Leadership in My Field Analysis - Essay Example

Leadership Task SECTION ONE: QUESTIONNAIRE Please answer to the queries by filling in the blanks. Any other additional information you may have you are encouraged to include it on the provided blanks. 1 PERSONAL INFORMATION: I) Name of organization: II) Name of individual: III) Age: IV) Sex: V) Position in the organization: VI) Period of time you have worked: VII) Email Address: VIII) Phone number: 2 How would you rate your relationship with those under your management? 3 What is your approach to problem solving? 4 Do you accomplish all entailed aspects of your work? 5 I) Are you able to stay a step ahead of everyone? II) How do you do that? 6 I) What is the significance of motivation? II) Do you motivate those under your management? III) How do you motivate them? 7 What strategies are you using to aid the achievement of the firm’s goals and objectives? 8 Is social aspect of an organization important? Why? 9 I) Do you think you are a good leader? II) What do you think entails a good leader? III) List two responsibilities of a good leader 10 How do you handle the weak employees under your management? Interviews & Analysis The key rationale of this undertaking is to have an overview on three aspects of leadership: styles of leadership, leadership behaviors and leadership environment. Leadership is a vast topic and entails many issues. I decided to take in a few of them to suit my ideas and opinions. The questions used in the questionnaire allowed me to cover the basic aspects of leadership. These are social aspect, problem-solving aspect, level of work accomplishment, motivation (self and group), prioritization of achievement of goals, characteristics of a good leader, team management strategies. These questions made me have a decent incite on leadership. Leadership involves the relationship between the leader and the people she/he is leading. The group should have an excellent rapport with their leader to an extent they will not have an issue in approaching him/ her for consultation, advice or even guidance. It also, involves the control and command the leader has over his juniors. This will determine the leader’s effectiveness in pushing towards accomplishment of the organization’s goals. Leadership of a person can be graded as satisfactory or lousy when we get to know his views on what good leadership is. This is because it has been said, “what a man thinks so is he”. This means a leader will lead a group according to how she/he thinks is good leadership. People will work well when they are motivated, from their leader and if they can motivate themselves. A leader should have certain team management strategies to be aligned with the group. These strategies need to be changed with time so as to suite different periods. Finally, a leader’s priority should be achieving of the organization’s objectives. Interview answers: 1) PERSONAL INFORMATION Response from participant 1: Merciline shore, female, overseas accountancy firm, 32years, junior manager, 12years, mshore@gmail.com, (020)7965416 Response from participant 2: Austin Burk, male, overseas accountancy firm, 48years, HR Manager, 20years, bustin@yahoo.com, (020) 9467531 Response from participant 3: Shane fore, male, overseas accountancy firm, 55years, C.E.O, 35years, fshane@gmail.com, (020) 5641237 2) How would you rate your relationship with those under your management? Response from participant 1: Good Response from participant 2: Close Response from participant 3 : Friendly 3) What is your approach to problem solving? Response from participant 1: first is problem identification and assessment, then consult with those involved or affected, come up with a solution, then apply it. Response from participant 2: examination of the problem immediately, call for a meeting and ran it by the group hear their ideas on the issue, look for a solution then solve the problem. Response from participant 3: tackle it immediately before the condition worsens, find a solution, and consult with the group if necessary then solve it. 4) Do you accomplish all entailed aspects of your work? Response from participant 1: Yes Response from participant 2: Yes Response from participant 3: Yes 5) (I) Are you able to stay a step ahead of everyone? Response from participant 1: Yes Response from participant 2: Yes Response from participant 3: Yes (II) how do you do that? Response from participant 1: by having analysis of the market am working in, compare strengths and weaknesses with other active organizations then, The information collected from this important exercise enables one to take a more active position. Response from participant 2: getting information from the internet, hence get to know where the company stands in the market. This allows one to be focused in uplifting the company making it more competitive. Response from participant 3: close monitoring of market trends, competition, and how the company if fairing through social media. 6) (I) what is the significance of motivation? Response from participant 1: it gives one a positive energy hence improves level of performance of a person which in turn leads to an optimistic and challenging approach at work place Response from participant 2: it boosts morale which in turn empowers the team leading to growth of organization Response from participant 3: it raises the spirits and drive of a person leading to an increase and improvement in productivity. II) Do you motivate those under your management? Response from participant 1:Yes Response from participant 2: Yes Response from participant 3: Yes III) How do you motivate them? Response from participant 1: financial incentives Response from participant 2: Promotion chances for employee Response from participant 3: attention (relations) from senior personnel is motivational for instance, congratulate staff member on events like childbirth, how one’s vacation was. 7) What strategies are you using to aid the achievement of the firm’s goals and objectives? Response from participant 1: preparation and direction, compilation and do research, dispensation