Reflective Learning - Essay Example

Reflection a) What you learned from your own behaviour on your working place(or similar) One of the instances where I had the chance to exercise leadership was when I was given the responsibility to raise funds for our community project. My members consist of neighbours and friends of around 15 people. In our meeting, I explained to them that we are doing this project to make our own community better. I inspired them that if we will be successful in putting up our project, we can always claim that we are a part of it and that we did good for our community. I also made them believe that raising funds is not really hard as many of my peers thought. I made them understand that there are a lot of ways to raise funds we just have to be creative and exert a little effort to raise it. I introduce the idea of a garage sale with a party. The items that will be on sale will be the things that our neighbours are ready to dispose. To make the story short, we were able to exceed our objective to raise fund for our project while having fun at the same time. The other experience I had about leading a group was during a school project where I was assigned as a project leader. I was hesitant at first because I was anxious that I might end up doing the whole project myself if my team members will not work and cooperate. It was not as hard as I thought if one will just know how to push “the right button” or motivate the group members to work. Before these projects were realized, the process and dynamics of getting it done was quite tough. It was an interplay of leadership, organizational skill, team work and resolving personal issue among the members in the group. But the main component is leadership on how to direct the energy of the team to commit and realize our objective (Kayser and Melcher 2007). It was not easy asking people of my age to do certain things that it made me think how to go about it and in the process learned several things about myself. I learned that in getting people commit to do certain things, I have to get along with them very well especially if it is a volunteer work just like our community project or a school work where one cannot direct others because everybody is in equal footing (we are all students). I learned that I do pretty well in this department that it is almost effortless on my part. But I have to admit that there are things about me that is un-leader like that I have to change such as my tendency to procrastinate. I observed that when I procrastinate, my team members also did the same. There are also certain things about my behaviour that I did not realize to be a leadership trait. Knowing that my team members in our community project are not being paid to do it, I invoked their higher sense of achieving and contributing good when I told them that what we are doing is for the community and that we will become an invariable part of it because we worked hard for a project dedicated to our community. This is actually a trait of transformational leadership (Judge and Piccolo 2004). My good interpersonal skill also enabled me to effectively address an issue with our group. The person I assigned to go door to door in one of our streets suddenly did not show up. I was worried. But instead of passing judgment at him to be lazy and non-committal, I inquired what happened. I learned that my team member had a medical emergency at home because a sister has to be rushed to the hospital. When the issue was already done, my team member was very motivated to go door to door to collect things for our garage sale and this would not have been possible had I judged him earlier. On areas that I need to improve my behaviour about leadership, I believe it would be my organizational and administrative skills. I have to admit that I am disorganized as a leader. I realized this during the garage sale itself because I had hard time putting up the event. The event could have been better with more attendees and more funds could have been raised if I had a better organizational and administrative skill. If only I had assigned somebody to give out the flyers earlier, there could have been more people who came. I just realized that it is not enough to have a motivated team to be able to perform but also have the necessary structure to deliver the task (Kilmann et al 1986). It was however a memorable learning experience. b) What you will do differently in future as a result of this learning. The class provided me an opportunity to learn what leadership is and how power is related to it as well the different context of which it is applied. The class synthesized leadership that made me understand what makes a good leader and the approaches necessary to exercise good leadership. The class also enlightened me on how to motivate people and how to organize activities to optimize our performance as a team. Having learned these things in class, there are few things that I would like to improve on my leadership style and organizational skills to make me a better leader the next time that I will assume a leadership role be it in school, community or even during my professional life later. One of the aspects I talked about is my interpersonal skill which worked well for me in leading people but I think I overdid it. Interpersonal skill is the ability to work with others to achieve the organization’s goal (Chen 1998). But I think I overdid this before because I was beginning to treat my team mates and group mates as buddies who like to hang out more than a group that is trying to achieve something. This explains why our output was low community project. I knew we could have collected more things and had invited people had I been more organized. I became disorganized because we spent so much time hanging out and chatting instead of doing the process of management of planning. As a result of lack of planning, our group was in disarray where functions were not even defined that nobody knew exactly what to do. Next, I will define functions of management whose necessity was explained by the 14 principles of Henry Fayol which includes division of labour, authority and responsibility (Anon nd). I think the reason why I tend to befriend my group mates in getting things done is my way of motivating them. I have to admit I did not know much about motivation and befriending them was the only thing I knew. The class has taught me several things about motivation that opened my eyes on what makes people “tick”. The next time around I will assume leadership, I will look on the several dimensions that motivates people. This includes addressing how their needs advance as stipulated in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Kermally 2005). Since most of us has our biological and security needs, I will pay close attention to the realization need. I will also bear in mind that pay, compensation, or what will people get out of doing a job is not the ultimate motivator. This relates to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that once it is satisfied, people will be looking for other things, not necessarily material, but abstract things like self-actualization. Herzberg elaborated this that an interesting and engaging work is the one that makes people to commit to a certain objective quoting “intrinsic rewards such as interesting, challenging work and the opportunity to achieve and grow into greater responsibility” (1987:49). As a leader, I will strive to also be more transformational. I had to admit that sometimes I tend to become vain as a leader. Sometimes I am thrilled with the idea that I became a leader because I have an opportunity to direct people around to do the things that I tell them to do. It sometimes also crossed my mind that in some ways I am better than them because I am their leader. As a leader, this is not healthy. Perhaps it is forgivable at this point in time because I am still a teenager but this mindset will be a big liability when I am already a professional. Next time, I will change my perspective about leadership. Instead of thinking that I can direct people or that I am better than them, I will instead think on how can I make them better for them to become leaders themselves. Also, instead of being vain, I will improve myself so that my peers, group mates and subordinates will mirror themselves on me which is a characteristic of idealized leadership as expressed in a transformational leadership (Jamaludin et al 2010). I will bear in mind that good leaders also have to be good role models. Above all, I will capitalize on the higher calling of the people whenever I will be given a leadership role again. It is because when people understood the greater purpose of a certain task, they will not only their best in doing the job but it also makes them better in the process. Bibliography Chen, W., Jacobs, R., & Spencer, L. M. (1998). Calculating the competencies of stars, working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books Herzberg, Frederick I. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees?  Harvard Business Review, 65.30 (1987):48-61. Jamaludin Zaini; Rahman, Nik Mutasim Nik Ab.; Makhbul, Zafir Khan Muhammad; Idris, Fazli (2010). Do Transactional, Transformational and Spiritual Leadership Styles Distinct?, Journal of Global Business & Economics, 2(1):73-85 Judge TA, Piccolo RF.(2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology. 3(8):89-101 Kayser, Thomas A.; Melcher, Arlyn J. (2007). Human Resource Management, 12(4): 24 – 35 Kermally, Sultan (2005). CHAPTER FOUR: Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Gurus on People Management. p25-34 Kilmann, Ralph H.; Saxton, Mary J.; Serpa, Roy (1986). Issues in Understanding and Changing Culture. California Management Review, 28(2):87-94 Read More