Personal Philosophy of Leadership - Essay Example

AR Personal Philosophy of Leadership 9/10 Personal Philosophy of Leadership Introduction The concept of leadership is no longer a mystery. Leadership is not associated with the business field only but it is a concept that helps individuals in reaching their goals using a cooperative and collaborative approach to follow. Leadership in politics, sports, teaching and other professional careers guides towards the importance and significance of this concept. Leadership is defined in different ways by different authors, however, an easy definition may be “the process whereby an individual directs, guides, influences, or controls the thoughts, feelings or behaviours of other human beings” (Rost, p.52) Theories of Leadership Many researchers have been struggling to define and explain the leadership traits, theories, challenges and related affairs. The importance that has been given to this area of research is the importance of leadership on employees, performance and overall success of the organizations. There have been a lot of facts and myths associated with the concept of leadership. In the past, leadership was linked by people with the superhuman characteristics bestowed by God to various leaders. This idea was further developed by Weber and named as Charisma by him. The leadership charisma involved the qualities and special characteristics that leaders posses. The leaders having leadership charisma are Charismatics. The concept of Charisma actually directs towards the special power and influence of Charismatics over the followers (Rickards & Clark, p79). In addition to the concept of charisma in leadership, it has been a point of debate if leadership skills are inborn or they can be taught. Researchers have been struggling to find an appropriate answer to this. However, it is not unjust to say that the answer to this question contains an equal portion of both statements. The answer to this question has been given attention for the reason that it may help organizations have effective leaders. Brainpower is the only thing that requires being in a person naturally. Knowledge can be gained, skills can be learnt but intelligence cannot be generated. A person needs to be intelligent and sharp in order to gain knowledge and utilize it. Leadership requires certain traits in a person. These traits include strength of mind, interest to resolve issues, ready to face challenges, power to proceed with plans, will to succeed, determination and passion (Levicki, 2008). Personal Values of my Leadership Leadership qualities, theories and concepts are valuable and useful when it comes to practical life. The leadership skills are not limited to benefit in businesses but are useful in leading all teams including the political, social, cultural and virtual ones. The leadership techniques, qualities and skills are of paramount importance in successfully handling the followers. Religious and political leaders may be taken as a helpful example of how influential leaders are. My personal experiences helped a lot in learning the concept of leadership in a better way. The theory and practice of leadership differ in some ways. However, the theory and literature on leadership helps in understanding and building a better and more influential personality to handle and motivate the followers. To make my opinion more clear and effective I would describe Managerial work and leadership. Since my personal life involves being a financial manager who directly reports to the president of the company I know quite about the concepts of leadership. The step by step development of my career and promotions helped me in understanding which traits are valued and which ones are not. Managerial work is closely linked to leadership. A leader is a person who carry out plans and knows what to do, whereas, a manager is a person who knows how to do things and how would they actually complete a particular task. For instance, a student who is making a plan to carry out a stage performance on some occasion and take the responsibility to select the performers too, is not only acting as a leader but also working as a manager. Leaders normally work as managers too. For this reason we may say that leadership requires managerial skills too. Hence, we may conclude that leadership and managerial work are joined together to achieve the goal successfully. Managerial qualities can be taught to the person by giving proper management education. In simple words, a person can be taught to plan, organize and control things (Henrikson, 2006). Leadership and managerial work are common observable facts that there are no general rules that creates leadership events or leadership methods, or for that issue great leaders. Managerial work and leadership are made cooperatively. Therefore, the only way to understand leadership correctly is the basic knowledge in group sciences. In simple words, managerial work is the process of describing and calculating the victory. A leader is the person who puts forward the plan, explains success, and confirms the capability of success. It is clear that a leader who assures these things will be more competent than other leader who desires to put the idea but refuses to accept any work in the managerial part (Clark, Clark & Albright, 1990). Hence, effective leader is the one who has power over people and whose decisions are binding on