and storage ,investigation and production, distribution and delivery Response from participant 2: resource should be allocated well, maximizing profit production, ensure good workers rapport. Response from participant 3: strategy of cost leadership ,strategy of focus and strategy of differentiation 8) Is social aspect of an organization important? Why? Response from participant 1: Yes, this is because an organization is made up of many people working together and their relationships with each other affect the way they work. Response from participant 2: Yes, because their working depends on the type of interaction they have with each other. Response from participant 3: Yes, this is due to relations between people working together directly affects their performance in their work. 9) (I) Do you think you are a good leader? Response from participant 1: Yes Response from participant 2: Yes Response from participant 3: Yes (II) What do you think entails a good leader? Response from participant 1: trustworthy, not biased, have good analytical skills, tolerant, courageous and orderly. Response from participant 2: confident, optimistic, trustworthy, good analytical skills, fast decision maker, inspire people, and focused on achieving goals. Response from participant 3: courageous, trustworthy, not biased, honest, tolerant, orderly, and enthusiastic, remain calm and collected during crisis, give people direction and guidance, optimistic. III) List two responsibilities of a good leader Response from participant 1: make major decisions, guide and direct people Response from participant 2:inspire people, assist in achieving goals of a company Response from participant 3: solves problem, carries out Supervision and evaluation. Leadership in my field analysis Trustworthy Trust is the chief foundation on which most relationships are built on. It is therefore vital in the creation of a functional and healthy environment in working situation. As a leader one has to be trustworthy, this is because those under you are closely assessing your integrity and values. This is because people one is leading want an assurance that trust is in safe hands and can follow you. When there is trust, your team members’ willingness to give their best is heightened. Self awareness and impact on others As a leader, one should be keen on their impact on others. This can be done by watching those around you react to you and modifying oneself to make certain a relationship is being built. passionate Great leaders should have a vision of accomplishing the organizations goals. They are conscious of where they desire to be and have the knowledge to motivate individuals in believing the vision. Decision making and communication They are passionate about their vision. Leadership comes with making important decisions. This requires one to approach it in a holistically and look at all angles of the situation before making any decision. A good leader plans, is wise and sensitive with exemplary analytical and logical skills. A good leader should support those under their management, show compassion. This can be done by inspiring their team, helps to bring out the best in them, give them direction and guidance, and offer them support. One should be great communication skills i.e., good persuader and orator. Being extremely knowledgeable about his field of work is a crucial characteristic of a good leader. Being aware and thorough enables one to solve queries and problem, and train those under his/her management. Optimistic and enthusiastic Being optimistic and have a positive stance no matter the situation is a vital character in a good leader. The success of overcoming challenges in leadership is determined by attitude of the individual. An optimistic leader should have the ability of instilling this positive energy to those in his/her work place. A leader should be enthusiastic about their leadership role, also their work. From having, passion and commitment to their work leaders will receive more positive response (Klann, 2007). confidence For a leader to lead, set, and give direction she/ he need to be or appear confident. Portraying of courage inspires others to be confident too. This is because they channel the confidence to themselves giving the team the best quality to do their work. Confidence should be seen in decision-making, undertaking projects, in what one does, and in the vision and objectives of the organization. Good leaders are; open-minded to uncertainty, remain cool, calm, collected, and dedicated to the main purpose. A leader should not be shaken emotionally in times of crisis as they come and go, and know that the rest are looking up to them. Dedication to self-improvement, need to expand and grow set apart a good leader. Discovering their potential and ways in which one can be the greatest version of him/ her is a commendable character of a leader. The way one feels about oneself often leads to unconscious patterns. You can have it all as a good leader, but lack of self worth damages one hence cannot carry out their work as they have the “belief” that they are not good enough. Self-esteem plays a vital part in one’s success as a leader. Therefore, a good leader should have high self-esteem and self worth. excellent Excellence can be defined as being the best you can be in the boundaries of doing what is right for your company. A good leader should build excellence and not command for it. Excellence comes once one is a good quality leader (Clippinger, 2002). This means doing all what you are meant to do. Organizations will not attain excellence by figuring out where it needs to go, then, have the cream of the crop do whatsoever in line to get the work completed, and then anticipate that their leaders acted with good nature. This sort of thinking is primitive. Pursuing excellence should not be mistaken with attaining a job. When you do your preparation, do it by planning backwards. It should be made clear that one does not attain excellence by backwards planning. Excellence begins with leaders of high-quality and sturdy character who take on in the