Change as an Essential Component in an Organization - Coursework Example

INTRODUCTION The work at hand is a report on the implementation of the proponent’s learning plan and the achievement of the learning goal. By using the selected theories and diagnostic tools the proponent clearly identified the gap in personal skills, knowledge and abilities. Specifically, the learning plan provides the proponent with the required resources to undertake self-learning and development that address the leaderly behaviour gap. This allows one to evaluate his or her current gap and the required learning for on-going leaderly behaviour development. Specifically, the evaluation task focuses on the following learning outputs. 1. Analysis of the issues involved in leadership in organisation especially within the context of change. 2. Explanation of the movement from leadership positions to leaderly behaviour including the context of these roles. 3. Analysis of the interface between leadership and management. 4. Identification of leadership potential and appropriate development programs. 5. Explanation of contemporary leadership approaches and recognition of a particular approach/syle/behaviour through a contemporary leadership lens. 6. Critical reflection on own skills to develop and evolve own leadership capabilities. In other words, the work at hand provides essential discussion of the following parts such as the literature review, learning contract outcomes, critical self-reflection and analysis of the outcomes, future personal development of leaderly behaviour and the conclusion. LITERATURE REVIEW Change is an essential component in an organization. However, to implement this, it requires a great leader to initiate the necessary change. Liu (2008) states, that in order to understand the role of leadership toward changes, the two approaches rooted in the leadership literature and in generating followers’ support for change should be utilized. Thus, rooted in the leadership literature, an approach sees that charismatic leadership is effective during times of change. DuBrin (2015) considers that it is the transformational leader that possesses such personal characteristics that enable the leaders to be the most effective. Agreeableness and extraversion are the main personality factors that are able to increase their interpersonal relationships. Northouse (2012) states, that charismatic leadership describes leader as the one that advocates change of others and thus the concept if consistent with the society’s notion of how it perceive leadership. As Liu (2008) declares, there is also a perception that leaders of not highly transformational approach are still able to manage the change initiative and therefore should call for commitment to the specific change that is corresponding to their change-specific behaviors. Within the academic literature there is a need to speak about other important approaches to leadership such as trait, behavioral, and situational approaches. Fleenor (2006) speaks of the trait approach to leadership as the one that was the earliest theory, however, was not fully articulated. He also states that there are only few traits that distinguish between leaders and followers. In such context, leaders are perceived as people with higher level of intelligence, extraversion and ability to adjust their actions and decisions to the changeable conditions. Derue, Nahrgang, Wellman and Humphrey (2011) consider that there is a need to look beyond leaders traits and consider how these leaders’ behavior impact their effectiveness. Such notion bears a behavior paradigm of leadership research. There should be an understanding of what traits distinguish leaders from other people and since traits cannot be independent, it requires researchers to study this question carefully. Derue, Nahrgang, Wellman and Humphrey (2011) speak about how relative validity of leader traits can differ by the leadership effectiveness. Under this approach, such criteria as demographics, task competence, interpersonal attributes and relative validity of leaders’ traits are essential. McCleskey (2014) defines that effective leadership requires realization of every concrete situation within the business environment, and then an appropriate response would be suitable for the leader. Such understanding is associated with the situational leadership that is evolved from the task-oriented versus people-oriented leadership continuum (McCleskey, 2014). Kaifi et al (2013) displays the essential role of situational leadership as it is composed of directive and supportive dimensions that allow a leader to apply each of them in the particular situation. The orientation on people is more vivid with the situational approach as successful completion of certain task requires a leader to find out what ones’ subordinates need and to adapt to these needs at the same time support people for optimum outcome. Though theory is criticized for its narrow attention on the situational variable, it still contributes a lot on leadership effectiveness since it highlights the leaders need in adaptation to different situations (Seyranian, n.d.). In other words, each of leadership theories takes an individualistic perspective of the leader, hence, an emphasis should be paid to what a concrete person is capable to handle. Bolden, Gosling, Marturano and Dennison (2003) put an emphasis on the trait approach as it identifies the main characteristics of the successful leaders. For personal leadership development such traits as alert to social environment, self-confidence and energetic are important in building good leadership qualities that also enable a person to be aware of right decision making and leading others. Such approach as 360-degree leadership survey process helps in understanding