In the recent years, transformative change has become a crucial and inevitable aspect in educational organizations, which seek to meet workforce needs of the global organizations that operate in a highly dynamic environment ( Caldwell et al., 2012) . Transformative change is a holistic systems approach that derives its power from meeting the needs of people, human behavior, as well as the structures and systems in which they operate or exist; hence, the change is irreversible and enduring. Further, transformational change differs from other forms of change in that it involves fundamental breakthroughs in behavior, beliefs, and paradigms. Transformative change is also founded on the principle of emphasizing a positive vision and focusing on the ideal environment that an organization or leaders aim to create. In educational organizations, transformative change occurs at all levels; hence, it heavily depends on effective collaboration at all levels as well as balancing the aspects of letting go and control ( Caldwell et al., 2012) . Moreover, transformative change involves the organizational leaders and their followers being the desired change, an element that pertains to mirroring what the organization aims to create. For leaders to efficiently act as change agents, they must possess essential leadership competencies to help them in leading the organization, self, and others. In this paper, I will examine my leadership competencies, as well as the areas that I consider crucial to fully develop so that I can effectively work as a change agent in my educational organization.
Leadership Competencies
Leadership competencies refer to the leadership behaviors and skills that promote superior performance among leaders. Although leadership competencies are termed as universal across organizations, Gülcan (2012) notes that some leadership attributes are specific to particular organizations. In the context of my educational organization, the critical, essential leadership competencies that one requires to become an active change agent can be categorized into three major groups, including skills for leading the organization, competencies for leading self, and competencies for influencing others. The critical leadership competencies that are crucial in driving the organization include useful change management skills; the capacity to adequately solve problems and make viable decisions; the ability to positively influence others and manage politics within the organization; the ability to effectively set an organizational strategy and vision; as well as the capacity to innovate and take risks (Gülcan, 2012). Other competencies that leaders require to become effective change agents in educational organizations concerning leading the organizations include effective work management practices, excellent mastery and navigation of the organization, and the ability to improve one’s knowledge and skills.
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On the other hand, competencies about leading oneself are crucial in an educational organization. The skills include maintaining high integrity and ethical standards; display of purpose and drive; an exhibition of a leadership stature; effective management of the self; enhancing one’s capacity to learn new skills and concepts; developing greater adaptability to the changing conditions; and self-awareness improvement ( McKnight, 2013) . Moreover, the essential leadership competencies that pertain to leading others in educational institutions include the capacity to develop others; effectiveness in creating and maintaining vital relationships; efficient management of work groups and teams; appreciation of diversity; useful communication skills; and the ability to develop and improve others.
Education, training programs, as well as working in different educational organizations have contributed mainly towards building my leadership competencies, which have enabled me to become an active change agent. One of my essential leadership competencies is effective communication. I possess excellent writing skills, especially in group situations and e-mails, an aspect that enables me to express ideas clearly and apply language on building common understanding in teams and work groups. I am also a great listener, which not only helps me to learn from others or the mistakes of other leaders but also helps me to effectively interact with others and build the rapport that is crucial in facilitating transformative change. Moreover, I possess excellent task execution strategies that always enable me to achieve the desired results. In this context, I embrace diversity and teamwork, an element that allows for the achievement of outcomes, since despite coming up with most ideas, I can effectively strategize on the best approach for executing tasks by involving individuals who can develop plans, inspire others, and accomplish the tasks to their completion. The achievement of results requires efficiency in the alignment of resources to ensure that the set objectives are achieved, which can only be made through involving focused and productive teams.
Further, I have a high capacity to motivate and inspire others to act or to work towards achieving a particular objective. My appreciation of teamwork and involving others in planning and decision making operates a vital source of motivation for the subordinates since it inspires them to execute tasks to achieve the objectives that they were involved in the setting. Moreover, I embrace diversity to a great extent, which helps me to work with different people and across boundaries. Creating a sense of safety and demonstrating strong ethics is also an essential leadership competency that I possess. The competence involves commitment towards instilling confidence in others as well as towards fairness. I ensure that I communicate my expectations to others to ensure that everyone understands the direction that the organization is moving towards.
