This course has offered me great insights pertaining to leadership. I have learnt about the different styles of leadership, their effectiveness, as well as their applications. On the same note, I have learnt the concept of change management, which is intricately linked to leadership. Many of the concepts have been thought provoking, in the sense that I have reflected on how I can apply them in any role I am given as well as in using them in my daily life. I have also tried to link some of the leadership concepts to styles adopted by different leaders in the world spanning from the social, political to the corporate spheres. I have attempted to deconstruct why some leaders appear to be successful while others fail. Above all, I have learnt that leadership is necessary in any environment, task or sphere of life. If we did not have leaders directing people on what to do and sharing their vision, the world would probably be marred by chaos. Leadership is not a new concept because even in the ancient societies, people were led by kings or spiritual leaders. People would look up to these leaders for hope and direction especially in dire moments. I will organize some of the aspects I have learnt from the course into themes for seamless and organized flow.
My Personal Philosophy of Leadership
Some of the questions that influenced my personal philosophy of leadership are those which Simon Sinek asks in the TED Talk titled “How great leaders inspire action.” For instance, the question of why Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement and not any other person, when there were so many other people who were affected by the prevalent racial discrimination and oppression. As I reflected on this question, I realized that a leader must have the courage to do something. Though people may be affected by certain situations, only the bold rise up and try to face and address various situations. Many people might fear the consequences of their actions even if they take the right steps while others just feel indifferent. A leader emerges with an objective and ensures that he or she achieves it. Some other people might have tried to agitate for the emancipation of oppressed groups in the U.S. during Martin Luther King Jr.’s. time but it is possible that many of them gave up along the way, especially if they were threatened and intimidated by the oppressors. However, Luther held on until he was assassinated. Therefore, a leader must stand up for something even in the wake of challenges.
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Sinek also asks questions relating to why Apple is the most innovating technology company in the world and why the Wright brothers invented the first model of the airplane and not any other people. From these questions, I believe that leaders must always get out of their comfort zones and make the world a better place. Leaders should not just be used to the conventional ways of doing things; they need to see the world differently. Apple is the most innovating technology company in the world because the management is always improving on the various devices. Almost each year, Apple launches new products or releases improved models of mobile phones, laptops, and other devices. Therefore, to be the best, one has to strive to improve continuously. The Wright brothers wanted to improve on the efficiency of transportation and therefore, explored the potential of using air transport, which had not been thought of at the time. From the Wright brothers’ innovation, I believe that leaders need to expand their cones of vision and imagine the impossible. Nothing has ever reached a limit, and therefore, there are endless opportunities. To work towards these endless opportunities, a leader needs to embrace positive thinking.
Leadership Styles That Stood Out For Me
Servant leadership
When I reflect about servant leadership, I think of Florence Nightingale and Mahatma Gandhi. Simply, in servant leadership, the leader works to serve the people as opposed to people serving the leader. This leadership style reverses the norm where people feared and worked towards pleasing the leaders. For instance, kings were respected and revered in the past societies. Even in the present times, many people in power compel servants to work for them and literally carry around with them an atmosphere of fear and terror. Nevertheless, servant leadership is the contrary, and is particularly used in modern organizations where customers are perceived to be the most important stakeholders of most corporations. Servant leaders understand the needs of their subordinates and work towards ensuring that these needs are solved. While most government offices are characterized by bureaucracies where people have to wait for long durations and go through numerous processes to receive essential services, most private organizations emphasize on servant leadership where customers are given the first priority.
The healthcare and hospitality industries require the servant leadership style the most. For example, patients in need of medical services need to be treated fairly by the healthcare professionals. The care should be patient-centered and the healthcare workers should place themselves in the perspective of the patients. Florence Nightingale was one of the pioneers of such an approach when she was sent to care for wounded soldiers in a hospital. Many of the nurses and other health care workers at the time, did not care much about the feelings of the wounded soldiers, and, therefore, did not work with the best intentions. However, Nightingale created a novel approach from which she would be remembered many years after her death. Nightingale was sent to a military hospital to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean war (Duffy, 2001). She was from a wealthy family but defied all odds to create change and serve the sick. During the time, the military hospitals were in deplorable conditions and the risk of acquiring other illnesses from the hospitals was very high.
