Leadership in Family Reunion - Essay Example

Reflection on Leadership in Family Reunion Name Institution Reflection on Leadership in Family Reunion Introduction Considering the nature of the families, practicing leadership is a great challenge. Research reveal that anything people do as leaders are based on their audacious assumptions that they matter. Before thinking of leading others, it is important to lead oneself and believe in having a positive impact on them: it involves believing in one's words that inspire and actions that move others. Therefore, the quest for leadership is the inner quest of discovering one's personality, what they care about, and through self-examination that one finds the awareness required to lead (Chuang, 2013). To spearheading reunion of the family members, I had to establish connection with each person at personal level. Research indicate that, in the modern society, the best way to engage the society is through the social media platform; however, in my case, I had to focus on establishing contact with person within the family. The method used was of great challenge since it was costly and involved travelling in some cases. I had to apply various leadership skills to ensure that I involved each person. Leadership is not about giving orders but bringing together people through the steps taken to address the situation. I had to embrace self-confidence, which is being aware of some challenges, and having faith in my powers, which often become clear and strong while working to identify and develop them (European Union, 2013). Moreover, the art of leadership come self-mastery of self; hence, developing leadership skills is a process that involves developing the self. Event Analysis Spearheading family reunion might difficult especially with people that lack experience. Organizing even a meeting of three people might be a great challenge is there is no coordination of individuals. Family reunion aimed to bring people together. Since the scope of their coverage and the magnitude of the work involved can be tedious at times, I had to seek assistance my children and friends to get the activities continue as planned. Leadership does not involve doing things for people but with the people. Leadership practices are more diverse, less centralized, and with continued revolution on technology, communication and partnership are becoming vital to guarantee success. Successful leaders are those that partner with involved parties which commences with clear and frequent communication. As a result, I had to establish consistent schedule that aimed to discuss important logistic issues with my friends and some family members to assist in reaching others with the information. Frequent meeting with the people I considered partners assisted in creating a trusting relationships with the partners to improve morale and their level of productivity. Meetings always assist in setting clear goals, praising the progress of the roles, directing the efforts when necessary, and celebration of the projects upon completion. For success, it is important that leader and members of the team participate equally in the meetings and listen to the intention of others without judging them. Leaders that partner are visionary focusing on the ways people can work together constructively. However, partnership requires different types of leadership with the leaders ensuring that they safeguard the process, ensure facilitation in the interactions, and potentially deal with the frustrations likely to emerge (Özaralli, 2003). In partnership leadership, the main issue that is evident is the perceived collaborative outcome associated with gender. Research reveal that the males tend to think that their partnership is likely to be successful compared to that of men. The reunion was successful since I considered the output of each person: my children, friends, and family members. Leadership does not work in isolation but requires inputs from across the involved parties. Application of Leadership Theory For many years, the members of family have stayed apart which has really deteriorated the level of communication amongst ourselves. In the modern society, development is defined by the level of togetherness among the members of the society. Sticking together as a family plays significant role in assisting to devise developmental activities. Leadership is defined based on the ability to recognize the need for change, communication, and accomplishing the change through the actions of the family members (Wiseman & McKeown, 2012). However, to align and communicate such leadership responsibilities, I had to rely on the family values, visions, and missions to get the attention of each family and communicate in a manner that compels the family members to accomplish important actions of achieving the change (Chrobot-Mason et al., 2013). In most cases, leaders usually articulate the significance of change within their strategic plans and planning processes through redevelopment of the vision and mission and building new set of institutional values. Nonetheless, the requirement of change and visibility of strategic plan are never linked to clear management of the involved parties. When there is a legitimate and compelling need for change within the family context, I believe that it needs to be integrated into the strategic direction used through leadership skills that involve thinking of long-term destinations and set in the motion of major elements for accomplishing the required change. It is the major role of the leaders to set the context for change and present compelling reasons on why the involved parties need to accept the challenges presented by the change (Ibarra, Ely & Kolb, 2013). Form organizational perspective, it is the role of the management to coordinate the people and resources to make the required change into reality. However, when the need for change is unclear and present the strategic direction of the organization, then the changes that come into question are the values, goals, and planning the vision. Contacting all the members of my family was a great challenge. People have different opinions on family reunion; therefore, there is a need for strategic thinking to convince the family members to come together (Bisk Education, 2014). Strategic thinking, which I used considered the link between the goal, values, and missions of coming together that will take family reunion in the new direction or to