My Understanding of Leadership - Coursework Example

Business Name Institution Business My Understanding of Leadership Leadership refers to the influence that occurs to a group of people as they seek a certain vision or set of goals. On top of this, leadership also defines the relationship between an individual, lead, groups, or followers where what they seek to achieve is under the influence of a leader (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010). In this regard, I learned that leadership entails the ability to inspire people with confidence and also give the necessary support they need in realizing their dreams or goals. At the same time, I also learned that the aspect of leadership is that complex phenomenon since it entails interaction between a leader and his or her followers and plus the situation. However, the same instance also puts in the situational determinants contained in leadership. Likewise the ability of leadership influence others is the legitimacy, and the other aspect of leadership that I learned is the intentions which refers to the desires that a lady has in place to achieve (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010On top of this, the ability of leadership not to be a routine is its initiative as it seeks to give the interpretation of some instances. Throughout the lesson, I also learned about leadership theory that offers the explanation of the emergence of leaders. For instance, the theory states that leaders are not that born but come due to their making (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010).. Upon covering theory on leadership, I also covered the impacts of leadership where I gained the knowledge caused by the instance on mythology, culture, religion, family of origin, readings on literature, media, education, observations and the role models. Once an individual becomes a leader, there are some influences that he brings to our attitudes during his or her time of leadership. In this regard, from what I learned, a good leader should have a vision, identity, and passion or VIP in short qualities. Another aspect that I learned concerning the aspect is the classic view of management. In this regard, management has four aspects such as planning, organizing, directing and controlling (Robbins & Coulter, 2005). I also learned there are various categories of views concerning leadership that in this case relies on the manager is at the forefront in leadership in the organization. Following this instance, I learned that this particular must have some aspects to achieve his goals or set targets. Some of these aspects are the leadership traits or characteristics such as ambition or intelligence, leadership behaviour entailing people-cantered or production cantered, power influence and also situational factors (Robbins & Coulter, 2005). That said I learned that for these aspects to be successful in an organization, leadership itself involve the use the collective or specialization instances among the members being led or controlled. The influence of power is also another important that I learned concerning leadership. For instance, is the aspect of reward power that has the control over the disbursement of those resources of value that in this case may include the assignment of overtime work hours, bonus rewards and the aspect of the vacation time (Lindsay, 2007). Power from what I learned within leadership may either be legitimate, coercive, expert or referent types. However, the exercise of power from a leader according to what learned will rely on the existing situational factors or the contingency in leadership. The instance, in this case, will also depend on the level of competence among the employees for it to be effective. According to what I learned, for one to be a good leader he or she must have some traits such as the desire to achieve, ambitiousness, energetic, tenacity characteristic, imitative, honest, confident and also be knowledgeable of he or she does (Tracy, 2014). However, the same instance does not mean that being at the top is the leadership and either does the reverse supports the same. In this regard, from what I learned is that those successful organizations in terms of leadership have leaders at all levels and are also in the continuous state of creating them (Tracy, 2014). Similarly, a good should also be rational to his followers and also have the situational quality that dictates what this particular will need during the execution of his or her duties. Leadership is an aspect that has various styles of expression in an organization. Some of these styles are the supportive leadership, the direct leadership, participative leadership, achievement oriented leadership (Tracy, 2014). For a leader to execute these styles of leadership, he or she must be emotionally intelligent enough. In this regard, I learned that an emotionally intelligent leader has those qualities of being effective on awareness, ability to control and also manage his or her emotions or hunger against people. Just as any normal person deserves an appreciation for his or her value, a leader also deserves the same based on the values that his or her followers see him or her. With regards to the same, I learned that the ethical values of a leader come from the influence of the parents, religion, neighbours, friends, colleagues and many more (O'Connor, 2010). On the other hand, I also learned something about ethics that on its side are the principles and values that dictate a person's behaviour or group of people with respect to what is either right or wrong. Similarly, in ethical dilemma I managed to gain knowledge on it as that aspect that takes place at that circumstances when the manager has to make choice in pursuing a given action to take as much as it may come with personal or organizational benefits and while it appears unethical or even illegal in its nature (O'Connor, 2010One of the main issues that arise when mentions the word ethics is its opposite that is corruption. According to Transparency International, the perceptions of corruption entails the instances of utilitarian, individualism, moral rights and approach to justice or justice approach in other words. Leadership and gender