Nightingale brought a home-like environment in the military hospitals, and this concept would later be adopted by many hospitals around the world. She opined that patients needed to stay in clean wards, be exposed to fresh air circulation, as well as proper hygiene standards. The environment affected how people healed and responded to medication. The servant leadership qualities depicted by Nightingale are first through her gentleness and compassion. Despite coming from a wealthy family background, she dedicated her life to serving the sick, most of who did not come from rich family backgrounds. The nursing profession at the time was perceived to be less respectable particularly for wealthy families. Secondly, Nightingale loved her job, never worked grudgingly, but ensured that the patients got better.
Mahatma Gandhi is also a servant leader who inspires me. He used non-violent resistance means to agitate for India’s independence from the British, and in turn, inspired may civil rights movement groups around the world (Barnabas & Clifford, 2012). Although he was a lawyer, he mingled freely with people of different social and economic classes. Leaders of his stature would have abhorred the poor and even chose to lead the resistance while surrounded with prominent people. However, his leadership style during the resistance portrayed that he represented the aspirations of the common people and, therefore was serving them. If he had chosen to use violent means, perhaps many commoners would have lost their lives either engaging the British authorities or trying to protect Gandhi. In this way, the people would be working for him instead of the converse. Mahatma Gandhi would eventually be assassinated because of his role in agitating for India’s independence.
Transformational leadership
From the course materials, I understand that transformational leadership relates to creating an impact and even disrupting the status quo. Transformational leadership also relates to change management. Companies that have stuck to conventional ways of doing things are often rendered redundant and obsolete with time. For instance, the advent of technology continues to disrupt how businesses operate. Companies that focused solely on physical retailing now have to embrace e-commerce or risk being phased out. But for changes to happen there must be leaders or individuals who have the knowledge and skills to manage it. These are transformational leaders who often have the experience of managing such changes or have the vision of where the organization should head. One of the transformational leaders I knew was Steve Jobs who transformed Apple from an average company to the best innovative technology company in the world. The transformation he brought to the company was that the company needed to use the creative process all the time in its products and processes. Apple products are unique because of using creativity.
Steve Jobs also brought to Apple a new leadership and management style. While most companies focused on ultimatums and pushing employees to deliver, Apple adopted a flexible style where employees were given freedom and to work informally (Valentine, 2014). Steve Jobs was also more approachable even by the junior most employees of the company. In transformational leadership, people have to be managed properly and be assisted to cope or adapt to the novel changes. A transformational leader may introduce technology in a company that relies on manual procedures for instance. In this case, some older employees may become skeptical and even fearful of what the future holds for them. It is the responsibility of the leader to guide and reassure them. Nightingale can also be said to be a transformational nursing leader because she challenged the status quo and caused an important shift in how the nursing profession is practiced; instead of just focusing on treatments, nurses eventually began focusing on patients, especially on their feelings. In order for patients to experience care, and better health outcomes, nurses had to adopt a patient-centered approach.
Characteristics and Qualities of a Good Leader
Firstly, a leader needs to inspire people around him or her. Influencing people is not about coercing them to yield to one’s demands; rather, the way a leader projects himself or herself can attract respect. A leader’s character needs to be unquestionable in order to attract this respect. For instance, Barack Obama is one of the most inspirational leaders of the present times. Despite his Africa-American ancestry, Obama would rise to be president of the U.S. because he inspired people across all racial and ethnic divides. He was well-educated and preached hope to the people. He talked about peace, harmony, coexistence, and collective prosperity. He influenced most people through his powerful speeches and he remains to be an icon in global politics. Secondly, a leader needs to have a vision because leadership is directing people towards a certain goal. People must be aware of what they are expected to achieve and what it takes to achieve those goals. The vision needs to be clear and measurable. The leader should also delegate duties and tasks into manageable portions to realize the vision.