of how people receive and respond to 360-degree feedback. Drew (2009) states, that 360-degree feedback survey provides scores on a range of questions relevant to their leadership role for individual leader’s staff, peers, supervisor and the leader oneself too. It sounds like the type of leadership is essential in dealing with a diverse workplace with a remarkable system involved. The new era in operating businesses has brought new vision to its leaders of how human systems should be understood in order to make a business more successful. For that purpose, managing the workforce has become the number one question of the twenty-first century. In addition, demographic changes in the workforce composition and customer diversity along with the globalized markets have increased leaders’ need in knowing the needs of their workforce (Kreitz, 2007). It is up to the HR professionals to make it organizationally useful to manage the motives behind the interest of the certain company in diversity of human force and identify the specific ways that such diversity will benefit. Llopis (2011) reports, about the importance of diversity management that it plays in the ability of organization to grow its activities within the fiercely competitive global environment. He also states that few lessons from the diversity officers can be taken. Thus, the leader should live the diversity of the company by not only taken into account the demographic peculiarity of people but also in providing support authentic support to people that work for the company. Besides, there is a need to include more holistically operating in the general management and operational capacity to provide the diversity to become the embedded mindset. LEARNING CONTRACT OUTCOMES In this section, the proponents provide essential information as to the assessment of the required skills by identifying the specific gaps that have to be filled in particularly in a specific area of interest. However, at the end of the entire process, it is necessary to observe the actual learning process. The learning cycle is an essential foundation of understanding the learning contract outcomes. Feedback is important as the first area of consideration prior to observing the actual learning. Feedback could be successful or not, but this one could be elaborately influenced by either teaching new knowledge of evaluating existing knowledge. After this, reflection is necessary, but this one has to be repeatedly initiated prior to modelling or actual practice. Applying this process, there must be essential gaps that have to be filled in, in order to effectively promote the entire learning loop. The development of leadership and management skills, knowledge and abilities are only addressed once gaps are analyzed or taken into consideration. Different diagnostic tools can help to identify and determine what these development needs are. Workforce planning can be used as the process for addressing gaps between the workforce of the day and the needs of human capital of the future. That requires the foundation of strategic human resource decisions or skills that enable a good leader to be strong about managing staff in its different functional areas such as human resources, budgets, and program staff. Thus, in order to utilize the workforce planning skills, there is a need to set the strategic direction, analyze the workforce, develop an action plan, implement this action plan and then monitor and evaluate it. In order to make a gap analysis of leader’s knowledge, a criterion validated certain questions will be useful. Leader development system (n.d.) recommends designing a questionnaire in order to measure what one knows about good leadership. The questionnaire can cover such areas as coaching and counseling, communicating, conflict resolution and performance management, problem solving and decision making. Burgoyne, Hirsh and Williams (2004) state that in relative knowledge, there is a connection between leadership capability and the individual performance, and there is also an understanding of the mechanisms that impact leadership capability on organization performance. Realizing of how to use these mechanisms will be a great practical and theoretical significance and very cost effective way in obtaining value of leadership development. Thus, the proponent is required to evaluate all these essential components, which means understanding of the gaps to assess skills for effective leadership and management skills is a necessary component of the learning outcomes. CRITICAL SELF-REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE OUTCOMES The proponent is required to assess the gaps in the personal skills base. Thus, it is for this reason that in this section the application of academic literature, theoretical models and diagnostic tools to analyse the results of developing knowledge, skills and abilities is important to be presented as part of leading effectively in the light of various contemporary leadership challenges. In addition, critical reflection is involved as the use of theory and research as it relates to personal learning. Finally, the proponent included the assessment of the achievements against the learning goal and implementation of the action plan. There are various theories concerning leadership, but in the end, it is important to find out the level of knowledge, skills and abilities that one has for them and that are associated with each of them. First, the theory of leadership as discussed in the literature is highly involved in the understanding of one’s personality traits. From the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator Profile, people are found to have preference of either each of the following distinct personality traits: extroversion versus