entire procedure of the headship. Step 1 is being an individual of respectable nature. For a leader to be a good one, is by being really, really clear yourself, and what matters most to you as a person. Failure sets in when one tries to be everything to everyone or attempt to do excessively much past the boundaries of excellence. A leader should be supportive to the visions and objectives of the firm, his management strategies and support those under him. When she/ he support his/ her team members, this gives them a sense of security and increase their productivity and performance. SECTION 2: SELF REFLECTION First, I will mention my character because one’s character goes hand-in-hand with the type of a leader one is. I am confident, patient, and keen on details, trustworthy, passionate with my work, a hard worker and a perfectionist. As a leader, I can say that I am confident, tolerant, enthusiastic, passionate, and trustworthy. My leadership style is democratic. I find it suitable, as I am a firm believer in everyone having a right to be heard. I also prefer this style because by using it I get to learn a lot even some things that I did not know, hence I have a chance of expand and grow knowledge wise. Democracy gives me a chance to interact with my subordinates hence build a firm relationship and good rapport. This has earned me respect with them. Nevertheless, I will not exactly say that I use democracy only. I have found myself using authoritarian and delegative styles. This is due to the type of circumstance that presents its self. Some of the forces influencing the type of style I use are time available, basics of relationship, source of information, task type, levels of stress, level of training of subordinates and if there is a conflict. For instance if there is a new subordinate learning his/ her work and am coaching, I will use authoritarian. If there happens to be a problem that I know of, but do not have all the information, I will use democracy. When the subordinate knows everything, I do not have to do everything so I use delegative. Followership style is based on two significant dimensions. First, is the support given to a leader by a follower and the second is the degree, which a follower will go to challenge the leader. My followership style is the individualistic. That is; support is low and challenge is high. I am outspoken, so I do not waver to tell my leader what I think of his/ her actions. Due to this, I find myself marginalizing myself because I do not share equally with the rest supporting some initiatives by the leader. Hence the, I would work best with an authoritarian leader and a democratic leader. This is because at times I can be carried away so need control hence the authoritarian leader. In addition, since I can easily air out my views I can work with a democratic leader. As a leader, I would love to have a friendly bur respectful type of relationship with my subordinates. I want it to be friendly that they can feel free to approach me for guidance and counsel. This will make working with them easy, and they would not be afraid to run something by me before they undertake it. In addition, I would love a relationship where my subordinates can freely air their views without any sort of fear but are careful not to cross their boundaries with me. Situational leadership is a good approach according o me. This is because it is based on the subordinates. It involves coming up with a leadership style and adapting it in accordance to the type of group you are leading. My style of situational leadership is participation, one where direction is low and support is high. It is more like a close friend’s relationship. Followers are at liberty or independent in accomplishing their respective duties. The suitable situation for my leadership style is where the group or team members are out spoken and can openly speak their minds. Most challenging situation for me is where the leader is the sole decision maker; the subordinates have no room or are not involved. SECTION 3: SELF REFLECTION A good leader is mostly defined by the subordinates below his rank and the nature of performance of his/her duties. There is a need to achieve a strengthening bond in a work institution to increase the efficiency in the quantity of the work performed. Apart from building the realized strengths in working bond required, there must be an ease in the delay of information hence making communication a vital tool to achieve results. Individuals develop most leadership qualities over a period and the properly trained leaders emanate from strong backgrounds that insist on discipline and order. Success in any organization including my BUS 401group is defined by the leadership quality from the higher authorities who insist in carrying out thorough organizational check-ups to repair any external and internal threatening factor. As a leader, the most effective means to achieve respect and responsibility share would involve ensuring the rules are adhered to properly to limit indiscipline. The rule book normally holds the punishments that are the consequence of any form of indiscipline and I should ensure to appoint other positions to assist in the governing process. A good leader further allocates duty to selected individuals within the setting to help preside over the set rules to improve organizational efficiency. As mentioned in section 2, I strive to build a healthy relationship with my subordinates and encourage freedom of airing opinions without any form of judgment. Individuals in an institution need assurance and protection from the leader to improve on the loyalty and respect that is mostly desired by an effective leadership. The current situation that I deal with in BUS 401 is limiting because handling a smaller group of individuals is easier as compared to leading a larger organization. Working with the group teaches on the importance of teamwork that is desired by a good leader to develop relationship attitudes. A group is composed of variable individuals and the easier means to handle crises would entail understanding the