are also other aspects that I also learned something about in the course of the lesson. In this regard, I agreed it is the double-minded women that have the belief that women must make choices concerning going for a career or going for early motherhood (Tracy, 2014). On top of this, I also came know that leadership and have no association with the effectiveness. However, the instance has some strong association with the communal and the social roles. Within the field of leadership, I gained the knowledge on another concept called the stereotypes. Stereotypes are more of the same similar to myths simply because they postulate on the theory behind the occurrence of a given scenario (Grint, 2005With regards to leadership; leadership who have some aspect of stereotypes within is mostly those who lack organization within or in their managerial duties. Likewise, stereotypes also offer the best explanation on barriers to the promotion of most persons in many organizations. For instance, by relying on the stereotypes, most persons believe that the mains hindrance to the promotion of many persons in most of the organizations is the lack of transparency and the laid down policies towards promotion itself (Grint, 2005). Others are work family related issues, networks among known persons, unavailability of role models with success and also the tendency of longer and networking visibility instead of being effective in the delivery of the content itself. On top of these, other related stereotypes that I learned based on the hindrance to promotion are the belief that women are superior in communication skills, coaching and the development and time management compared to their male counterparts. Leadership can only be effective if the leader or the manager understand the culture of the organization where he or she operates (Grint, 2005). In this case, I learned that the instance is just a pattern of beliefs and expectations that a particular organization shares with its members leading to the development of the organization's norms and shape which in turn contributes towards the shaping of the individuals and groups in the same organization (Grint, 2005). In short, what I learned about leadership and organization culture is just how things take place in a particular organization or in any way round the rules that constitutes the game altogether. After understanding what leadership and culture are in an organization, I also managed to learn something on the characteristic of the same aspect of culture in an organization. As already mentioned in the definition, culture in an organization envisages itself in terms of sharing and the two levels that are the visible and the less visible levels Tracy, 2014). Other ways of expression of culture in an organization relies on the learning as aspect developed through socialization and also the tendency of the same identified organizations' cultures to gradually change with time due the organizations, turn over. In identifying the leadership above cultures, I managed to learn on what criteria applicable in their classification (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010). For instance, I learned that the classification of the organization's culture depends on the power , task and the person, the bureaucratize, innovative and support in place plus the levels of integration, differentiations and fragmentations in place. Others are the primal, rationality, the developmental, metaphysical, network, mercenary and communal cooperation. Not forgetting, the instance also includes the group, hierarchical, collaboration, competence, control, cultivation, organic, mechanistic, clan, adhocracy, and market (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010). At the end of this subtopic, I now have or the capability to describe any organizational culture so long as I take some little time to take a study on its operational structure. After gaining the knowledge on the organizational culture plus its classification, the next lesson I covered touched on the concepts of positive leadership. Indeed, it is through the leadership deployed in a given organization that dictates its organizational culture (Werhane & Painter-Morland, 2011). For this reason, such form of leadership needs to be positive in their nature. About concepts of positive leadership, I learned there are just but those positive leadership behaviours that express positive responses from the followers. Based on this notion leaders may have great impacts on an organization they are positive, optimistic, confident, possess self-esteems and the instance of self-worth. However, for this to take place, the same leaders must undergo some transformation that in turn would come with some benefits to the organization altogether (Werhane & Painter-Morland, 2011). Some of the likely benefits to the organization due to the instance are the enhancement of the well-being of the employees, staff retention, job satisfaction, emotional intelligence and also the reduction in the levels of stress among the stakeholders in the organization. A good leader needs to have an aspect of charisma with him or her. In this regard, such a person needs to be true for him or herself instead of relying on expectations from other people and also have the motivation from personal convictions instead the urge to attain status, honours or other individual benefits that result from the same altogether (Yoder-Wise & Kowalski, 2010). On the same note, I also learned that a charismatic leader should act on his own while not copying others and at the same time perform those actions that are expected a leader concerning personal values and convictions. The other important aspect I learned on in the field leadership is those positive psychologies associated with it. In this regard, I learned that the elements of positive psychology are the self-efficacy that refers to having confidence in oneself and also making of positive attribution or the optimism (Tracy, 2014). Others are the hope that entails the identification of the positive future attainable goals and resilience that entails the management or operation in the line of those sustainable issues. Following these aspects of positive psychology in