greater level of performance. There is a great difference between management and leadership. Mintzberg theory highlighted some of the links between leadership and management within strategic planning context. To bring together people, whether organizational and reunions, there is need for both management and leadership skills (Whitlock, 2003). The management involves learning from different sources: personal experiences and experience presented by others. From such statement, it is important to involve the views of other people to ensure coverage of wider scope of leadership concept and having the feeling of importance in the set reunion (Den Dekker, 2013). Based on the Minztberg theory, the managers can scan relevant factors based on the prevailing conditions, analyze such factors based on the short-term and long-term strategies of changing the direction, and then managers think strategically and set up the stage for provision of leadership. Therefore, synthesizing of such experiences into the vision and communication require the managers to lead. For the success of the family, I had to integrate both the leadership and management concepts. As with a popular say that goes, there is some truth in the adage. Research reveal that the great leaders are born not made. In some cases, the capacity of the great leaders is innate. Nonetheless, the ability to learn methods of becoming an effective leader is within the grasp of each person irrespective of whether one leads multiple teams, the whole business, or just a member of the staff. The major leadership skill I had to employ is self-assessment (Moran, 2011). Effective leaders take stock of their personal strengths and weaknesses on timely basis to determine their capacity to handle the situation in question. Determining and understanding ones weaknesses that does not make them weak but allows delegation to the other people with such abilities to achieve a common goal (Blanchard, 2016). Even as I practice leadership within my capacity, I have some weaknesses which I believe some of my friends have; thus, rather than to the false belief that I have all the required capacity, I focused on outsourcing some activities to my friends who complement rather than supplementing their skills. I believe in working on my areas of weaknesses to improve my leadership ability since recognizing them assist in improving my skills. In leadership, dealing with the families is difficult compared to the businesses since it requires a lot of convincing. In dealing with family issues, perception normally matters which might affect the quality of leadership skills employed and output of the practice. Effective leaders need to understand how people perceive them (Miller & Mille, 2012). To influence the perception on the family about me and make them embrace the reunion, it is important to have easy and honest communication level with the team and peers and adequate understanding of the way they perceive me. Based on the research on leadership, testing the perception on the leader may be as simple as observing the behavior of people and involves noting their levels relaxation around the leader and if the conversation halts whenever the leader enters the room. Most studies suggest that the best and simplest way of determining what people think about the leaders is through asking (Byrd, 2007). Leaders may end up receiving the feedback that are not listening or showing appreciation to their target audience. The success of my plans depended on establishing an environment that encourages honesty and open communication. I had to ask some of my friends about my good qualities and specific areas that require improvement. The level of responsiveness between the leaders and subjects normally vary depending on the prevailing conditions (Winder, 2002). However, to ensure that we had a successful family reunion, I had to improve my responsiveness to the needs of the family members. Perception assisted me in knowing the needs of the targeted people. Some of the family members value trust over creativity. On the other hand, others value the level of communication between the leader and the subjects. Coming together with my children and friends assisted me in building a strong team since I understood the values and goals of each involved person and what they needed to understand about the leader. Most leaders fail to accomplish their objectives since that lack adequate understanding of the operations and strengths and weakness of the involved parties (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2013). From organizational perspective, leaders need to understand the nature of the business and adjust their knowledge and skills towards the achieving of the goals. Since, effective leaders involves understanding of the organizational overall purpose and goals, I had to prepare properly on communicating the needs to reunite with other members of the family. Moreover, I had to understand the strategies of achieving such objectives ways in which family members fit within the bigger picture, and assisting the business grow and thrive. Discussion For decades, it is perceived that leadership roles belong to men. However, with increased women empowerment programs and adjustment of the legal frameworks globally to accommodate the development in the role of women, the perception, and definition of the gender differences changed. Within my family, it was a great challenge to deal with men especially those rooted in traditional cultures that it is the responsibility of men to lead. Until recently, there was underrepresentation of women in the higher levels positions. Research, for many years, have lead to increased the perception that men play significant role in leadership. Women have different qualities of their working styles with differences likely to contribute to preferable behavior, thought, and leadership. Nonetheless, gender biasness continues to interfere with acquisition of the leadership positions especially among the women (Ely, Ibarra & Kolb, 2011). Based on my skills, I believe I have all the required qualities to take the leadership role. In a bid to resolve such problems, most research have recommended the development of women-only leadership methods to assist the women leaders towards the senior leadership roles. With increased number of women working, understanding the gender stereotype can assist the multicultural leaders in building the relationships and avoiding