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Objective: Again, this week you will be required to submit a Leadership Reflection Journal.
Purpose: This journal should be written in the first person and should be critically reflective. As such, you will discuss the most important concepts that you have learned throughout the week and how those concepts may be applied to your leadership career.
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Write My Essay For MeAssignment Description: Your Leadership Reflection Journal should exhibit personal reflection of your present leadership competencies and also possible adjustments that could be made to your leadership approach. Importantly, your Journal entry should be in light of the various concepts that have in covered each week in the course. Also of importance, the Leadership Reflection Journal should be far beyond a mere casual discussion. It should demonstrate a high level of understanding and should also provide adequate integration of authoritative sources as assigned for reading each week.
Parameters: Also you should integrate other scholarly sources, most preferably to review literature retrieved from the University research library. Your weekly Leadership Reflection Journal should be no less than one page and no more than two pages in length.
Leadership Reflection Journal
What follows is my leadership journal.
1. My Leadership Role
When I was a little girl about five years old, I had my first leadership experience. I was part of a dance group and was the first one in the row, my teacher told me everyday, “my darling, it is you who will have to make no mistakes, learn all the right steps and then practice them again and again, because everyone else will simply follow you, and your mistake would make not only you but everyone else in the group look bad”. She then told me that only people who were special were given this very important responsibility. Oh! I just can’t express how happy these words made me feel, but little did I know what a burden was put on my shoulders. Later as I grew up and was about 10 years old I was made the class representative , I was very happy with the trust my teachers and classmates showed in me but, at the same time I knew I was accountable and answerable for a lot of things. This phase of my life charted out a lot of my personality .It made me a more confident person, it made me an individual who was not afraid of taking responsibilities and tasks, no matter how challenging they might seem. Most importantly it made me realise that sometimes it is accountability that gets out the best in you. But nevertheless I was just a little girl who did not know all the stakes of being the leader. Years passed and my post of the class prefect turned into that of the cultural secretary of my school. As I swore in the responsibility of being the cultural secretary I could not help but be proud, I could not help but experience power. But, also I could not help hearing the echoes in my head, the echoes of my teacher’s voice, “remember everyone else will simply follow you, and your mistakes affect the entire group”. At that very instant I realised that leadership is not just the capacity to take people to a place they can’t get to on their own”. So, I took up the responsibilities while others made excuses , and made it my goal to give my school the best of shows, cultural events and gala evenings it had ever witnessed. This task however was not easy but, I also wasn’t an easy quitter. I challenged myself at every step and made it a point to be persistent and have tenacity despite failure at times. I had dreams, everyone does, but I also had the courage to turn it into reality. I knew that power corrupts but, I constantly reminded myself that I was here to bring glamour in my shows rather than being overpowered by the glamour in my post. From the five year old little girl to an eighteen year old young adult in my experience as a leader I’ve realised one thing. Sometimes, it just happens in an instant. We step up. We become a leader. We see a path, and we take it .Even when we have no idea where we are going.
2. The Poster
As a king loves his kingdom, all the people in it, every blade of grass that grows on his land, every pebble that resides in its waters. All that is good and all that is bad , all that is strong and all that is not. Such should also be the reign of a leader, who in his reign takes into consideration the needs, desires and goals of all his followers, and at the same time also motivates them to put in all their energies to achieve the common group goal. Also one must always remember a king is not a king without his kingdom and so is true for the leader as well. A leader is nothing without his followers, just like the king, the leader may wear the crown but his actual power resides in the trust invested in him by his followers. It is these ideas that inspire our poster. Our poster depicts the leader as a king like figure who is calm and wise. In the depth of his eyes can be seen years of experience. Our leader wears a crown made out of several people, symbolising his followers. This unique crown further reflects our main idea of the power of the leader being his follower’s support and trust. Further our poster also depicts beams of lights popping out of each follower’s head, with their individual goal written on it. This was done to put emphasis on the role of a good leader to place importance on individual goals alongside common group goals. Our poster also expresses the individual importance of every member in the group. The slogan says “Leadership is the initiative of the leader but the voice of the followers”, this too highlights our main idea. To take everyone forward is a leader’s dream, but to work with everyone to achieve this dream, is his challenge. Our poster is also inspired to some extent by the great mughal emperor AKBAR, who in his court had nine special ministers famously called the “ Nav Ratnas”. No policy in the kingdom was implemented without the consensus of these nine people. The “Nav Ratnas” were King Akbar’s greatest advisors. It is said that king Akbar and his nine ministers would argue for hours together before making the final decision on any important matter in the kingdom. The result of all this, King Akbar was able to promote secularism in a kingdom where muslim’s and hindu’s fought all the time. He was also given the title of “THE GREAT “, and till today is one of the most loved kings of the Indian sub-continent. Our group after a lot of brainstorming and considering examples of great leaders such as King Akbar, came to the conclusion of basing our poster on the leader –follower relationship. And so our poster shouts out loud our idea, of the power of the leader actually being the trust invested in him by his followers.
