The Purpose of the Leadership Learning Journal - Essay Example

LEADERSHIP LEARNING JOURNAL This diary-mode learning journal focuses on how to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of self-awareness in relation to organizational resources based on insights that provides with an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which the issues and concepts raised in the course affect us personally in your role as a manager and leader. This journal is a structured way to develop the skill of continuous acquisition to apply in the interpersonal relationship of an organization as a confidential, written record of our personal development. Order#: 199187 Deadline: 2007-12-24 11:10 Style: Harvard Language Style: English US Pages: 5 Sources: 5 Writer ID: 6746 INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE OF THE LEARNING JOURNAL Self-awareness paves the way to manage and lead. It provides us the boat to row our personal growth, career development, and an enhanced ability to understand and have empathy with others. It helps us to build value oriented interpersonal relationship while applying innovative strategies to adept on demand of the circumstances. Such experience indeed has constructive role in an organization. Precisely, developing a willingness and ability to engage in self-reflection, is a critical leadership skill. The cult of leadership include using decision-making structures such as co-operative ventures, collegiality, consensus are the true traits of applied democracy. LEADERSHIP MEANS KNOWING MORE TO ASCEND Leadership, a critical management skill, is the ability to motivate a group of people toward a common goal. Leadership is about behavior first, skills second. Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they possess. Leadership relies on management skills too, but more so on qualities such as integrity, honesty, humility, courage, commitment, sincerity, passion, confidence, positivity, wisdom, determination, compassion and sensitivity. Today ethical leadership is more important than ever. The world is more transparent and connected than it has ever been. Media and the public scrutinize the actions and philosophies of organizations as never before. This coincides with massively increased awareness and interest among people everywhere in corporate responsibility. A constant growing leader plan carefully, with their people where appropriate, and work to achieve the set aims. At times, they may have to redefine or develop their own new aims and priorities. They need to set and agree clear standards. Further, they need to ensure look after people and that communications and relationships are good. Apart from self-growth every accomplished leaders select good people and help them to develop and always support people while they strive to improve and take on extra tasks. Good leadership principles must cascade down through the whole organization. This means that if leaders are leading a large organization they must check that the processes for managing, communicating and developing people are in place and working properly. Communication is critical that emphasis on to listen, consult, involve, and explain why as well as what needs to be done. LEADERS BUILDS THE TRUST OF CREDIBILITY James Macgregor Burns introduced a normative element known as an effective Burnsian leader will unite followers in a shared vision that will improve an organization and society. Burns calls leadership that delivers "true" value, integrity, and trust transformational leadership. Thus, transformational leadership requires an evaluation of quality, independent of the market demand that exhibits in the number of followers. If we seek one single most important behavior that will rapidly earn respect and trust among the people, then we need to give our people the credit for the achievements and successes. No good leader takes the credit himself. He must however take the blame and accept responsibility for any failings or mistakes that his people make. In any case, if there is failure, their failing is his responsibility - true leadership offers is no hiding place for a true leader. He needs to take time to listen to and really understand people, ask about what people do and think, and how they think for improvements. Organizational accomplishment fetches desired goal when we provide people with relevant interesting opportunities, with proper measures and rewards. As a leader we need take difficult decisions bravely, and be truthful and sensitive when we implement them. Constantly we must seek to learn from the people around us - they will teach us more about ourselves than anything else. One of the criteria of leading we must embrace change, but not for changes sake. For this we should begin to plan our own succession as soon as we take up your new post, and in this regard, ensure that the only promises we ever make are those that you we guarantee to deliver. TOOLS OF LEADERSHIP: PHYSIOLOGY LANGUAGE AND FOCUS TOWARDS THE BUILDING OF FUTURISTIC MANAGERS. There are innumerable attributions of leadership qualities. Prime among them are taking right decision in complex situations, seek guidance from the environment, stand firm on decisions, learn the tools to rule with trust and confidence and follow the strategy of judicious planning to execute. My personal experience suggests that physiology plays a vital role to influence on the mindset of the people that I need to rely on. It is nothing but power of body language. This is actually a metaphor of linguistic power. It is like visualizing a dream before we can translate a reverie into reality. It follows the significant part of communication that we often attribute as the power of words-language. The idea can be illustrated with appreciation, motivate and inspire via the meditative conveyance of easy convincing. Eventually, the most important factor of leadership