others. Shaping up of my beliefs regarding Leadership I being a manager have 24 employees under me who I have to take along with me for the betterment of the company. Effective leadership requires the leader to take the whole group along. It is not necessary to involve the whole group in decisions regarding the group’s success however; the members of group are ‘helpers’. These ‘helpers’, if motivated and encouraged to work together, may quicken the process of success. This is what my experience led me to realize. Leaders in the service industry need to be more attentive since the customers and workers are in a direct contact. The motivational theories helped a lot in running the business successfully from the very beginning of my professional career. The knowledge and understanding of such managerial and leadership concepts were the only assets I had. Motivation emerges with the feeling to improve the surroundings. An effective leader must know that motivation is the key to improve the group’s performance and the chances of success. Motivation, however, is not easy. It requires continuous performance appraisal and strong communication skills. This is the point from where effective leadership enters. The motivational techniques that I adopted were the comments of the customers on the comment cards. Those feedbacks were then analyzed to measure the performance of the team and helped in realizing the weaknesses which needed proper attention and techniques to be resolved. This experience leads me to think over the charisma concept. The believers of this concept assume that the charisma is God gifted and the influence of charismatics is because of the powers bestowed by God to those leaders (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). However, my leadership experience clearly directs towards continuous efforts and application of managerial and leadership concepts (like motivational theories etc.) to be an effective and successful leader. Values of Leadership which have helped to cope up with growing tensions My task as being a leader of my time helped me to create my views about leader and use motivational techniques for my staff. I being a manager in my firm have a lot of burden when it comes to financial procedures. Following the protocols of US GAAP and International Accounting Standards is important in our job and I being a leader have to ensure that my staff is following all the necessary protocols. I have used motivational techniques to provide my staff with good feedbacks so they can be encouraged to complete the tasks of the company. Financial statements, capital statements and trial balances are also to be analyzed by me and my employees and as I can’t do all this work alone I take my employees with me while I work on the tasks. It is important that all my employees work on it as per the techniques and for this purpose I encourage them with techniques and my charisma. Similarly all the financials of the company including Profit & Loss statements, bank statements and loans also lie under my jobs. And again all these tasks are completed by the efforts from my employees. Leadership here is so important to get all these tasks completed because if I was not an effective leader I would not have been able to get my employees together to work on the tasks properly. Conclusion Gradually with time I realized that all these traits of leadership are important to get a department work efficiently. If this was not the case then our company would suffer losses and the whole team would not be able to complete the tasks as per the criteria. My approach of leadership is related to the contingency type of leadership. The contingency approach of leadership is associated with the path-goal theory more closely than others (Dubrin, 2001 pp. 32-34). The path-goal theory follows the same idea as defined in the expectancy theory of motivation. The main idea is the relationship or connection between the leaders behaviours on employee participation and performance in achieving the tasks assigned to them. The path-goal theory is more inclined towards the rewards in order to attain higher motivation of employees and higher performance efficiency. Path-goal theory emphasizes on servant leaders, who are less dominating and more helpful. The leaders working under the contingency perspective of leadership are more like coaches, facilitators and guides to the employee team. I adopted this approach so that none of my employees feel that I am dominating at work and feel uneasy. Hence these employees would then work collaboratively with me so that we can work for the betterment of the company. References CLARK, K. E., CLARK, M. B., & ALBRIGHT, R. R. (1990). Measures of leadership. West Orange, NJ, Leadership Library of America. CONGER, J. A., & KANUNGO, R. N. (1998). Charismatic leadership in organizations. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage Publications. DuBrin, Andrew J. Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print. HENRIKSON M. (2006). Great leaders are made, not born. AWHONN Lifelines / Association of Womens Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. 10. LEVICKI, C. (1998). The Leadership Gene: Leaders are born not made. MANAGEMENT TODAY -LONDON-. 85. RICKARDS, T., & CLARK, M. (2006). Dilemmas of leadership. London, Routledge. http://www.netlibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=144367. Read More