What is Leadership?
The main difference is that the managers use own power for controlling the employee and leaders develop own power with their follower. In fact, any organization needs to have both leadership skills and organization skills for achievement. This report is based on my views on leadership. There is a summary of a few happenings of my life to show how I am as a leader and as a manager. This summarized view has been supported by the outcomes of various personality tests that gave a clear analysis of my skills. I took a 360° feedback from various people who work with me and have been for leveraging with me so that I am aware of my strength and weaknesses and how I perform as a leader. In the end the findings, all these activities have been summarized so that it can be utilized for improvements in future. So, this whole essay is regarding my leadership styles and skills.
Management is a part of leadership as they do not depend on each other. Being a successful manager means deliberate and strategic decision making regarding the feedback and management, while good leaders elaborate own strategy and style for motivating the followers. A leader is anyone who sets up a sharp vision, and after that guides the team to attain that vision by training and guiding the team towards effectiveness (Collins, 2010). In addition, a leader is one who remains cool under a pressure and remains completely engaged with the organizational goal. Vision is important for achieving the organizational goal because one can compare how much work to be done or not. Furthermore, Leadership is constantly developed in due course, by guiding and remaining inquisitive. I am a transformational leader because transformational leaders are forever learning and are looking forward to being the finest they can be for their staff (Hoyt, 2010). They understand that they have lots of people who depend on them, and they must be there for them. It is a hard-hitting work that needs harmonizing the personality styles, arguments, and interests of everybody they are working along.
There are several types of leadership followed by the organization. This includes Charismatic and trail theory of leadership. Interest in charisma or charm of a person started through the trait theory and came up as a part of situational theories. Charisma provides with the special justification of why individuals tag along with a leader. The charismatic leadership style is dependent on the charm and expressiveness of the leader. These leaders are led by their sincerity and dedication to their aim. A charismatic leadership description is deficient if it does not lay stress on the leader individually.
A Brief Life History
The trait theory of leadership states that the style of leadership is based on the characteristics of the leader which involves the extroversion, intellects, self-efficiency, and capacity to accept the challenges. The leadership theories state that the people can come up as leaders in various circumstances and jobs. The Leadership and management can possess the identical attributes; nevertheless, that’s true forever. Leadership talks about being noticeable, whereas management is mostly bureaucratic in temperament. The management and leadership might not be interdependent. Yet a few of the leadership theories show that the leadership is different from management, and a manager is not a leader although just a post of bureaucratic influence.
A servant leader is one who leads by serving other individuals. They are termed as servant leaders as they put the interests and desires of their followers prior to their personal self-interests and desires normally, they give importance to the growth of their followers, making their groups, performing realistically, and sharing control.
I will explain my experience here whenI had been handling the role of a branch co-ordinator in the past organization. That was computer Hardware Company which is selling the desktop and laptop also take a contract for maintenance. My work was to assign the complaint to engineer, which is received from the customer. I was able to lead my team in an effective manner. I sometime find difficult to maintain both sides in an effective manner. Eventually, I always focus on the relationship orientation rather than the task orientation.
There are two essential requirements for becoming a great leader
- Deep understanding of skills
- Great thrust when any team member in trouble: at that time give to help to improve his performance. The leaders can help in keeping the team together. Apart from respect, if leader gives the respect to team member which is the key to success but leader wants to earn that respect for his time and effort.
The latest theories of leadership state that leaders are one who makes the processes better and increases productivity. The managers can lead by setting up the benchmarks and by laying fitting examples in front of their team members. As per the recent theories of leadership, and effective communication is necessary for setting up a sharp vision, understandable goals and motivation of employees so that effective performance is achieved (Niiya et al 2010).
I come from a joint family who lived in a village. I was fortunate to learn hard work, honesty and moral values from my grandparents as I spent most part of my childhood with them. I adopted their coexistence and brotherhood features that help me in my professional life to understand different people and situations. In my school life, I have followed different styles of leadership and at that time I was not aware that it is related to the different concepts of leadership that have been designed by different experts. When I was studying in lower classes then the class teacher has appointed me as the monitor of the class. I have been assigned for this task and I have to do this task for one year. I used to manage the class in an effective manner. There I used to give punishments and note down the name of the students who are not obeying my words. I used to write the names who are listening to my words and accordingly students were punished and rewarded. Now I realise that I have followed the transactional styles of the leadership process.
Project Leadership Skills Analysis
When there was any cultural programme in school then I used to participate in organising the programmes and according to my organisation, programmes used to run successfully. Moreover, at that time if I used to make any mistakes then my friends and teachers used to support me and they used to give their valuable feedbacks to me. If have new plans in my mind, then I used to discuss with the teachers and friends and they used to give their opinion. Moreover, I used to give the opportunity to other to find out the mistakes. Now I feel that I have followed participative styles. Moreover, in this style, the leaders discuss the issue with their members and they take decisions that are being given by them.
