Analysis of a Leadership Opportunity within the Organization - Example

An Analysis of a Leadership Opportunity within the Organization A Report -2,163 words Name of Student Course/Subject No. Name of Professor Date Abstract An opportunity of leading a three man team to plan and implement the Company’s orientation for newly hired employees is challenge for every employee who has never handled a team before. It is challenge in leadership particularly when the employee is used to working at his own pace and doing all the necessary works which is different when managing a team. Within a team, one needs to be able to delegate work, handle schedule of the team as well as that of other people necessary to complete the project. Thus, to be able to cope with the demands of handling a team, a leader has to develop his style of leadership which might include combining other styles to be able to lead the team to complete a successful project. Introduction The Human Resource Department where I am working with is scheduling a company orientation for newly hired employees for the first quarter of year 2009. I have identified to lead the planning and implementation of such activity. This is an opportunity for me to show my leadership skills within my department which hopefully will show my superiors and colleagues my potential to lead future projects of the department. This is also an opportunity for me to hone my skills in leading an important project for my department consequently shows that I am reliable to handle important projects for the company. This report is an analysis of my capability to lead the planning and implementation of the orientation of newly hired employees on the company’s policies and procedures as well as orient them on the terms of reference of their individual work assignments within the company. This role is crucial to the overall performance of the newly hired employees within the organisation since this is the stage where they are trained on the basic policies of the organisation that requires their compliance. Thus, it will help them define their behaviour and work ethics while they are working within the company. They should have thorough background on the organisation’s policies and procedures to be able to achieve this. Terms of Reference for the Team Leader The team leader for the company orientation of newly hired employees has the following responsibilities: 1. Lead the planning of the company orientation of newly hired employees in terms of actual scheduling of activities, venue selection and reservation, and coordination with other departments for the actual conduct of the orientation. 2. Prepare the materials to be used during the orientation by referring to the company policies and procedures and develop training materials out of it that can easily be understood by the participants of the orientation. 3. Prepare case analysis pertaining to the salient sections of the policies and procedures of the organisation for analysis and implementation of the orientation participants. 4. Prepare a training schedule for the 5 days orientation that will cover salient aspects of the company’s operation necessary for the proper information of newly hired employees. 5. Coordinate with department heads, employees, and company top management to handle certain sessions of the orientation relevant to their respective roles. 6. Manage a 3 person team to handle the planning and implementation of the 5 day orientation of newly hired employees. I will be analysing my leadership skills versus the responsibilities required from a team leader to handle the company orientation of newly hired employees using a SWOT Analysis tool. The analysis will also include the environment within the organisation which can affect my performance to complete the task assigned to me. Also, a couple of leadership theories will be incorporated in the analysis. SWOT Analysis Strengths Handling a 3 person team to plan and implement the company orientation that usually have a minimum of 15 to a maxim of 30 new employees requires combined leadership styles of being charismatic, theatrical and systematic. The website for Mind Tools (2008) on various leadership styles describe charismatic leadership style to boost the morale of team members to work at their best to create an excellent work output. I have the attitude of being lively and positive in whatever I do that usually helped finish my previous assignments within my department, even those difficult ones, at par with the expectations of my superiors. I believed this particular attitude of mine has been a major factor that led my supervisors to choose me to become the team leader of the forthcoming company orientation for new employees. Complying with the tasks for this role will surely be more efficient if I can influence my team mates with the same kind of work attitude so that we can accomplish our team’s responsibilities. Boje, D. (2000) discussed the modern theory of theatrical leadership where the leader is the head of the team but in essence the leader only plays a role to head the team but in reality he uses this role just to motivate the rest of the team to achieve the desired output needed to complete the project. I have a strong personality; sometimes tend to be aggressive, particularly in difficult situations. I believe this characteristic will help me immensely in becoming a modern theatrical leader towards my team mates without the star complex of course. I can use this skill towards the advantage of the team in completing the tasks at hand for use in order to successfully implement the company orientation. Hopefully, we will perform much better than what is expected of us that we will be delegated as the permanent team to handle this quarterly project of the company. The above strengths will support the systems theory of leadership that will become the derivative of my abilities to lead charismatically and theatrically. These two styles of leadership have the common output of strengthening the team work and productivity of my three man team; I expect that it will treat each team member as a part of the system of completing the company orientation task given to us. McNamara, C. (n.d.) credited systems theory to have relevant impact in understanding management of a team or of an organisation. It promotes teamwork wherein the absence of one will disable the ability of the whole team to function efficiently. I am hoping that my work attitude and my ability to motivate other people can help me implement systems theory within my team. Part of my strengths in relation to the tasks given to me is my previous experience in the work assignments outlined in the role of team leader for this company orientation. I have numerous experiences in planning for activities assigned to me by my supervisor before. So the task of planning the company orientation can easily be done by me since it is within my expertise. Also, I have previous experience in preparing presentation materials for my supervisor whenever he attends speaking engagements or make a presentation for the company’s top management. I have experienced preparing case analysis at university so I have a background to this work. Supportive supervisor and colleagues as well as a smooth