introversion, intuition versus sensing, feeling versus thinking, and judging versus perceiving. These personality traits comprise what it takes to be an effective leader in an organisation even in the midst of the prevailing contemporary leadership challenges. I found myself having preference of extraversion over introversion, intuition over sensing, feeling over thinking and judging over perceiving. With these chosen characteristics, experts might agree with the idea that I am tolerant, reliable, charismatic, altruistic and natural leader, based on the above combination of personality from the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator Profile test. These are supposed to be my specific skills and abilities in order to ensure a remarkable change in an organization. Change in an organisation is a remarkable requirement especially if there is a need to improve or achieve meaningful result for sustainable development. However, based on the literature, change requires highly involved leadership. As reviewed, leaders with charismatic personality are more likely to succeed in initiating change in the organisation. If one will base it on my personality, which eventually will lead one to point my skills and abilities, I am most likely able to implement such change considering my charismatic tendency in the organisation. However, the theory suggests that this can be learned. However, what the theory may have failed to provide is the idea that there are also associated weaknesses that may also have to be improved in order to guarantee optimum use of the personalities that are linked to the effective implementation of leadership output for change. As I noticed, I might be overly idealistic at some point. This is due to the fact that I might have been born a natural leader, although some theories of leadership suggest that there is no such thing as a born natural leader. Next to this, I noticed that I can afford to stand too selfless at some point. This is due to the fact that I prefer feeling over perceiving, allowing me to be altruistic at a certain level. I also observed that I might be too sensitive at some point due to my tendency to be more tolerant. This allows me to prefer judging rather than perceiving. I might also struggle in the fluctuation of my self-esteem, because of my high level of sensitivity. The external environment for my leadership is a great contributor for this aspect. Finally, I might also struggle to make tough decisions, because of my natural tendency to be tolerant and highly emotional at some point. These are specific gaps that I need to address with all effort, because they can definitely provide elemental impact to my leadership performance, especially in a highly complex organisation that looks forward to a remarkable change. Leadership and management are two different things, because I always consider more influence is necessary in the case of the former than the latter. Thus, what is necessary is the improvement of the required personality, in order to effectively create a better influence that will lead to the remarkable change in the organisation. Thus, considering that I have the capacity to become a leader, but knowing also that I have remarkable weaknesses at some point, appropriate development programs are necessary. In my case, it is important to identify at least two exemplary leaders to learn from or read many things about leadership. Thus, after I conducted a SWOT analysis, by simply depicting first my strengths and weaknesses with my associated personality, I noticed that my actual leadership potential is somehow relevant to what the existing ideas of leadership could possibly say. In fact, I tried to compare myself with the exemplary leaders of our time. Some great leaders were known about their contribution, but above all, their personalities or traits remain to be their living legacy as effective leaders. I have various experiences. I can compare each of them based solely on my prevailing experiences that are associated with my personality traits. Thus, in the end, it is always me who is having a better perspective of my actual leadership potential prior to my future subordinates’ possible opinion or observation especially on my performance as a leader. After identification of my varied experiences, I can sense that I have the potential to become a leader, but there are also important things, and many of them that I have to work out. Self-assessment is necessary. Based on my self-assessment, it turns out that my strengths, which are already discussed above are also my opportunities. However, my weaknesses are also my possible threats. These are actually might be synonymous in essence, but the real score is due to the fact that I have at least considered my external environment as just an extension of my internal environment. In other words, there is a link between the organisation and my internal environment, especially in the context of leadership. No wonder why I have to substantially consider my external environment as significant component of my performance as a whole. I have great preference of extraversion over introversion, which means I want to expose myself further to the external environment, rather than being motivated working on my own. This in essence is a great requirement for a leader. In the first place, great leaders are able to expose themselves to a certain group or team and they manage to do it, because it is part of their tasking activity. I have definitely identified the gaps, which are my possible weaknesses as a leader and it is important to implement the plan that has to be addressed. I have probably achieved the ability to make decisions, but it is still part of my weakness to have difficulty facing tough decisions. In an organisation, tough