Work Culture and Coordination
Leadership has always been a very important aspect of my life and personality. There are several leaders that have motivated me throughout the course of my life and have shaped my leadership style and ability. I work in the sales department and I am currently leading a team of four people. The job of a sales personnel requires immense patience, persistence and commitment (Martinaityte & Sacramento, 2013). Therefore as a leader, I need to be consistently on my toes and ensure that the four members of my team are performing to the best of their abilities. As a leader, I am required to help the team set clear targets, motivate them and ensure that the target is achieved leading to an overall increase in the team’s productivity and profitability for the organization. For a sales team it is imperative that members do not rest on their laurels and strive to work hard day after day in order to generate revenue for the firm.
My leadership journey with this team has been an immense learning experience. As a team we have grown together and worked upon improving ourselves. From the shaky beginning that we experienced over two years ago, today we have come a long way. In the beginning, my first objective was to ensure high levels of coordination in the team. I hosted several meetings (both official and unofficial) to ensure that team members are comfortable with each other. I strongly believe in the importance of open communication within the team hence I encourage open and transparent feedbacks and invite suggestions from all team members. In order to enhance coordination, I often send two people for sales meetings so that members get more chance to work together. We often conduct random feedback meetings so that people can express their grievances. This ensures that these issues are also addressed in a timely manner. In terms of communication, I also make it a point that I am always available for my team members if they require any form of assistance. The overall work culture within the team is optimistic and members share a comfortable equation with each other.
Clear goal setting is an essential part of effective leadership (Hackman & Johnson, 2013). During the 30th of every month, I conduct one on one meetings with all the team members in order to set a specific and measureable target for the coming month. I also try to divide that target into short term weekly goals so that it is easier for us as a team to analyse our collective performance week after week. Every week, a team meeting in conducted so that we can understand our performance and plan for the coming week. Clarity in goals keeps team members occupied and ensures high level of productivity by the entire team.
Setting Clear Goals
In order to keep the team motivated, I ensure that members are recognized for their hard work. The months of excellent performance are rewarded by an unofficial team dinner or lunch. As a leader I also ensure that all positive results of respective team members are shared with organizational seniors too. This form of recognition keeps team members motivated. Since the beginning, I have tried to instil a sense of ownership among team members which helps them in putting their best foot forward towards accomplishing organizational goals. All the team members are required to send me a daily report of the work done for the day. As a leader, I try my best to reach all the four E-mails every day and respond to them over frequent intervals.
Throughout this course, I have learnt about different styles of leadership. Every leader may have a different style of leadership. No single style can work for every leader or be effective in every situation. During the beginning of the course, we had been asked to identify our leadership styles. However, I realized that my leadership style in highly situation dependent. Usually I am participative and democratic leader. Democratic leadership refers to a leadership style wherein the leader allows all team members to participate in the team’s decision process (Puddington, 2014). My democratic leadership style has created an optimistic environment of open communication and transparency within the team.
However, during month ends sales personnel are highly under pressure regarding achieving their target. Therefore during this period, I have observed that I become a rather autocratic leader where I try to impose stringent rules and relatively difficult targets for the team to accomplish. This helps us in achieving our monthly targets and remaining profitable in the business. Adopting the right leadership style given the working situation is imperative for effectiveness in leadership.
Owing to this course, my colleagues, team members and seniors have offered me an honest feedback regarding my leadership abilities. One of my colleagues mentioned that I have a difficult time in saying ‘No’ to people. Various people often tend to take advantage of this attribute and this is something I surely wish to work upon. I need to improve my personality and become increasingly assertive. This would help me in keeping my productivity in check.
This course has helped me gain a deeper insight about my current leadership abilities. Not only was I able to seek feedback with my colleagues and seniors but I was also able to conduct several leadership tests which helped me understand my leadership style and traits in a better manner. This feedback not only helped me understand my strengths but also helped me identify my weaknesses as a leader. This would enable me to work upon these attributes and enhance my leadership ability. The further part of the report throws light upon the results of my leadership tests as well as a tentative leadership development plan which I have built in order clearly define my goals and work towards improving my leadership.