behavioral characteristic of the individual. In my group there needs to be constant motivational ideas and points that assist to build morale. As a leader, I need to apply these techniques to encourage my subordinate to improve on the work allocated. My organizational members need constant reminder of the positive work they perform and I should ensure that they are rested properly before allocation of the next task. As a good leader, my listening and understanding capabilities need to be superb. There should be limited room for confrontation and discipline induction into any situation need to adhere to protocols. A form of honesty and idea exchange forums need to be arranged and as a leader, I will need to constantly review the feelings of my members of BUS 401 towards my leadership techniques. If I were assigned the similar group members, my leadership styles would be better because leading a group that one is more familiar with proves easier as compared to a new subordinate crew. Understanding the ability of my workers and assign duties according to their capabilities would get more work completed and majority of the stress limited. In conclusion, my capability to relate effectively with my members to generate better result would define my good leadership skills. There is a need for understanding and corporation between every individual within the group, including myself to generate the desired result. To know whether the leadership is successful, the attitude of my members towards the assigned task is measured and positivity would carry the order of the day. Members of BUS 401 are familiar with my qualities and they would recognize the skills of the individual they want to be their leader. As a leader, I would incorporate the skills of every member in the task completion and believe I would achieve success because I have worked with them for a longer period and aware of the weaknesses attributes in each individual. BUS 401 is characterized with increased efforts in task completion therefore limiting unnecessary errors. With a unifying factor, most duties are successfully completed. SECTION 4: LEADERSHIP EDUCATION PLAN A leader in my field should have the ability to communicate easily with people he/ she is managing. This means he/ she should be an excellent orator and fluent hence can pass information to others. This is a vital part of training as people work well when communication channel is perfect. How to about this is by helping the trainee know about various communication skills and be keen on body language as it also speaks volumes. Some of these skills are like; spending more time in listening to others than talking, not finishing sentences for others, avoid answering a question with a question, having control of one’s biasness, give people full attention when talking to them and plan what to say once the person is done talking. In my field, a leader should understand what kind of a leader he/ she are. Understanding what kind of a leader one is will assist one to know how to carry out leadership effectively. This needs one to carry out self-evaluation. It will help in knowing what kind of a person one is. The trainee needs to be helped in figuring out his or her strong points, weak points and be able to put them in leadership in a way that will bring out the best kind of leadership in the individual. A leader in my field should be competent in solving problems. Problem solving is one of the duties of a leader. The trainee should be taught on the steps of problem solving. They are; problem identification, gathering of information, then together with the group he / she should come up with a list of actions to take, then carry out comparison and analysis of the listed action courses, decide one course. After deciding, the trainee should stat planning. Then finally, he/ she can execute the plan. Leadership in my field requires one to understand different leadership styles and know how to use appropriate style to different situations. Despite understanding one’s leadership style, the trainee should be made to comprehend that flexibility is vital when it comes to carrying out leadership. He/ she needs to be taught on the dissimilar leadership styles and know in what kind of situations he/ she should apply each. This is because situations arise from nowhere, and the ultimate test of an excellent leader is hoe he/she handles different kinds of situations that present themselves (Zapke-Schauer 2005). Leaders need experience in order to have a place they can extract from For a leader to polish up his/ her skills they need to have experience in the field. The way to have this kind of experience is by first having knowledge of the field. Then they need a place to practice, hence that is why they need to be given internships, part time jobs and have mentorship programs. At least they can have something they can refer to when a similar situation reoccurs hence can cater to it with ease. In this field, a leader needs to know how to manage his/ her team. Leadership entails dealing with many different personalities and as a leader one should device a way to deal with all of them equally. So, the trainee needs to be taught on how to maintain his/ her influence on people, how to handle sensitive employee problems and issues, efficiently handling employees’ emotional troubles, promote optimistic team spirit and motivating of employees. As a leader, one needs to have a clear mind. In this field, leadership is effortless; it can become draining and hectic. This will have one feeling very low. Hence, a trainee can be trained on ways to motivate oneself in order to have a clear mind. Also should be taught how to be able to manage him/ her. This enables one to be able to stay afloat in everything easily. References Clippinger, J. (2002). Leadership. Prentice hall. Retrieved on January 9, 2012 from: Klann, G. (2007). Building character: strengthening the heart of good leadership. London: John Wiley & Sons. Zapke-Schauer, G. (2005). The Art of Leadership: Ideas and Inspiration for Effective Leadership. Munich: Gabler Verlag. Read More