A leader needs to be a good listener. When leading people, situations will always emerge where individuals may have doubts, register complaints or have comments about different issues. A leader needs to know what the team he or she thinks about various aspects of the organization. In both transformational and servant leadership styles, leaders need to be aware of the concerns of the people to carry on with their agenda. For example, when a transformational leader seeks to introduce new changes but does not listen to the concerns of people who will be affected by those changes, the implementation process may be very difficult. Good listening skills are also desirable during the dispute or conflict resolution processes in the organization (Bonebright, 2010). A good leader needs to listen to all parties involved in a conflict to provide a fair ruling. A leader should also be a team-player, in that he should always participate in different processes happening in the organization. The leader should coordinate processes, people and resources to work together to attain the desired goal. In any organization, although there might be different departments focusing on specific aspects, the whole organization is always one team working in line with the stipulated mission.
One quite critical leadership quality which is particularly relevant to the modern dynamics relates to diversity. A leader needs to be aware of cultural, racial, religious, and ethnic diversities, especially as globalization continues to take a toll on the world. A leader needs to understand and tolerate other people’s divergent values and practices, especially those which do not have adverse consequences to the organization. For example, Muslim employees will need to be allowed to pray at designated times of the day. Accommodations for such diverse practices should not be viewed as obstacles to performance, but as opportunities to foster collaboration and cultivate a positive working environment for people from diverse backgrounds.
My Experience as a Team Leader
I was a medical team leader of about 300 staff, comprising of both medical and paramedical personnel. The responsibility was to run a hospital of 100 bed capacity. My role also included coordinating staff, budget planning and maintaining the quality of the hospital. The biggest challenge emerged after three months when I was required to manage the facility remotely as a result of some security mishaps. Managing the team remotely meant that I did not have the opportunity to meet my team or visit them at the hospital. The problem of not engaging team physically is that you do not know the actual events happening at the organization, and, therefore, monitoring becomes a challenge. In the first place, I quickly thought of video-conferencing as the most ideal tool of getting in touch with my team. However, this method was not satisfactory to everyone, especially the older members because they did not know how to use technology effectively. Some of them feared that I would discover their lack of technology skills and perhaps judge them.
I used some aspects of transformational leadership to accomplish the organizational goals. Firstly, I created a vision revolving around efficiency and quality. This vision would guide every member of the team regardless of whether I was present or absent. Secondly, I developed a sense of team spirit, where everyone was an important player in achieving the overall organizational goals. The healthcare workers did not have to wait for me to be present for them to work and accomplish the assigned tasks. Being aware of what I wanted to achieve compelled me to dedicate a considerable amount of time monitoring the progress albeit remotely. Nevertheless, I was also aware that the lack of physical presence would affect some aspects of my duties, and therefore, I delegated some of my roles to some members of the team to discharge. In this way, I believed that as a leader, I needed to mentor other people in preparation for the future. I would contact these team leaders from time to time to inquire about the progress.
I developed a motivation system to influence the staff to work effectively and in a dedicated manner. I realized that motivating employees does not always have to be in monetary terms. In my case, I would recognize good performance every week, and the staff responsible for the good performance would wear a special badge throughout the week. Good performance indicators ranged from aspects such as cleanliness standards of the hospital wards, positive comments from the patients and other stakeholders, and reduced accidents in the various departments. I realized that the staff worked hard to attain such recognition and those who were recognized felt very proud. I created different badges for different departments as well as a special badge for an all-round staff. The pride mostly resulted from good comments the winners received from members of the public as the winners were allowed to have the badges even when not on duty. Therefore, everyone was always striving to wear the prestigious badges. Even though the motivation system was meant to boost the morale of the staff, it had another unexpected effect; we received a positive public image. When the staff wore the badges in public, people trusted the quality of our services probably from the perception that if we recognized the staff for the good performance, there definitely were good services. As a result, we experienced an influx of people seeking healthcare from our facility, and there was an increase in revenue generated.