Motivating Team Members
Gallup’s strength finder helped me identify my weaknesses and devise an action plan to improve upon my leadership abilities. The test required me to answer some questions and based on my selected answers from the multiple choice given, a result was generated which highlighted my top five strengths as an individual.
The foremost strength as depicted by the Gallup’s strength test is being restorative. This signifies that in the face of a problem, I tend to focus on the best available solution rather than panicking about the issue of becoming indecisive. As a leader, this ability has helped me in dealing with several clients and addressing various team problems. In the sales business, we come across various clients and it becomes essential to effectively deal with them. I try to find a solution to a problem as soon as it is presented. This helps us in retaining clients and also this has helped my team in strengthening their trust in me as a leader.
My second strength according to the result was my ability to communicate with other people. I agree with the analysis of the test because communication has always been my strength. I understand the importance of open communication within a team and hence I try to create a culture of transparency. I also encourage open door policy within the organization. This policy suggests that the leaders of the business leave their doors open in order to encourage members of the team to communicate with them by signalling that they are available to talk (Newey, 2016).
As a leader of a sales team, it is essential that I am analytical. This ensures that I rely particularly on facts and figures rather than human emotions. Sales is a number game and it is imperative for people to survive in sales to deliver numbers. At the end of the day, it is the total revenue generated that matters. This is precisely what I tell my team members. I have a clear format for performance report of all my team members and it is predominantly based on the revenue generated and number of clients acquired for the business.
This Gallup’s strength finder test helped in in understanding and identifying my strengths and ensuring that I can consistently work towards developing these abilities further to ensure effective leadership from my end. The next part of the report highlights upon the leadership development plan that I have devised considering the Whittman GROW model.
Different Styles of Leadership
Through the duration of this course, I have had the opportunity to reflect upon my leadership and even seek an honest feedback from those around me. This exercise has helped me in developing a leadership plan which includes my short term as well as long term goals. I have attempted to devise a detailed plan that would help in achieving my goals.
In order to develop a leadership plan, I will be using the Whittman GROW model. This is a relatively simple method involving goal setting and problem solving (Grant, 2011). The model identifies the goals that need to achieve and aims to identify solutions and ways to achieve those goals. GROW model stands for Goal setting, Reality, Obstacles and Way forward. The idea behind using this model is to gain a deeper insight about my desired goals and devising an action plan to achieve the same.
Goals: As a leader, I have several goals. Some of which are long term while some are short term goals. At present, I am leading a team of four people. Over a period of the next two years I would want to grab opportunities that will help me lead a bigger team. By the end of five years, my aim is to lead the sales department of my company on a national level. The given time period has been decided because I am aware of the promotion and appraisal cycle of my organization. As an individual I prefer having five year goals because it is easier for me to divide this goal into several small goals.
As a leader, I would also like to become more assertive and improve upon my ability to bring about transformational changes within the team. From the feedback received from my colleague, it was evident that I have a hard time saying no to people and they often take advantage of this personality attribute. Therefore I need to enhance my leadership traits by working on this aspect.
Reality: At present I have a team of four people who work in sales. Every year, our firm recruits over 60 new employees who are allocated in different departments. Appraisals happen every year while promotions are granted solely based on performance. Hence I need to really prove my mettle as a leader in order to enhance my team size and gain an opportunity to lead a bigger team. There are four teams within the sales department and all of them have their respective team leaders. There is a department head who is responsible for the performance of all the four teams.
Personal Feedback and Leadership Tests
As far as my leadership style and abilities are concerned, my team has offered me a positive feedback and I have personally experienced improvement in my leadership traits. I try to focus on my personality strengths and use them to guide my team members better and improve the working culture of the team.
Obstacles: In order to increase the size of my team, take responsible for the entire sales department for my organization on a national front and improve my leadership ability, there are certain obstacles that I would have to overcome. The primary obstacles is the team leader of another sales team in the firm. He is one of my biggest competitors in the organization. Our performance has always been neck to neck and there is a healthy competition that exists between the two teams. As a result, the chances of either of us getting promoted to the profile of ‘HOD – head of department – sales’ is equal.