leadership, I also learned about the optimist people in the society. Optimist people are but those persons who make internal, stable, and global attributions regarding positive events and those who attribute external, unstable, and specific reasons for negative events (Tracy, 2014). Likewise, from my understanding, that person who is hopeful always has a belief that he or she can set goals, figure out how to achieve them, and motivate him or herself to accomplish them. If we remain all the time to have positive emotions, we will always be in this case promoting resilience in the face of negative events and individuals may actually become more resilient to an adverse situation each time they effectively bounce back from a previous setback. As a leader, you are bound to meet people either within your locality or the international scope. In this regard, I benefited a lot from the knowledge I gained on the international approaches to leadership (Tracy, 2014). For instance, through the subtopic, I acquired the knowledge that was that useful in how leadership does take place within the global perspective and also how other parts of the globe handle their leadership issues in comparison to what I had learned earlier concerning our local leadership skills way. Based on the concept of the approaches to international leadership, I managed to learn that there at times may be various values, cultures but there are similar practices that operate within the line of technological imperatives, common industrial logics and globalization issues (Grint, 2005). Following this instance, the dimension of leadership within the international levels according to what I learned are the charismatic or value based, team oriented and also the participative nature. Other aspects related to the same are the human-oriented nature, the autonomy of the individual and also the self-protective nature of the leader him or herself. Apart from the dimensional of leadership based on the international levels, the same leader must have notable strengths with him or her. Such strengths are the hardworking nature, flexibility, technically sound, egalitarian and also be independent in his or her thinking. Other qualities in regards to the same are being open, genuine or direct and also having honesty and ethical qualities (Grint, 2005). Contrastingly, another leader who has the opposite to these may show them in a broad term called weakness. Weakness characteristics of leaders resent the lack of vision or short term scope of viewing something, lack of strategic perspective and also a lack of open mind plus rigidity towards learning or accommodating of new ideas. On top of these, others are incidences of poor teamwork and empowerment, inflexibility or rigidity, inability to cope with the existing differences, poor skills among people and the issue of complacency or lack of self-management. The last sensitive aspect of leadership I learned was the development of leadership. From the knowledge I got concerning this subtopic, leadership development is all but mentoring in which that experienced person helps the other inexperienced guy to develop his or her abilities. The experienced guy, in this case, makes the instance achievable to the inexperienced guy through tutoring, coaching, guidance, and emotional support (Carli & Eagly, 2001). In this case, the mentor may be a boss, co-worker, friend, or someone from a different industry. In the olden days, the aspect was informal, but presently, it is a formal organizational practice. For instance, there are in place in regards to the same, different mentoring clubs, organizations, programs, and meetings. On the other hand, I also learned that leadership development may fall into the categories of 360-degree feedback, coaching, group feedback, personal questionnaires and also the engram Implication of the Understanding Indeed throughout the topic I found it more enjoyable and also easy to understand all the contents that it was passing. For instance, at the end of the lesson I benefited a lot from the leadership qualities and management styles plus the approaches to international leadership. Concerning the field of qualities of leadership I found it interesting since I was able to compare what I learned with what see in the organizations with respect to the qualities of their leadership plus the style in which they execute their leadership. Likewise, I had an interest in the approaches to international leadership since I believe that the concept in it would be much applicable in the integration of the local organization under effective leadership borrowed from international organization so that the same organization may also go global in terms of their operations. Finally, with time I intend to come up my leadership skills by taking on the application of the concepts I learned from this topic. In this case, after mastery of the knowledge being presented on the topic, I will find myself in such a position with good leadership qualities and all other areas that this topic covers so far. In this regard, I will be well enough be equipped with leadership skills that will lead to me effectively working with my employers without conflict of interest. The reason behind this that the knowledge gained from this lesson will put me in such a position where I will know my boundary as an employee and that of my employer as my leader if employed in the future. References Carli, L., & Eagly, A. (2001). Gender, hierarchy, and leadership. Malden, MA: Blackwell for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Grint, K. (2005). Leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Lindsay, D. (2007). Faith in the halls of power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O'Connor, K. (2010). Gender and women's leadership. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Reference. Robbins, S., & Coulter, M. (2005). Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Tracy, B. (2014). Leadership. New York: American Management Association. Werhane, P., & Painter-Morland, M. (2011). Leadership, gender, and organization. Dordrecht: Springer. Yoder-Wise, P., & Kowalski, K. (2010). Leadership. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders. Read More