A few years back an incident took place in my family. This incident has happened in 2013, when my father was not having a good condition of his health and he had been suffering from fever and vomiting. When doctor came to my home they prescribed few medicines, which also brought no improvement in his health. Doctor stated that if this situation persists then he would need to be shifted to hospital. Moreover, as the situation was getting worse so I took a decision to take him to the hospital for betterment of his health. I took the entire responsibility to shift him to the hospital and as he was out of danger I brought him back tour home. So, I have followed situational leadership policy as I took a decision depending on the different situation.
I am from northern part of India where the economy depends on agriculture and I am coming from the middle-class family. My father was farmer and always told me honesty and challenging work isgrowing your life. I was sixteen years old at the time I had got part time job in school’s library. By this experience, I improved the inner quality of my life such as responsibility and commitment. As well as I was leading a debating team in my school-time. I also trained school-aged, beginner and debating teams. A lot of my competencies for being a manager and leader had been gained throughout these years. Once I finished school time, I chose computer science stream and I am interested in web designing part. So, whenever there was any competition from university I took leadership as an event management.
360 Evaluation
By the age of 23 years, I could manage above 20 team members in the past job roles. I had been handling the team in Red rooster which as responsible for recruiting, training, budgeting, roster-setting as well as paperwork. As I had to deal with the internal conflicts of team members and at the same time I had to I get my targets achieved, I gained in-depth knowledge on the ways to motivate the teams and the ways to deal with convince the customer. I could do this by training myself with respect to motivation theories and leadership skills and their application. In my past role as a store manager, I was happy as I got the team of like-minded individuals, whom I could motivate easily. I feel enjoyable when I gave training to inexperienced staff and share my experience. It was fortunate as I had to deal with very few conflicts among the team members, for those few conflicts I had to always look out for the ways to negotiate and handle effectively. This is how I gained negotiating skills. With the passage of time, I also learned that to be an effective leader, I must support my staff throughout organizational transforms by giving the sufficient guidance and time to put together the essential modifications.
A few years back I used to teach the students and they were not having better academic results. They have said to me that whatever is being taught in school, it becomes difficult for us to understand and for this, we have come to you. I have taken the responsibility to teach them. Similarly, here my first task was to point out the issues that they are facing. After finding the main problem, I have started motivating them and I used to say them that you all have the ability to do well in your exams. This was not the end when I used to teach them I used to collect feedbacks regularly. When they used to give positive feedbacks to me then I used to find innovative methods of teaching and when I have got negative feedbacks then I have tried my level best to find the alternative means of teaching. I used to boost their confidence. Moreover, when results have been declared they all scored better marks and this have helped them in future. This is another style that has been applied from my side, and it is the transformational style.
In the past, I had been handling the key transformations like the removal of the outdated processes, changing the ways of task accomplishments, updating operational ideology to latest business environment and restructuring of the firm. These experiences made me realize that the leaders should constantly evaluate their team members on the basis of performance, dependency, efficiency etc. By use of my knowledge of leadership theories and organizational change policies, I could make transitions to be a less hectic procedure for everybody. When I consider my personal and professional record, I strongly trust that my life experiences have shaped my personality to be a strong one, and thus made me a strong leader.
I carried out a self-analysis as per the online personality tests feedback received. These tests helped me in the assessment of my strengths and weaknesses towards managing and leadership.
By the self-assessment, I was able to assess my skills, competencies, capacities; abilities call my experiences and traits. It is necessary to have a rigorous self-assessment so that proper analysis can be done and can be used as a valuable source.
This test is based on the five factor of personality. I achieved a fewer score in extraversion. This test is introduced my behavior in a social situation. Generally, who have high extraversion rate appear to be more powerful and more comfortable with others?So, I am ready for improving my weakness for a good leadership because I got allow percentage of extraversion tend to be quieter and reserved. In Agreeableness, this test is judged how can interact with others and who have more rate of agreeableness they are trusting, friendly and cooperative. I want to improve this quality for good leadership.
I scored well in conscientiousness because always focus on planning and completely engaged with organizational goal. I am not good with neuroticism. So, I want to improve my weakness as a relationship-oriented leader because I am less emotional and more relaxed. A lowscore in openness suggests that I am the person who doesn’t accept changes easily. Moreover, I always follow facts rather than emotional thinking, as a result, I got a score in openness. However, as per the feedback, I also learned that I have to accept different changes around me and develop myself accordingly.
In LPC test, if I got above 73 scores it means he is ‘relationship- oriented’ and below 64 scoresitmeans he is ‘task oriented’. In my last job, I worked under the manager as a shift runner who always takes decisions as per the situation and focused on how many tasks to be done. I did LPC test online for my manager and he got 61 marks. It means he is more task oriented rather than relation oriented.