Change Management and Formation of Teams
Change management involves helping people to adapt to any transition that may take place in the organization. I have learnt that a leader must develop tools and techniques to guide employees or subordinates to not only transition but also to be part and parcel of the change. For instance, when I was in charge of the hospital facility, the staff had to adapt to remote instructions and virtual meetings when I was affected by the security issue. The incident made me to realize that for change management to be more effective, I needed to form teams to help with the transition. The teams were in charge of monitoring the daily processes of various departments and representatives from each department would report to me. Even after the security issue was solved, I still maintained the teams, and we would meet with the representatives from each department after every three months. These teams would present issues raised by staff and I would relay information through them. I realized that it is prudent to maintain and work with teams of people because they are particularly useful in implementing changes. It is very effective to work with a very small number of people who would later implement ideas and help other staff to transition.
Important Leadership Insights I Can Use In My Profession and Life
I have learnt that it is important to work with and as a team to deliver as a leader. Specifically, the Haas and Mortensen (2016) article titled “The secrets of great teamwork” influenced me in how I think about leadership and working in teams. When running an organization, I definitely will be the team leader and will be charged with the mandate of creating a compelling direction for all the team members. Direction orients and engages the members in the sense that they become aware of what they are supposed to achieve, and that they must work together to realize the vision.
The team should also have the right structure and this mainly relates to the composition of the members. Firstly, the team needs to comprise of members of diverse skills and knowledge so that when they collaborate, they solve different tasks efficiently. Another aspect of structure relates to issues such as gender and diversity. A leader needs to work with diverse teams, and in my professional role, I will ensure that I focus on merit as opposed to biasness. Another crucial aspect is that I will need to provide the necessary support to any team I am in charge. People will need the necessary resources and training to perform their duties. I will not use people as a means to an end, but I will always ensure that they acquire more knowledge and skills to improve themselves as well as the organization. As a leader, I will sponsor some members to enroll for further studies and others to attend special training events to increase their skills and knowledge. The selection process will need to be fair to give each member equal opportunity.
In future, I will indulge self-awareness in order to understand myself on the aspects of prejudices, biases, and potential before leading teams effectively. I will need to reflect on my purpose as an individual in this world. I reckon that effective leadership is related to character. People will perceive me either as a good and effective leader or not depending on how I conduct myself. Secondly, people will judge me with how I navigate around various situations and challenges. I need to strive for something, and my resolve to attain or leave a legacy on this world or wherever I lead should be unwavering. I believe that I need to help people solve their needs or crack certain challenges. Therefore, I want to be a mentor to teams of people and try to bring the best out of them. Leadership should not just be about focusing on personal legacy or accomplishments because such perceptions may make one to lose focus on the actual objective. Leadership is about directing people, for in the absence of people, the leader’s potential cannot be discerned or manifested. I will always lead with a purpose and try to live a life that inspires and influences people.
In conclusion, the course concepts of leadership and management are very relevant to my personal life and future career trajectory. I will inevitable work with other people and potentially assume various leadership roles. The most outstanding leadership styles for me are transformational and servant leadership styles because they emphasize on focusing on people, understanding their needs, and striving to deliver. I look forward to applying these styles because they have the potential to cultivate positive working relationships and fostering cohesion among teams of people. Therefore, the course concepts are life-long lessons that will shape my professional prospects.
References
Barnabas, A., & Clifford, P. S. (2012). Mahatma Gandhi–an Indian model of servant leadership. International journal of leadership studies , 7 (2), 132-150. https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol7iss2/IJLS_Vol7Iss2_Barnabas_pp132-150.pdf
Bonebright, D.A. (2010). 40 years of storming: A historical review of Tuckman's model of small group development. Human Resource Development International , 13 (1), 111-120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13678861003589099
Duffy, T. (2001). Florence Nightingale as Servant-Leader. https://idun.augsburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1502&context=etd#:~:text=Florence%20Nightingale%20saw%20herself%20first,and%20the%20power%20of%20statistics
Haas, M., & Mortensen, M. (2016). The secrets of great teamwork. Harvard business review , 94 (6), 70-76.
Sinek, S. (2010, May 4). How great leaders inspire action [Video]. YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4
Valentine, C. J. (2014). Leadership: The leadership style of Steve Jobs. https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1715&context=etd