attribution is focus. It means perseverance of the self and the organization in case of failures. A very general concept of human understanding in this context is our acceptance of failure to retrospect for remedial measure. We need to share our failure as, we every good leader love to share success. According to Anthony Robbins who coaches leaders for futuristic leadership says these three components makes leaders in making for leadership is not a stagnant career. It grows with the pace of time. Since standards and measures are some way from being clearly defined and agreed, but this does not reduce the relevance of the concept, nor the growing public awareness of it, which effectively and continuously re-shapes markets and therefore corporate behavior. Leaders need to understand and respond to such huge attitudinal trends, whether they can be reliably accounted for or not at the moment. Adaptability and vision - as might be demonstrated via project development scenarios or tasks - especially involving modern communications and knowledge technologies - are also critical for certain leadership roles, and provide unlimited scope for leadership development processes, methods and activities. Cultural diversity is another topical and very relevant area requiring leadership involvement. Large organizations particularly must recognize that the market-place, in terms of staff, customers and suppliers, is truly global now, and leaders must be able to function and appreciate and adapt to all aspects of cultural diversification. A leader who fails to relate culturally well inevitably condemns the entire organization to adopt the same narrow focus and bias exhibited by the leader. There is a big difference between short-term return on investment versus long-term change. Each warrants a different type of leadership style, and actually very few leaders are able to adapt from one to the other. Intuition is one of such criterion when we also prove that self-motivation is the key to success. It opens all doors. You know that your best people are self-motivated self-starters. The tools to achieve this seemingly lofty goal are easy-to-learn leadership skills. Employees can accomplish once our leadership skill unleashes the power of their own motivations. It includes how to effectively deal with stress and problematic workplace conditions and behaviors such as bosses, bureaucracy, negative attitudes and personality clashes. CONCLUSION: LEAVE THINGS TO SITUATIONS TO TEACH MORE OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP TRAITS. Most skilled leaders or the leaders of inherited talent apply experience that they acquired during different phases of time. Time, in other words situations teach us the necessary survival skills. In academics of leadership, education it is called Servant Leadership which foretells that Man is the slave of Circumstances. Leadership is a defiance armament to cope up with difficult circumstances. Servant leadership is an approach to leadership development, coined and defined by Robert Greenleaf and advanced by several authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Serge, Max De Pree, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, and others. Servant-leadership emphasizes the leaders role as steward of the resources such as human, financial and otherwise provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while staying focused on achieving results in line with the organizations values and integrity. Unlike leadership approaches with a top-down hierarchical style, Servant Leadership instead emphasizes collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. At heart, the individual is a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead in order to better serve others, not to increase their own power. The objective is to enhance the growth of individuals in the organization and increase teamwork and personal involvement. One of the differentiating factors between Management and Leadership is the ability or even necessity to inspire. A Leader, one who can instill passion and direction to an individual or group of individuals, will be using psychology to affect that group either consciously or unconsciously. In modern dynamic environments, formal bureaucratic organizations have started to become less common because of their inability to deal with fast-changing circumstances. Most modern business organizations as well as some government departments encourage what they see as "leadership skills" and reward identified potential leaders with promotions. REFERENCE: 1. Larry Spears, ed. Reflections on Leadership ISBN 0-471-03686-2/ ed. Insights on Leadership ISBN 0-471-17634-6 2. John J. Sullivan, Servant First! Leadership for the New Millennium ISBN 1-594672-27-X 3. Carlopio, J., et al.  2005, Developing Management skills - a comprehensive guide for leaders, 3rd Ed. Pearson, Sydney. p.464-465 4. Boyatzis, R. (2005) Resonant Leadership: Renewing yourself and connecting with others through mindfulness, hope and compassion, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. 5. Daft, R.L. (2002) The Leadership Experience, Thomson South-Western, Ohio. 6. Derr, C.B. (2002) Cross-cultural approaches to leadership development, Quorum Books, Westport, Conn. 7. Freedman, M. & Tregoe, B.B. (2003) The art and discipline of strategic leadership, McGraw-Hill, New York. 8. Argyris, C. (1976) Increasing Leadership Effectiveness, Wiley, New York, 1976 (even though published in 1976, this still remains a "standard" reference text) 9. Pitcher, P. (1994 French) Artists, Craftsmen, and Technocrats: The dreams realities and illusions of leadership, Stoddart Publishing, Toronto, 2nd English edition, 1997. ISBN 0-7737-5854-2 10. Renesch, John (1994) Leadership in a New Era: Visionary Approaches to the Biggest Crisis of Our Time, San Francisco, New Leaders Press (paperback 2002, New York, Paraview Publishing Read More