decisions have to be made. This requires tough leaders at the same time. For this particular scenario, I have to immerse myself to identifying exemplary leaders for emulation. I have to specifically focus on how they make tough decisions at varying degree or level of difficulty at diverse possible cases. On the other hand, I need to constantly challenge myself in identifying various experiences, so that I may be able to learn many things from them, especially in making tough decisions. On the other hand, it is also a remarkable time to consider executing a remarkable program for feedback mechanism. Part of my limitation as a leader is my inability to see every bit of perspective. There must be something like an angle that I could not properly view, which might be clear enough from the perspective of others. To implement this, I have to seek feedback from subordinates. In this way, I would be able to identify other possible weaknesses that I have in leadership. Next to this, I have to immerse myself to constant learning and growth activity. This means that I have to at least attend leadership skills, trainings and seminars and even pass some of the test if ever there is a requirement for it. This is to test my ability and further enhance or improve my knowledge and skills with it. Finally, part of the implementation of the action in plan is a team building session. In this way, I would be able to at least recognize how effective I would be in dealing real-life case scenario in handling specific problems that at some point an organisation may potentially face. Arranging a team building session is a must. In order to implement this action plan, I have to critically consider organising a team that would be responsible for activities and learning and growth related programs. They have to organise these activities so that there is a great chance that none of them will be overlooked upon the implementation process. I may have the great potential for becoming a leader, but definitely I found out that I am not excused from having possible weaknesses in leadership. My basis for this is found in my actual traits and characteristic as a person. Furthermore, another basis is found in the existing characteristics or traits of successful leaders who have made a remarkable difference in leading, at best. FUTURE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERLY BEHAVIOUR In this section, I expound what I need to learn in order to practice more leaderly behaviour, and understand the specific actions to take to move in to this direction. First, it is a good thing to learn more about myself. This is the prerequisite program prior to dealing with future leadership-related activities. Learning about me requires learning more of my personal traits and understanding if they are beneficial to my leadership position. There are eventually traits that according to some leadership theories could stand against effective leadership. Thus, I still believe that at some point, leadership is eventually learned for as long as one is able to adjust the required characteristics or traits in leadership. In an organisation, these traits are essential because a leader is definitely dealing with various behaviours. Dealing with various behaviours is not that easy. That is why there is a need to understand the human behaviour in general. To effectively do this, it might as well good to begin doing it with personal observation of my traits or characteristics. In addition to this, I have to constantly expose myself to new leadership approaches in today’s modern times. There are leaders who are trying to for the innovation of possibilities as they engage with the need to go for change. Change is something that is remarkably constant in today’s highly competitive environment. That is why many are trying to become competitive in leadership. Observing what seems to be feasible in today’s trend in leadership is something that could pave the way for my learning goal prior to implementation of my personal agenda for leadership in the future. Thus, I should require myself to constantly monitor great companies or organisations engaging in exemplary leadership today. This includes the opportunity to look at various possible cases for consideration prior to understanding the essential requirements for effective leadership. CONCLUSION In a nutshell, leadership is not that easy. It requires understanding existing theories, models and other various learning activities, especially by observing actual real case scenarios especially coming from great leaders themselves. However, prior to this, there is a need for self-evaluation. The assessment would stand as a remarkable compass to the desired direction for effective leadership. Leadership could turn out to be a personal choice, although some theories would suggest that it could be a born ability. However, more than this, everyone has the choice to improve characters or traits associated with effective leadership. These traits are fundamental requirements for consideration in ensuring leadership is at its best. However, there are traits that are not necessary for effective leadership. It is therefore a choice now of the leader to eliminate them. Part of doing so requires fundamental actions to take. This is for great consideration prior to improving a leaderly behaviour. A leaderly behaviour could be a choice, considering that one can definitely create action plans in order to improve leaderly behaviour in the future. It is just a matter of finding the most essential direction to take that could lead to optimum improvement of leadership knowledge, skills and abilities. References Bolden, R., Gosling, B., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. (2003). 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