chart this progress. References Avolio, B.J., Yammarino, F.J. (2002) Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead, JAI Elsevier Science, Amsterdam Daft, Richard (2008). The Leadership Experience, 4th Edition. South-Western Guzzo, Richard A. and Marcus W. Dickson. 1996. "Teams in Organizations: Recent Research on Performance and Effectiveness". Annual Review of Psychology, 47:307-338. Honey, P & Mumford, A, (1983). Using Your Learning Styles. Maidenhead, UK, Peter Honey Publications. Kolb, David (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. LdPride. (n.d.). What are learning styles? Retrieved October 17, 2008 Read More