Being a relationship-oriented leader, I always focus on team member’s emotion, collaboration, coaching and building a human relationship. On the other side, the task-oriented leader always focuses on rules, direction, time management, task perfection, commitment and personal desire. He is less thinking about employee situation. In some case, employees are good with task oriented rather than relationship oriented task. To be a successful organization, a leader needs to be a focus on both sides as per the situation. Since my organization is more focused on mutual respect and as high importance is given to team member and communication, I focus on being a positive role model and for this I try to be relationship oriented. If an organization focuses on structure, role and tasks, produced desired result, and strictly follows the plan and the incentive system then the task -oriented leadership is important. So, I look forward to maintaining a balance among the task orientation and relationshiporientation.
Human metrics Jung typology test
Extrovert (35%)
Thinking (51%)
Sensing (39%)
Judging (65%)
I am an extrovert person. I am always busy interacting with my work and happy to learn new things but without work, I cannot manage myself. Also, one disadvantage of extrovert if I have no works that situation I feel bored. Thinking is elaborate decision-making power in the different situation. Also, describe what I think about team member and people. Furthermore, sensing is describing as per facts and figure I like to take decisions. In addition, I always prefer preplanning for working so I can manage the schedule as well as organization goal. I always support positive thinking in my team members. If any team member is not good in some task always encourage to them for learning and giving them morally support.
This analysis has been created as per the surveys and feedback I got from my different co-workers and family members & friends. This feedback was been taken via a 360-degree format which was been mailed to all my direct superiors and my team members, by which I could get the constructive responses and I was able to assess myself. For my case, I am helpful according to feedback. As per different people, I am cheerful, energetic, friendly, kind and powerful. All of them varied a little but most of them had expressed that they like my way of managing. As per the feedback from most of the team members, I have an approach to delegate work rather than any micro-management. I usually consult my team members before making any decisions, however, in the case of urgency I can make any decision quickly. The senior managers showed that the communication skills, which I have developed during my past experiences, have been useful for conflict- management and team handling.
I am a great manager, as per the team members feedback, yet as per my managers, I need to develop the leadership traits like emotional intelligence, inspirational behavior, expanding vision and empowerment. As per the managers’ feedback, I have been able to lead by example and can motivate my team towards excellence. I had been able to communicate the vision clearly and by doing so, I could ask for feedback and making the workers’ participation in long-term plans; as an effective leader, I was able to authorize workers to pursue innovative ways outs for the complicated issues. On the other hand, like other leaders I would have exclusively relied on my skill to provide compelling speeches, then I would have faced problem of lacking details regarding what the changes imply for them. It was during my course of employment, I found that I had to additionally apply transactional leadership skills to make sure that followers understand the business vision and can proceed as per information.
As per the feedback of majority of respondents, I always showed an enthusiasm to take the lead and apply discretion when deal managing the sensitive problems. One thing I have been doing is focussing on the future possibilities, rather than any historic achievements. However, I have learned that these achievements can also be considered for the betterment in performance. My colleagues felt that I have skills of expressing myself clearly and lay an example for my teammates. I can easily agree to the difference of opinions.
So as to become an effective leader, I have to learn to choose the most excellent practices for the circumstances, as per my understanding of leadership theories and organizational change policies so that I can:
- Carry out usefulinteractive meetings,
- Convey email messages and
- Utilize different communication methods that describe the requirement for change.
Moreover, I need to make clear to my teammates regarding what proficiency is needed to carry out changes and need to make available the details regarding the applicable decisions that have been made to create long-term profits. I focus on using the participative management policies to pay attention to worker input and deal with valid apprehensions.
Conclusion
As per the self-analysis, I have learned that the successful leaders are ones who arrange for the organizational transformation events cautiously. Unexpected, unintentional events lead to pointless interference and disruption. The changes effect either on the overall corporation or only a solitary division, so the effectual communication and leadership are necessary for a smooth transition. Change happens step by step or occurs throughout a far-reaching transformation. Successful leaders utilize autocratic or democratic decision-making procedures,as per the circumstances.
Based on the needed developments, I can create a personal development plan which can be used as a guiding way to accomplish the business and personal goals. Knowing my strengths, I am a good leader still there is some scope of learning by turning out to be a transformational leader. I also need to learn to be flexible enough so that I can easily lead in the ever-changing environment. By this self-analysis, I got a realization that there is a lot to be learned in the real world and once I complete my education, I would be able to leverage the past experiences and turn out to be a great leader in the corporate world.
References
Collins, R.L. (2010). Among the better ones: Upward assimilation in social comparison. In J.
Suls& L. Wheeler (Eds.), Handbook of social comparison: Theory and research (pp. 159– 172). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Hoyt, C.L., & Simon, S. L. (2011). Female leader role models: Injurious or inspiring?
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35, 143-157.
Niiya, Y., Brook, A. T., & Crocker, J. (2010). Contingent self-worth and self-handicapping:
Do incremental theorists protect self-esteem? Self and Identity, 9, 276-297.