Morning Pages and BB
Becoming self-aware is the prerequisite to determine one’s own leadership style, which in turn is a factor reflection of one’s own personality. Leadership is both a practical area and application of skills to influence lead, motivation and encourage the organization and individual to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. The assignment here will focus on providing insightful reflection based on the morning pages and activities conducted in the module. The report will also demonstrate the Personal strength and weakness analysis in context of the leadership practice. SMART goals will be created in sync with the leadership challenges and analysis of Weakness and strength. The assignment in general will provide a reflection on the SMART goals, leadership styles and the challenges one faces in development of the leadership style (Yukl, 2013).
Morning Pages and BB: I have been reading the material published on BB which is called the morning pages. I have been focussing on the work, activities and instructions as presented in the pages to understand the essence of leadership.
Walking to Wisdom: There are no two doubts that a healthy body is necessary for an open mind. I have been practicing this regime for quite some time, based on which I have been engaging in running and yoga for last couple of months. I believe daily morning exercise helps me to work at higher energy levels, plus I am charged and motivated to work towards my goals.
Finding Something to Read: I was never into much of reading, and I mostly browsed internet for consuming information and content on infotainment. However, it has been made obvious to be that reading is a very helpful exercise which helps the individual to look at the horizon and learn from the masters of leadership. I started reading the Book Who moved my Cheese, Freakonomics, Best lessons in leadership, biography of Steve jobs and many more to feel the essence of leadership and also to open the horizon of my mind. Reading for me has become an integral part of my daily life and I ensure that every day I engage with a book for at least an hour.
Developing a vision Statement: Creating a vision for oneself is one of the most important attributes of leadership, which can then be translated to the business organization. My vision statement is a reflection of my leadership ability and the concept of leadership, my vision for the future is to become a transformational leader and follow in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and create a better world for the future.
Media Deprivation: It has been advised in many books and by many leaders in the past that media deprivation is something which everyone should do once in a while. Depriving oneself from the organic content on television, books, internet gives a person enough time to engage in his own thoughts and get into self-introspection. This introspection can later lead to high degree of self-awareness.
Taking Time Outs: I have understood that it is extremely important to stay alone for a while and engage with oneself to explore the sub-conscious minds and do things which make the person happy. I have decided to take regular time out from my regular routine and engage with the nature and explore historical monuments. I have also decided to at least running festivals, cultural festivals and meet new people to understand cultural differences. This will help me to further focus on my leadership and also to mitigate cultural differences (Agazarian, 2018).
Walking to Wisdom
Finding a Hobby: Finding a hobby is not only good for the mind, but it is actually food for the soul. Hobbies makes a person look beyond his professional competency and leverage the hobby as a stress buster. I was really good at playing Guitar, especially during my school days. I use this hobby to distant my mind and bring focussed attention in my personal and professional life.
Role Tools: Role tool is one of the most fundamental exercise which helps in development of the leadership role in any situation. I have observed myself as visionary leader, on the basis of which my stand changes on the topics of Lead follow, oppose and stand. I tend to lead the group on the basis of my futuristic vision; I follow this vision to create goals for myself and my team. On the basis of the vision I chose to oppose conventional ways of doing thinks and I always stand up for my team (Hsu, 2017).
- Few days back I was listening to the story of how Jeff Bezos became the richest man on the planet earth. Inn one of the interviews he mentioned that it was his vision for the company, for the employees and the society which made it possible for him to achieve such a marvellous feet. In his interview he mentioned that Amazon wants to become the most customer-centric company on earth, and thus the company keeps on experimenting on how to make the lives of people simpler. These made me realize that customer centricity is the most important attribute behind the success of business organization, and it is required to set up and create a culture of customer- centric at the workplace (Huber et. al., 2017).
- I was once listening to Satya Nadella of Microsoft fame, I always looked up the Indian origin CEO and his views on the tech innovation and his views on the future plan of Nokia. I found it extremely disheartening when he said that the company Nokia failed to create an impact because of its lack of marketing research and the company’s inability to feel the pulse of the customers. This made me really powerless; I thought how such a big leader can can simply quote that they failed because of lack of research. In my opinion it was just putting down the blame on the marketing department, whereas the fault lied with the leadership (Bolman & Deal, 2017).
