My Own Leadership Style - Essay Example

Leadership Leadership I have been an Assistant Manager at Foot Locker and as an adult leader with my son at Naval Sea Cadet Unit andthese leadership experiences provided me enough insight that influenced me own leadership style to formulate and write my Personal Leadership Portfolio that I could share with this class and others. The particular experience where I have to assume a leadership position with own son in a formal institution opened a lot of perspectives about leadership that I now came to adopt and integrate with own leadership style. Having been in a position of an adult leader with my son at Naval Sea Cadet Unit provided me unique insight about critical leadership concepts such as the need of emotional intelligence as a pre-requisite for effective leadership. I believe that everybody will agree with me that every parent has an emotional bond with his or her offspring that would be obvious in every leadership act. The concern is genuine and the intent to make the follower better is sincere since it is the natural emotion that a parent has for his or her child. My personal experience and further research made me understood that this is not bad and in fact ideal. Initially, I had the reservation that emotion might cloud my better judgment as a leader especially when it involves my son. Research however revealed that emotion is in fact a required trait of an effective leader. Leadership after all involves a great deal about people and one must have the social and emotional aptitude to be able to lead towards a common direction and these are all grounded on emotion. The experience made me realize that the more I am being emotionally attached to the person or group of people that I am leading, the more concern and involved I am with the person or people I am leading and this translates to a genuine interaction and sincere leadership of which people can see through that would make me an effective leader because they understood that I genuinely care about them and their welfare. This is particularly true during a difficult situation when I have to prod them to do difficult drills and assignment because I really wanted them to get better by pushing their limits. Subordinates will normally complain (albeit silently) when a leader gives them a difficult task or assignments but when they have an emotional connection with the leader, they would understand why they are being asked for such difficult task and would gladly obey. They fully understand me when I give them a motivational speech about difficult tasks that “calmer seas never made a fine sailor” and that difficult tasks will make them better. Further research made me realize that this emotional attachment and genuine concern to the people being led is an area of emotional intelligence which is a desirable trait in leadership. Emotional leadership was first articulated by Thorndike (1920) who asserted that intelligence is not only limited to academic intelligence but in fact transcends to emotional and social component (qtd. in Mandell & Pherwarni, 2003). It was later expounded by researchers who reported that intelligence is in fact a multifaceted construct that includes one hundred and twenty other types of intelligence (Lyusin, 2006). Emotional intelligence is important because it enables me to better understand others and myself. The ability to understand myself is called intrapersonal intelligence which is the competency needed to effectively relate to others by first understanding myself. According to Carmeli and Josman, this intelligence is in fact the basic building block of the ideal type of leadership which is transformational leadership (2006). Transformational leadership is defined as the type of leadership that inspires others to become better and ultimately to become leaders by themselves (Mandell and Pherwani, 2003). When this is properly used and applied in a naval and/or military setting, subordinates tend to be very motivated in their tasks and will tend to push themselves beyond their limit not only to overcome challenges put before them but also the internal desire to genuinely become the best sailor that they could be. I could see the effect of transformational concretely when they do the extra drill and do their academic works without further prodding from me and that they are always excited to be under my leadership. Transformational leadership also worked in a corporate setting when I was an Assistant Manager at Foot Locker. The situation is different at Foot Locker because unlike in a naval academy where subordinates have to be motivated to be better, Foot Locker’s success is measured in terms of performance, output, sales and ultimately profit. To achieve this, employees must be motivated, consistent and should work together to achieve the goal of an organization. Looking at the situation from the point of emotional intelligence applied in leadership, I realized that motivation has to come from within and monetary reward system does not necessarily translate to a motivated workforce. So instead of slave driving them to meet sales quota, performance metrices and other key performance indicators, I instead showed them that I am doing myself what I ask them to do by being a model employee myself. I also understand them individually making them feel that they could relate to me not only as their manager but also as their leader. I also created a positive and harmonious atmosphere where Foot Locker is a pleasant place to work for where employees could feel that they belong to a community. As a result, employees tend to look forward to their work because work has been transformed as place where they could enjoy and become better. This translates to minimal tardiness, almost no absenteeism, low attrition rate, high productivity rate and increased profit. Transformational leadership has brought me favorable results in my leadership experience but I am still in the process of learning transformational leadership. I am hoping and striving that I would be able to internalize this kind of leadership that it would become my second nature to lead in a transformational way that does not only bring result but also makes people better. References Carmeli, Abraham and Josman, Zvi, E. (2006). The Relationship Among Emotional Intelligence, Task Performance, and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Human Performance. (19)4: 403-419 Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligence for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books. LYUSIN, D. B. (2006). Emotional Intelligence as a Mixed Construct: Its Relation to Personality and Gender. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology. (44)6: 54-68 Mandell, Barbara and Pherwani (2003). RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE: A GENDER COMPARISON. Journal of Business and Psychology. 17(3): 387-404 Read More