biased management decisions. Although more women are using the leadership roles in the modern society than ever, the notion of women as leaders remain a strange thing to many individuals. Changing perceptions is difficult due to firm entrenchment of the traditional norms of leadership. I had problems dealing with the males especially those that are rooted in traditional practices. In my society, like any other, leaders have been customarily been men. Initially, the leadership opportunities for women were limited. From such phenomenon, there was generalization that leadership implied maleness and that considering that women were not men, they lacked adequate skills and qualities necessary for leaders. In leadership, certain things have not changed (Kouzes & Posner, 2011). The assumption that leadership equates to maleness is enshrined deeply on how people think and their language. While organizing the reunion, I noticed some people had poor understanding on the qualities that defined leaders such as competitive, aggressive, and dominant which are associated with men. Moreover, some men considered me as aberration and accolade. Despite the societal mandates used in increasing the number of women within the leadership positions, the traditional stereotypes remain which continue to exert a powerful influence. However, these stereotypes are partially to blame for difficulty of women to attain leadership positions and the struggle of the society to accept women. Considering that women do not fit within the stereotypical leader mold, women desiring to be leaders often need extreme qualification and proven records of accomplishment, and over prepared for the leadership positions. After acquiring these positions, women are expected to behave as men instead of improving their roles with the new and fresh perspectives that they present. While organizing the family reunion, my leadership philosophy was to be a leader with inspirational qualities and being credible. The philosophy involved using approachable, competent, supportive, hard working, and trustworthy strategies. From my observation, these are the criteria that I needed to fulfill to be a credible leader and manager of the event. The followers expect these major factors since confident and competent leaders have the ability and capability obvious to the followers. In the past, the successful women became leaders through adoption of the masculine leadership style. From an organizational perspective, it is evident that women are beginning to make impact on the organizations using their leadership style. There are several studies on the second generation of the managerial women. The first women in leadership had to had to apply similar rules as their males counterpart for success; the new generation of women in leadership focus on drawing what is considered unique to their specialization and creation of different path to the top but not adoption of the styles and habits initially used by men. In most businesses, most women work with medium-size groups and entities that have experienced fast growth and rapid changes considered hospitable to women. In my family, the males still value men as transactional leaders that view job performance as a series of transactions with the subordinate. The method used by men, that the male members of my family want me use consist of exchanging the rewards for the services offered. Research reveal that men use transactional leadership in which men seem to use the powers associated with their position. Rather than using transactional leadership, I used transformational leadership style. With the style and my skills, I believed in transforming my self-interests into the interest of the completely family members. Women seem to ascribe to their power but not their position (Rometty, 2011). With transformational leadership style, the behavioral attributes of women are presented in different ways: career paths and socialization. While traditional leadership styles expected men to be competitive, decisive, tough, and in control, the women counterparts were expected to portray cooperative, supportive, and emotional qualities. With time, research has come to contrast the command and control style while others argue that it increases diversity and acceptable managerial behavior (Amagoh, 2009). It is cautious to connect transformational leadership to female: women have the ability to make find their way to the corporate ladder through the traditional style of management. Besides, some men use the transformational leadership style that some male counterparts in my family do not want me to use. There are many management experts that pointing out the need of transforming the modern organizations and practices if there is need for future success. Several research exists demanding for new managerial skills and capabilities. Moreover, there is a wide perception shared across the leadership styles that vertical skills seem to command and control the need for supplement. Some of the studies reveal that women play vital role in ensuring organizational success. In countries such as Japan, the success of most organizations is through female-oriented techniques, which involve cultivation of links with an aim of establishing common interests, trust, and loyalty. The changes in leadership perception within the society reflect the larger societal transformation, which is important in ensuring women participation in leadership positions (McKimm, 2004). Furthermore, transformation contributed in social organization model: partnership and dominator models. Although there have been significant development in eliminating gender issues in leadership and management, most people still think of like dominator societies which market with the dominance of rigid male practices. The structure is generally hierarchic and authoritarian in nature and high degree of institutionalized violence. Conclusion The aim of the paper was to reflect on the activities that occurred while spearheading family reunion. It involved integration of various leadership practices and theories. I had no experience in leadership though I had a responsibility of bringing together the members of my family; therefore, I had to find applicable theoretical practices for my case. Despite the challenges women face in leadership, I had to prove men wrong that women have great chance of ensuring successful leadership activities. 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