Decision Making: Although I have studied in depth about various models of decision making such as T-Chart, Pareto Chat, SWOT, Pro and Con analysis and many more, I still struggle at making decisions in my life. I have a tendency to take decision impulsively, which does not fit well every single time. This is my opinion is one of the biggest challenge which I have to work upon to do justice to my leadership (Antonakis & Day, 2017).
Communication Skills: I don’t necessarily say that I am poor at communication skills; however I am really not a big orator and communicator when it comes to critical matter. The logic here is that I feel low on self-confidence, because of which I shy away from public speaking or act as a true leader by ensuring openness in communication. Thus, I have decided to work on this communication challenge and do justice to my leadership (Champy, 2018).
Conflict Resolution and Negotiation: Conflicts in business organization is very common, and while people think of conflict as negative for the organization, I see it as an opportunity to make progress. I have learnt that every leader has different conflict resolution style such as Accommodating, collaborative, compromising and avoiding. My personal leadership style is accommodating turtle, but in actual I do not concur with it. I am more believer of collaborative style of resolution yielding win-win result for both parties. Also, I find myself very uncomfortable when people avoid conflict and let it go under the carpet. Thus, my understanding here is to become a better negotiator of terms and resolve conflicts effectively (Covin & Slevin, 2017).
Besides this, I also underwent MBTI test to further asses my leadership skills and abilities and work upon them to become effective leader in the future.
MBTI or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an introspective self -report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions. The model which was created in 1943 draws result out of the 16 Personality types. This test also helps to identify the strength and weakness in an individual (Johnson, 2017).
Finding Something to Read
ENFJ type of people are natural born leaders, they are filled with compassion, are passionate about their jobs and want to make a change in the world. ENFJ type of people just constitutes 2% of the world population and the suggested career for them is Politicians, coaches, teacher, inspiring others to do well in the world. These types of people get an adrenal rush in guiding and helping others. Based on MBTI, Leadership practices and challenges some of the identified Strength and weakness are as follows:
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Strength Team Player- This is one of my biggest strength, I value team work and always keep it over individual roles. Reliable-I am an extremely reliable people; it hurts me personally when I fail to provide my team, friends and other people. Charismatic-Charming personality and popularity is another big strength of mine. Altruist-I always like to help other, which makes me an altruist which is strength of mine. Natural Leaders-Natural leadership arises out of admiration and followership from others. I have always been asked to lead the team, group or any project because people surrounding me feel that leadership comes naturally to me. |
Weakness Overtly Idealistic-One of my biggest weakness is being overtly idealist; I am idealist to so much extent that I completely disregard any person’s ideas if they do not fit in my value chain. Average communication Skills Poor decision making skills Fluctuating Self Esteem-Generally I have loads of self -esteem, but there are times when my self -esteem and confidence shakes and I lose the grip on the situation. Selfless-Being selfless is strength generally speaking, but if the selflessness becomes too prominent, people take advantage of it, thus it becomes a weakness. |
Locke’s Goal setting theory is used by many large and medium sized corporations and is widely appreciated by the employees. The motivational theory is a medium to set goals for the employees with the intention of encouraging them to follow a systematic path, leading to innovation. The basis and rationale behind creating SMART goals is that they are highly specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic and time framed. Thus, creating SMART goal is an exercise to become self- aware, which can give an impetus to the leadership ability of a person (Johnson, 2017).