working environment are the external factors that serve to give strength to my three man team to function effectively in completing the task given to us. Another strength factor is the individual characteristics of my three man team. Each of them complement each other’s ability and harmoniously work with each other given that they previously worked together in a previous project. Weaknesses My tendency to work singularly can be a major weakness to me which I must dispense slowly. I expect this tendency since for long I have been working by myself within the organisation with my supervisor as the only one monitoring my work and mostly he just leave me alone since he can see that I am competent to work with less supervision. This might show while I work as a team leader of the company orientation. I might expect that my team mates can function the same way I function while I was at their level. I might neglect to consider supervising them closely if they needed since I have not experienced that kind of close supervision from my supervisor. Also, my aggressiveness might become another weakness for me in relation to my working relationship with my team mates. They might get intimidated by my strong personality. Thus, it is necessary for me to continuously check my behaviour in relating to my team members so that I will not cause any reason not to motivate them to work at their efficiency. Also, I might have difficulty delegating work sometimes since I previously worked doing everything on my own as a subordinate of my supervisor. In terms of external factor, the busy schedule of other department heads and other employees of the organisation might weaken the pace of coordination of my team in completing our tasks. These employees are also busy completing their own tasks that we might not be a priority in their schedule in terms of rehearsing for the sessions and providing us the necessary information from their respective departments to be included in our preparation for presentation materials. Opportunities I have the opportunity to develop my leadership skills in this particular assignment. This is the opportunity that I have to learn to delegate work to my team mates, supervise my own team and discover my own leadership styles in congruence with my own working style. Also, it is an opportunity for me to contribute to the growth of my three man team and prepare them to become effective leaders in the future. I can give the opportunity provided by my own supervisor to show my capability of completing projects on my own while meeting the parameters required by the organisation. This work assignment also gives me an opportunity to show my supervisor and the rest of the top management of the organisation that I am ready to hold a leadership position within the company. It is a stepping stone for me to highlight my ability to manage a team and lead a project successfully. Eventually, through this opportunity I can be given major work assignments that will further challenge my ability to complete projects and manage a team. It is also an opportunity not only for me but also for my team members to work among various departments of the organisation and get a feel of how other employees do their respective jobs and hopefully learn from them to improve their own performance. Overall, this project is a great opportunity for me and my team mates to show our capability to handle one of the important projects of the organisation and helped educate new employees to perform within the parameters of the policies and procedures of the organisation. Threats The major threat to the completion of our task is when there will be no or very few employment applicants who will pass the screening of the human resource department to qualify for participation to the company orientation. When this happens, the orientation will not be conducted as scheduled and has to be postponed to a later date. This will affect the momentum of our team since we will be distributed to work on other projects while waiting for the gap between the planned and actual date of conducting the orientation. Another threat in the completion or continuity of the project is when one of the members of our team will get an opportunity to work in other company and decide to resign from the company. This would mean a new member will be reassigned to our team which will be a major adjustment again for the rest of the team members. The possibility of a clash in team members’ attitudes and work ethics might be another threat in the successful implementation of the project. Not being able to find a common ground between the team members varied work opinions might result to rifts that can challenge the smooth completion of the project. Overall, as a team leader, I have to exert effort in avoiding or getting over these threats to the completion of the project by constantly coordinating with the person in charge of hiring applicants for employments to give regular status of the number of participants to the company orientations. I have also to exert effort to remind my team members to strengthen coordination with other departments to fine tune their schedules and commitment for the sessions in the company orientation. Lastly, I must make an effort to practice the theory or approach of team building among my team to ensure efficient and smooth completion of the team’s task. Thus, as Olum (2004) emphasize I should strive to follow developing “quality circles, best practices and continuous improvement” (p. 19) within my team. I should strive to use my strengths to counter my weaknesses to create an environment for my team to achieve our goals or tasks. Conclusion Leadership abilities are honed even before a person becomes a leader within an organisation. My potential for leadership skills was seen by my supervisors while I have not yet held any leadership position within our department. Right work attitude as well as holding responsibilities for the work that you do and being able to work with limited supervision trains employees to become leaders. Once their leaders recognise this ability as proved by their consistent work accomplishment to smaller and individual projects provided to them, they will be given the recognition and the responsibility to become leaders themselves by managing their own team. Once they manage their own team, it will be the time that they will practice within a team what they have learned as individual employee. Along the way they will be faced with a challenge of letting go their individualistic approach to working and adapt a team level approach. References Mind Tools.Com. “Leadership Styles: Using the Right One for Your Situation” [Online] Accessed at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm on 21 December 2008 Boje, D. (2000). “Postmodern Leadership Theory”. [Online] Accessed at http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/338/postmodern_leadership_theory.htm on 18 December 2008 McNamara, C. (n.d.). “Brief Overview of Contemporary Theories of Management” Management Help Website [Internet] Accessed at http://www.managementhelp.org/mgmnt/cntmpory.htm on 19 December 2008. Olum, Y. (2004). “Modern Management Theories and Practices”. 15th East African Central Banking Course, Kenya. Read More