3. The Quote
“Change, we don’t like it, we fear it, but can’t stop it from coming. We either adapt to change or we get left behind. And it hurts to grow, anybody who tells you it doesn’t is lying. But here’s the truth: The more things change, the more they stay the same. And sometimes change is good. Oh, sometimes change is everything.” I first heard these words on the T.V show Grey’s Anatomy, and ever since they have been like my guiding angel. Right from the time when I was a little girl, I have had this tendency to get greatly attached to people, things and places. I have always resisted change. But “change” is one of the greatest truths of life and I know I have to learn to deal with it.
We all have weaknesses but, courage lies in overcoming them. This task, however difficult it might seem, certain things help make it easier. For me these words became my fairy god mother, and helped me deal with change whenever it stood in front of me ready to shatter me from the inside out. I still can’t forget the day of my school farewell, I stood there silent, rewinding all the good memories.
Tears filled up my eyes and a sense of great loss filled my heart. I did not want to let go of my friends, my teachers and that school building where I had spent 14 years of my life.
I looked around and saw all others also had tears in their eyes, but the difference between them and me was the smile they all wore on their lips. Then it suddenly dawned upon me the smile on their faces was the hope of a new beginning, the hope of a brighter future and a step ahead towards their dreams.
I realised at that very moment that my tears were not because of all the good memories I would be leaving behind, but because of the fear of taking on responsibilities of an adult.
I did not want to grow up, after all there is nothing better than the life of a child, free from all the shackles of the real adult world. But I had dreams in my heart too and I knew these dreams were bigger than my fear, I knew I had to challenge my fears and make the move ahead in life. I knew I had to let go of the past in order to live in the present and have wonderful dreams and plans about the future. I wanted to be remembered long after I was gone, and I wanted to make a difference to this world.
This was my dream and I knew I only had one life to full fill it. I had to overcome my fears and all the hurdles on my road to success. The biggest one currently was the acceptance of change. It is said the first step to overcome your weakness is to figure it out. I knew my weakness and I had my words of wisdom echoing in my mind again and again. The first step was taken and the rest would surely follow.
To conclude I would only say this course has truly been an enlightening experience.
A Critical Reflection of My Own Experience of Leadership
Introduction
This critical reflection is focused on my own experience of leadership whereby I suggest areas for my own development. I am also using herewith leadership theory and concepts in analysing and evaluating the leadership case that I am presenting. Leadership is a process or series of actions directed toward group goals; it is a consistently demonstrated pattern of behaviour with certain objectives (Ricketts and Ricketts, 2011).
The leadership experience that this paper tackles is centred on my previous supervisor in a previous job, who I call “Mr. M.” I deem it interesting to use my experience with his leadership case as I believe this would allow me to suggest areas for my own development. The case is therefore an observation of leadership in action where I am not a leader.
Critical Reflection: Analysis and Evaluation
Mr. M delegates tasks as a way to manage the myriad responsibilities within the workplace. Often, meetings are called for in order to update the whole team on the work that members have accomplished. Mr. M’s listening skills were excellent, in that he never missed any single point of information being related to him. From this set of information, he was able to synthesise clearly the ideas being presented to him; regard each chunk of information as a potential contribution to what the team was trying to achieve, and identify the problems and challenges along the way. He did all this with the help of the team, in which it must also be noted that teamwork is a necessary element of leadership, which must be considered in successful leadership (Parker, 2008).
A good attribute that was commendable of Mr. M was his ability to see positively a certain scenario despite our perceived griminess of it. He was a democratic leader who held the final responsibility whilst delegating authority to others. With his leadership, our communication – both upward and downward – was active. There was likewise high employee commitment because we were able to participate in the decision-making process of our team. This way, Mr. M. was able to encourage employees to function beyond just being rank-and-file workers. This concept of leadership was also present in Pride and colleagues (2010) in their discussion of leadership styles. Moreover, this scenario was harmonious with transformational leadership theory, which is focused on people’s interaction with others as they create a solid relationship that leads to trust, which in turn leads to increased intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in both the leader and the followers (Gittens, 2009; Lussier and Achua, 2010).
