Studying Leadership and the Leader's Experience - Assignment Example

Learning Portfolio Affiliation: Week 8 How does your learning about this topic relate to your prior knowledge, personal experiences or expectations? This topic only emphasizes my prior knowledge about leader who tends to consider that success of their teams and companies has been purely attained through their fundamental attributes and which hinders them from learning from their success. A supervisor I once had in a previous job fit the topic perfectly in terms of considering success as coming from his attributes and not team effort and thinking that customers came back because of his physical attractiveness alone. The reality was however that we worked hard as a team of six people with him as the leader and our supervisor. We did majority of the work but he was the one on the limelight and this made him take all the success for himself and not acknowledging the team. He tried charming customers with his looks once the team disintegrated but he only received failure reports after that as only looks alone do not work to gain success. What does your research tell you about this topic? 2-3 academic articles Research by (Judge, Hurst & Simon, 2009) indicates that success of leaders is an accumulation of different attributes from the physical appearance to the mental ability as well as their core self-evaluation which basically deal with the confidence level of the leader. What this means is that without all these attributes mentioned above which are integrate with team work, a leader cannot be successful. When a leader is unaware of the factors that make him or her successful, when failure come s along, the leader is unlikely to rise back to the success domain again as he took the success as purely a fundamental attribute. The other thing highlighted by the article by (Gino & Pisano, 2011) that is mentioned in the topic is that overconfidence is one of the main impediments of learning about success and failure as a leader. An overconfident leader tends to be overshadowed by biasness as well as the fundamental attribution error. This therefore leads them to failing to ask for guidance or assistance even when they are on the verge of plunging into failure. What these does is that is leads the organization into eminent failure and underperformance that they cannot recover from to reach their levels of success once again. What actions do you plan to take based on your learning about this topic-behave differently, stop or start doing something differently, or no change and why The topic basically is full of advice on how a leader should behave and what attributes to consider and remember when they are successful so that they can use them in case of any failure. The tips on success depending largely on mental ability, physical attractiveness and self-evaluation will really come in handy in future when I will have a chance to be a leader or even now in case I am chosen as a group leader. What is evident from the topic is that the leaders should avoid negative attributes such as overconfidence, basing their success on fundamental attribution error or even the failure to ask people or the team because they are the leaders. Once I adopt the positive attributes and avoid the negative ones, I am bound to recognize team effort and avoid failures at all cost and if they happen, I will find a way to recover. Week 9 How does your learning about this topic relate to your prior knowledge, personal experiences or expectations? I am one of the people that sometimes fail to see relevant information and hence make my own judgments and decisions without having all the necessary information. This has cost me a lot in terms of losing out on important business or even personal deals or even failing a few assignments as I failed to see a few of the instructions. The learning in this topic is about making decisions without utilizing all the information provided and hence ending up making dire mistakes. It is advised that before making any decision, no matter how major or minor it is, it is always important to think about it not only twice but some more about it as well. Rushing into decision making is what eventually costs an individual including a leader a lot in terms of career, customers and even financially and it affects negatively the reputation of the individual and organization. What does your research tell you about this topic? 2-3 academic articles Bazerman & Chugh, (2006) in their article indicate that most people and especially those in decision making positions error in making correct decisions because of several things all of which are related to the information. The first is they fail to see the information which is relevant in decision making. They may also fail to seek information and act on the irrelevant or outdated information alone. Others seek the information but fail to use it and hence base their decisions purely on assumptions. Failure to share the relevant information that could be used in decision making is another reason that leads to poor decisions. When it comes to making especially important decisions that might affect a lot of people more than even the employees, it is not only the reputation of the leader that will be at stake but that of the whole organization and other stakeholders as well. It is therefore important to think deeply and more than twice before making the decision (Kahneman, Lovallo & Sibony, 2011). The example provided by Bazerman & Chugh, (2006) about Merck and their vex medicine that caused heart attacks is a good example of how a rushed or slowed decision that is not thought through intensely can affect the lives of people and the careers of the doctors. What actions do you plan to take based on your learning about this topic-behave differently, stop or start doing something differently, or no change and why It is evident from the topic that I am one of those with a problem with not thinking twice before making any decision and I am not keen on information especially seeing it or even seeking it properly. If I drop all these issues and start paying more attention to the information that is provided or even seeking it when it is not readily available and then properly utilizing it, my decisions will start improving leading to more positive outcomes in future. The fact that I can improve on my decision making ability leading to an increase in performance and credit in school, avoid unnecessary rippling effects of my poor decisions to other people dependent on it among making other improvements mentioned in the topic, I can become much more productive than I currently am. I can also avoid losing money unnecessarily as a result of poor decision making and paying attention to information. Week 10 How does your learning about this topic relate to your prior knowledge, personal experiences or expectations? A friend of mine lost a few of his possessions simply because when he made a decision about playing poker on a certain Saturday, this decision focused on a few past experiences where he had won in the game. He failed to consider that the people he was playing against were more experienced than him in the game or the fact that he had lost a few too many games in the past. People have based their learning about the present and future using the experiences of the past specifically personal experiences, experience from advisors as well as focusing on the outcome rather than the process of getting that outcome. All these are biased and do not necessarily predict the future or make the future decisions to be correctly made. What I have learnt however is that I should always really on evidence rather than purely on experiences to make decisions about the future. What does your research tell you about this topic? 2-3 academic articles Research by Soyer & Hogarth, (2015) indicates that people like basing their judgments and decisions on their own personal experiences even though the memory might be faulty and use misguided beliefs full of bias. If not that, they focus on advice from others without considering the other might have edited the true account censoring other parts and hence the final information is distorted and incorrect. Experiences lead to an individual basing their decisions on outcomes specifically the successes and neglecting the value of failures. This is the reason many businesses end up not being successful and sustainable in the future as they solved the problems incorrectly based on only success factors and outcomes. In order to avoid the above taking place in future, Pfeffer & Sutton, (2006) encourages everyone and especially those in managerial positions to consider seeking much more evidence and not having to purely relying on experiences of the organization or that of the past leaders, This way, they will minimize the chances of having lower productivity, minimize the mistrust of leaders by the stakeholders, encourage equality as well as increase the morale of the employees. What actions do you plan to take based on your learning about this topic-behave differently, stop or start doing something differently, or no change and why I have not only learnt from my friend’s experience about not fully trusting one’s prior experiences to make a decision but have learnt from these articles that I should focus even more on the evidence provided. In the case of my friends for example, had he paid more attention to the evidence that he was not as highly skilled as he considered himself to be based on the more games he had lost than won, he would not have gotten involved in the game and ended up losing a few of his possessions. Moving on into the future, I will avoid relying on experiences of advisors as much as my own or on the general outcome as all these are full of biasness and hence cannot be fully relied upon to make a staunch decision and especially if the decision is business-related and could affect the credibility of the business to its customers. Reference Bazerman, M. & Chugh, D. (2006, January). Decisions Without Blinders. Harvard Business Review, 88-97. Gino, F. & Pisano, G. (2011, April). Why Leaders Don’t Learn From Success. Harvard Business Review, 68-74. Judge, T., Hurst, C. & Simon, L. (2009). Does It Pay to Be Smart, Attractive, or Confident (or All Three)? Relationships among General Mental Ability, Physical Attractiveness, Core Self Evaluations, and Income. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3): 742-755. Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D. & Sibony, O. (2011, June). Before You Make That Big Decision…Harvard Business Review, 50-60. Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R. (2006, January). Evidence-Based Management. Harvard Business Review, 63-74. Soyer, E. & Hogarth, R. (2015, May). Fooled by Experience. Harvard Business Review, 73- 77. Read More