Secondly, as an individual, I find it difficult to say no. My lack of assertiveness is a major problem that makes it difficult for me to extract hard work from employees at the last minute. This attribute has been reflected in my personality since a long time and hence it would be relatively difficult to address it and work towards changing it.
Way forward: The most important aspect of the GROW model is the devising a way forward in order to accomplish the goals defined. There are several steps that I need to take in order to ensure that achieve my goals.
Firstly, I will start taking leadership workshops in order to enhance my leadership ability specifically work upon my level of assertiveness. These workshops are conducted in different parts of the city. Harvard business school also conducts online workshops. These workshops are aimed in building strong leadership. My target is to attend at least four workshops in a span of the next six months.
Secondly, I would gradually take up challenging tasks and improve the overall team’s performance by motivating team members and setting clear targets. This would help me out perform other teams and prove my mettle in front of the seniors of the organization. Taking responsibility is an important attribute of a leader (Antonakis & Day, 2017). Hence besides sales, I would try to take active part in other related functions of the business including marketing, branding, pre-sales and customer care. This would help me understand the business in greater detail and hence also make me more eligible for a higher leadership role.
Gallup’s Strength Finder
Thirdly, I would like to work upon my ability to become more assertive by reading books on leadership and making a conscious effort in my everyday life to be assertive. I would also ensure that I am able to take strong decisions and stick to them.
Fourthly, I would also like to take responsibility of my team members and ensure their growth in the business. I would personally ensure that I try to understand my team members in a better manner so that I am able to identify their interests and abilities. I would like to present them with the opportunity to occasionally work in different departments so that they can widen their horizons and enhance their learning. This would help them remain satisfied with their jobs and therefore enable them to put additional efforts towards achieving organizational goals with an increased sense of ownership.
Fifthly, there are a few leaders who continue to inspire me. This includes people in my closest circle specifically my father as well as well-known leaders from across the world. Leaders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have always been a source of inspiration. I would ensure that I continue to follow these leaders, read more about them and learn from their lifestyles and leadership methods.
Lastly, I will continue seeking feedback by taking self-reflective tests and conducting honest communication with my colleagues as well as team members in order to ensure that I am always aware about my abilities as well as weaknesses. The culture within the team would always be open, communicative and transparent and I would ensure that any issue faced by any of the team members is addressed in an effective manner. It is essential for me to disclose these goals to my team members so that we all can be on the same page and efficiently work together in coordination to achieve these goals together. This level of transparency would provide clarity to the team and help team members in working together in a motivated manner.
Conclusion
Leadership is the ability to lead and guide a team. A leader is bestowed upon with the responsibility of guiding a team, being a mentor, setting clear targets and ensuring these targets are accomplished. Besides this too, team motivation and employee engagement are essential factors of effective leadership (Yukl, 2012). At present, I am leading a four member sales team at an energy retailer. Through this course, I have had the opportunity to gain a deeper insight about my leadership abilities and ensure that understand my strengths as well as weaknesses.
I have been able to identify important short term and long term goals and device strategies to improve my leadership abilities. I also gained feedback from my colleague which helped me understand my leadership style better. My goal is eventually lead the sales department on a national front for my company and inspire team members to work hard and generate high levels of revenue for the firm. I also need to become more assertive as an individual. To achieve the same, I would be attending workshops, keeping team members motivated, reading books, following great leaders and consistently seeking feedback and evaluating my own performance as a leader. This would help me fulfil my team goals as well as become a better leader and enhance my productivity within my organization.
References
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications. United States.
Grant, A. M. (2011). Is it time to REGROW the GROW model? Issues related to teaching coaching session structures. The Coaching Psychologist, 7(2), 118-126.
Hackman, M. Z., & Johnson, C. E. (2013). Leadership: A communication perspective. Waveland Press. United Kingdom.
Martinaityte, I., & Sacramento, C. A. (2013). When creativity enhances sales effectiveness: The moderating role of leader–member exchange. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), 974-994.
Newey, A. (2016). Open-door policy. Professional Beauty, (JulAug 2016), 114.
Puddington, A. (2014). The democratic leadership gap. Journal of Democracy, 25(2), 77-92.
Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66-85.
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