Besides, I am committed to empowering others towards self-organization; to achieve this objective, I allow employees to organize their work or tasks and time after providing them with a clear direction of the expectations that should be met. The element helps me to distribute power to others, therefore achieving objectives faster and more effectively. Besides, I foster a sense of belonging and connection by ensuring open and constant communication, which helps in creating a strong team that believes in failing and succeeding together rather than competing amongst team members. I am also highly flexible in that I embrace new ideas as well as promote organizational learning. The ability to remain adaptable to changing opinions and open to new approaches and ideas is one of my essential leadership competencies since it helps me to nurture growth by providing room for trial and error. I extensively learn from the mistakes and seek to better the quality of my leadership by pursuing relevant training and education in administration.
Areas that I should develop to become an Effective Change Agent
Although I possess several desirable leadership competencies, some of the areas that I consider crucial to develop improving my interpersonal skills, including speaking and conversational skills as well as the soft skills that are vital for leadership. Further, I need to improve on my emotional intelligence or skills, which are essential in understanding the emotions of others and emotional situations better as well as enhancing the capacity to communicate more effectively at the emotional level. Moreover, I should also improve on my courage so that I can be in a position to take calculated risks effectively as well as actively supporting the goals and ideas that I believe while doing the right thing.
Other skills that I should develop to improve my efficiency as a change agent include conflict management skills, political skills, and influence skills. Conflict management pertains to effectively helping conflicting parties to reach a viable resolution and avoid future interpersonal conflicts. Political skills, on the other hand, involve understanding the political behavior of individuals within an organization, including pursuing personal interests rather than those of the organization and bending organizational rules among others, and effectively managing the behavior to prevent instances of organizational or group dysfunction. Finally, influence skills involve adequate mastery of social influence and the ability to exercise power fairly and adequately.
Reasons for Considering myself as a Change Leader
One of the key reasons that I describe myself as a change leader is that I have an outstanding record of effective leadership in the eight institutions of higher learning, where I have mainly worked in institutional advancement, student services/affairs, and incorporations that specifically require trained professionals. Moreover, I possess excellent listening skills, which are an essential element for change leaders. My listening skills have played a crucial role in shaping my leadership competencies since they largely enable me to learn from the mistakes of other leaders. I also maintain a positive attitude despite not achieving the expectations, which is an essential effective in leading transformative change ( Millar, Hind & Magala, 2012) . I am also committed to allowing other leaders to lead, as well as in the provision of opinions and plans that are essential and easy for the team members to plan and execute without encountering challenges. In most cases, other people in the organizations rely on me heavily for idea generation, since I have outstanding competence in creating, strategizing, and developing ideas as well as inspiring others to work towards the effective implementation of the ideas.
One of the major factors that motivate me as a change leader is the fact that previous failures have equipped me with knowledge of leadership, which I transfer to other professionals as well as students. Attaining the leadership ranks of such individuals like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is my ultimate motivation since I aim at looking at an organization in future and appreciate my contribution towards its excellent management and leadership. My fundamental values as a change leader include embracing teamwork, diversity, and promoting the spirit of winning together than promoting a competitive organizational environment. My vision is to build and mentor others and cultivate talents to build an environment that reflects the goals and the bigger corporate vision. The critical leadership abilities that enable me to pursues the vision while maintaining the values include the capacity to promote healthy teamwork, effective communication, mentoring members towards achieving emotionally intelligent, self-driven, and supportive groups that can effectively survive in tea environments.
References
Caldwell, C., Dixon, R. D., Floyd, L. A., Chaudoin, J., Post, J., & Cheokas, G. (2012). Transformative leadership: Achieving unparalleled excellence. Journal of Business Ethics , 109 (2), 175-187.
Gülcan, M. G. (2012) . Research on Instructional Leadership Competencies of School Principals. Education , 132 (3).
McKnight, L. L. (2013). Transformational leadership in the context of punctuated change. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics , 10 (2), 103-112.
Millar, C., Hind, P., & Magala, S. (2012). Sustainability and the need for change: organizational change and transformational vision. Journal of Organizational Change Management , 25 (4), 489-500.