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What do I want to learn? |
What do I have to do? |
What support and resources one needs? |
How will I measure my success? |
Time frame |
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Professional communication and Business technology skills |
I will have to enrol myself in a training program to acquire these skills |
Financial resources to pay my Tuition fee and research on the institutes which teach the modules I am interested in. |
The success can be measured by self-introspection, feedback from my professors and trainers. |
6 months (Weekend Classes) |
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Leadership Skills |
There are plenty of leadership mentoring programs in Australia, I would enrol myself in a six month leadership program to further become self -aware and acquire relevant skills to become an effective leader. |
I would require financial resources for my tuition fee, as well as guidance and learning from my teachers and professors. Along with it, I will read thorough plenty of business management case studies to understand how leaders acted in different situations. |
My success will be measured by the increase in my self-confidence, and the level of participation I show in my college activities and completing assignment leading the team. |
12 Months (Alternate Weekend classes) |
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Decision Making Skills |
I believe that the true test of leadership lies with taking the right decision. The decision should be based on the contingent situation and in no case it has to be impulsive |
I would myself read through various literatures on decision making models and apply models in my personal life. |
I would measure the success of my learning my evaluating the consequences of the decision I took after utilizing various models |
6 Months. |
As explained earlier setting up of SMART goals is extremely important for the success of an individual as he knows the path he has to walk on in order to achieve his personal and professional goals. The goals for an individual can be created either by organization or by an individual himself. Goal setting theory is one such theory which emphasises on setting of goals and monitoring the performance of the individual on the basis of goal setting. The goals which I have set for myself are SMART as well are in accordance with the five basic principles of goal setting theory which gives a justification of the goals set for my personal gain and benefit(Latham, Mawritz & Locke, 2018).
- Clarity- I have set three goals for myself, and I am extremely clear on the path to walk in order to achieve the set goals. Additionally, I have also attached a timeline for goal completion, which provides a timeline to reach the goal in stipulated time (Landers, Bauer & Callan, 2017).
- Challenging-It is really important that the goals which are set should not be simple, but they should have a decent level of difficulty attached to them. The goals I have set for myself which challenge me mentally, intellectually and also physically(Latham, Brcic, Steinhauer, 2017)
- Commitment- If a person is not committed to reach his end goals, all his time and energy utilized in setting up of goals become futile. Thus, one is advised to stay committed towards his goals, which are why action plan is important (Nebel et. al., 2017).
- Feedback- Feedback is important to monitor the performance and also to understand the milestones reached in achieving the goals. Thus, it is important to continuously take feedback from trainers/peers/friends/colleagues etc.
- Task Complexity-Setting up goals which challenge a person mentally and intellectually is one thing, but giving time and room to oneself is another thing. One should give time to himself to decide the process or the action he has to take in order to achieve the goals (Locke & Latham, 2017).
Thus, it is on the basis of these 5 principles and SMART framework that my goals are set, which in turn provides me a clear path to achieve them.
Conclusion
Become self-aware is the first step of an individual towards leadership, the entire assignment is based on self-reflection which leads to creation of SMART goals on the basis of identified leadership challenges. I have identified that my gaps are visible in terms of my communication ability, decision making and leadership ability. In order to overcome these challenges in a systematic manner I have created goals to effective address each challenge and stem them from the roots.
References
Agazarian, Y.M., 2018. The visible and invisible group. Routledge.
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Champy, J., 2018. Reengineering Management The Mandate for new Leadership. Harper Collins.
Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
Gorton, R.A., Alston, J.A. and Snowden, P., 2018. School leadership & administration: Important concepts, case studies, & simulations. McGraw-Hill Education.
Hsu, Y., 2017. Work values, conflict, and team cooperation among engineering designers. Journal of Engineering Design, 28(10-12), pp.799-820.
Huber, N., Brosig, F., Spinner, S., Kounev, S. and Bähr, M., 2017. Model-based self-aware performance and resource management using the Descartes modeling language. Ieee transactions on software engineering, 43(5), pp.432-452.
Johnson, C.E., 2017. Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. Sage Publications.
Landers, R.N., Bauer, K.N. and Callan, R.C., 2017. Gamification of task performance with leaderboards: A goal setting experiment. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, pp.508-515.
Latham, G.P., Brcic, J. and Steinhauer, A., 2017. Toward an integration of goal setting theory and the automaticity model. Applied Psychology, 66(1), pp.25-48.
Latham, G.P., Mawritz, M.B. and Locke, E.A., 2018. Goal setting and control theory: Implications for job search. The Oxford Handbook of Job Loss and Job Search, p.8.
Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P., 2017. Theory Development by Induction. The Oxford Handbook of Strategy Implementation, p.373.
Marshall, C. and Oliva, M., 2017. Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education. Pearson.
Nebel, S., Schneider, S., Schledjewski, J. and Rey, G.D., 2017. Goal-setting in educational video Games: comparing goal-setting theory and the goal-free effect. Simulation & Gaming, 48(1), pp.98-130.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Yukl, G.A., 2013. Leadership in organizations. Pearson Education India.
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