Job autonomy was also encouraged much in the team and the organisation itself, with a minimum space for supervision from the supervisor himself. This way, as a member of the team, I was able to enhance my commitment to the job as I likewise felt being the one who owned the tasks and felt a sense of achievement in return. Greater job autonomy certainly created identity in the job amongst us who were tasked to fulfill them. This atmosphere of responsibility and autonomy made me and the others appreciate our jobs better. This was also parallel to what Bligh and Riggio (2013) say about autonomy and job control in which they claimed that they (autonomy and job control) lead to employee empowerment. May I say that my own engagement with my work was drawn from high levels of empowerment and autonomy, which my supervisor helped to foster, especially in leader-follower distance, with the leader not always being present to look over the followers’ shoulders (e.g. Bligh and Riggio, 2013). Transactional theory could be found in the case example, whereby it demonstrates a transaction between the leader and the followers, giving importance to a positive and mutually beneficial relationship (Martin et al., 2006). The effectiveness of this theory is found in the development of a mutually reinforcing environment, for which individual goals and those of the organisation are in synch.
Furthermore, problem solving was not a sole task of our supervisor, but one that involved everyone in our team; thus, a group-shared activity. Mr. M acted as much to take the role of a facilitator in his intention to involve everyone in problem solving, laying down his views and opinions toward a particular direction, without dismissing others’ perspectives. The path-goal theory is seen in this example, whereby the leader directs activities, with varying manners. The theory maintains that the leader sees a path that needs to be trod and gets the group to accomplish it by commanding, rewarding, soliciting suggestions, etc. (Griffin and Moorhead, 2012).
However, I came to know that he did not go through development programmes for creative problem solving, which I think is necessary, considering that for a leader, the use of collaborative skills and creativity techniques is part of the leadership strategy, just as what Higgins (2012) had suggested.
In this regard, since Mr. M enabled his people to work well in delegation, he was able to function well as a coach. He was the kind who was willing to delegate and was comfortable to hand off assignments to the team. The kind of matters he delegated to those he led was not simply those referring to tasks but to responsibilities, which also harmonised with the discussion of Lussier and Achua (2010). Mr. M was not the kind of leader who would think that he was the boss with adequate knowledge and experience as an approach to problem solving. Solving problems by a leader because he thinks he is the most capable one is what Tracy (2013) called reverse delegation. Instead, Mr. M avoids committing this reverse delegation by making us define the problem clearly, developing a range of solutions, and selecting a solution being recommended. I believe Mr. M was able to grow his staff – which was one of his major responsibilities as a leader – by helping them develop problem-solving skills. I once asked him for a solution to a certain problem, and his responses was (as always) “What do you think must be done in this situation?” Thus, in many cases, he was able to make team members determine the best course of action for a certain problem or situation. There were times when a problem seemed too overwhelming to be handled by a member and would seek his help, to which his usual response would be to insist that the person must learn how to do it, with his guidance. Incidentally, Tracy (2013) stated that in case an employee returns to the leader with a complain that he/she could not do the job rightly, it is better for both of them if the leader guides the person in accomplishing the job rather than taking it back and adding it to his load, which is probably full.
As much as he could, Mr. M does not take sides or intervene in interpersonal problems, to which some people in our team would attempt to make him a mediator or a counselor. His tendency was not to express an opinion showing favour to one party over the other. This stance was also taken as positive by Tracy (2013), who said that as a rule, one would not be able to have the full story, and once a leader takes a particular position, it might mean weakening his authority with both persons in the future. As a result of good performance, the performing employee was rewarded by the leader.
Areas for My Own Development
Based on the case presented, the suggested areas for my own development as a leader are: delegating responsibilities to my team members, promoting decision-making through problem solving, and motivating the workforce through a high degree of autonomy and job control. I have learned through this exercise that delegating responsibilities is not only to free or unburden the leader of the many workloads but to provide opportunities for growth. Similarly, involving the whole team toward a problem-solving activity results in providing an opportunity for decision making. Noteworthy here is the fact that decision making allows employees to become more involved in the job (Bhattacharya and McGlothlin, 2011).
I am also noting that a high level of autonomy in the job necessitates corresponding skills sets for the work, in which employees with high job autonomy tend to perceive greater responsibility for either the success or failure of their efforts, and are also likely to experience increased job satisfaction (Lewis et al., 2007). My members’ skills must therefore be in synch with the level of autonomy required in their job, and that I could help them work on developing their skills through related training and coaching.
Conclusion
To conclude, the leader plays a crucial role in the development of members and in achieving organisational goals. This insight was demonstrated by this critical reflection through its discussion of delegation, problem solving, job autonomy, and maintaining one’s authority by not taking sides in members’ problems with interpersonal relationships. Mr. M was able to promote trust and motivation both for himself and for his team members, typical of transformational leadership theory. Transactional theory had also demonstrated a specific transaction based on a mutually beneficial relationship between the leader and the followers. This case also complemented with the path-goal theory in which the leader guides the members in treading a desired path. The case led to identification of my own areas for development.
