Synthesis of Personal Strengths and Weaknesses as a Leader

A leader guides other through taking on a leadership role that inspires followers to accomplish specific set goals. They help individuals and themselves towards a clear vision and connects with the followers to build a long-lasting and goal-oriented relationship. Being a leader requires mastering the art of engagement irrespective of their opinions and standing out to provide a clear direction on the way forward. Therefore, great leaders depend on traits and strengths to be successful and have the courage to take on the leadership role with a clear mind-set. 

Findings of questionnaires

The questionnaires indicated that leadership is viewed positively with an emphasis on behavioral leadership. The scores included ability emphasis 60, behavior emphasis 73, process emphasis 54, relationship emphasis 58, skill emphasis 69, and trait emphasis at 47. Indeed, great leaders influence followers based on how they respond to situations as informed by behaviors. From the score, I value the behavioral approach that encourages leaders to find the right balance between their roles and attitude towards other people’s concerns. 

Also, the leadership trait questionnaire outlined persistence in planning and execution. With an average rating of 4 and a self-rating of 4, I believe a leader without a capacity to endure challenging scenarios and finding solutions without self-destructing holds an entity together to confront challenges. A leader that panics without a vision inhibits leadership potential in a path that does not build on capacity and competency. 

Traits

Influential leaders are intelligent, which leads them to make decisions based on information available to assess the impact of their actions. As a leader, I value the know-how to utilize resources and expertise to ensure that plans are implemented. While making decisions, it requires going through all the available facts to minimize making mistakes. For instance, leading a group of people comes with a great responsibility for evaluating possibilities, assigning work, and listening to different opinions to ensure inclusivity. With reliance on emotional intelligence, informed choices are made while at the same time engaging the team members by welcoming different views yet acknowledging that not all members will agree with the said decision. Indeed, Gage and Smith (2016) argue that intelligence invokes firmness, authoritativeness, self-knowledge, and finality, giving a clear sense of intentional decisions. Intelligent leadership helps leaders appreciate input by utilizing available resources to impact an entity's long- and short-term goals positively. 

Moreover, inspiration bound with integrity is an essential leadership trait necessary in instilling honesty in others. I value an organization's purpose and the need to protect its purpose and image to the public. Also, most leaders understand that the ethicality of doing what is right inspires employees to behave in similar ways under similar circumstances. For instance, a project leader who takes all the money to purchase building materials may inspire workers to do the same once the opportunity is presented. A corrupt leader can only inspire resentment, mistrust, and similar corrupt behavior as followers feel justified for acting a certain way to gain benefits. The creation of opportunities is made honorable enough to inspire honourability in other people (Surji, 2015). Such a desirable characteristic is developed by examining how different organizations work to understand the clear lines between ethical and unethical behavior.

Confidence in leadership is a characteristic that promotes courage in an entity. Leadership is about doing and acting in a manner that sets the pace for an organization. As explained through the behavioral approach, people are made to understand the basis of made leaders other than born leaders. As such, confidence is a mannerism that offers an observable behavior that can be motivating. For instance, during a crisis, remaining calm ensures that the followers do not panic because they trust the leader's strengths to lead them through the uncertainty. From the examination, they can decide on what route to take without rushing their decisions. Zarghamifard & Fard (2019) agree that confidence is developed through learning how different systems work to avoid making unethical mistakes from ignorance and panic. The information gathered on observing, reading guidelines, and policies shape confidence to embrace an attitude that everything will work out despite the challenges. 

The communicative trait is essential in ensuring that interactions and relations in the workplace thrive. Organizations rely on how information is shared between different levels of management. Without the exchange of ideas through the right channels, conflict is bound to arise. Communication encourages a relational approach that guarantees that core values are part and parcel of an entity. Luthra (2015) argues that communication creates a value basis for persuasion and motivation to achieve objectives and goals. For instance, if there is a conflict or an opportunity to influence a deal's outcome, a great communicator stands a chance in driving conversations and handling misunderstandings. If there is a reliance on the effective exchange of information, one can make others understand the message's basis in a well-planned manner. 

Strengths

Creativity enhances outstanding leadership by encouraging ideas that promote competitive advantage. Creativity is the route path to innovativeness that guarantees that individuals can look at situations differently to solve issues or come up with better plans. Indeed, plans give futuristic anticipation on what to work on to yield results. Leaders who possess this trait acknowledge that any organization thrives on having workable goals that are goal-oriented and flexible enough to accommodate for the unknown. With the ever-changing business environment, creativity fosters organizational values by promoting growth, problem-solving skills, mentoring, and discovering new perspectives. Problem-solving guarantees that leaders can influence team members to think positively and motivate them to accomplish the said plans. Surji (2015) argues that such leadership bridges the gap between plan formulation and implementation as they anticipate industries and markets' accuracy. For instance, to thrive in the tech industry involves working towards better ways of serving customers in a manner that the rest of the competitors cannot do. Therefore, it is through creative leadership that goals are achieved more quickly. 

Kindness in leadership fosters a value-based organization that encourages appreciation of input by subordinates. Showing concern for others' wellbeing indicates that workers are seen for who they are other than what they can offer. Indeed, Employees can influence their performance based on treatment. A compassionate leader shows consideration for other people's feelings, which forms the basis of positive leadership. As a realized strength, workers can utilize opportunities and work towards self-actualization. Indeed, when leaders are unkind, they create a notion of selfishness, harshness without transparency. For instance, rudeness on how managers caution poor quality work hurts morale and performance of employees. Compassion is related to transformational leadership with a desire to put oneself in the shoes of others. When leaders are altruistic, they become ethical in their treatment of subordinates. 

Weaknesses

However, traits and strengths can influence leaders into thinking of themselves as unique, leading to being overly critical of others, which can be destructive. As leaders, there is a misconception that some people are better than others, which creates a hostile working environment where mistakes are over criticized. The belief of being superior beings can turn out to be toxic in the workplace, especially when goals are not met. Northouse (2018) argues that dark leadership thrives on susceptible followers, an enabling environment, and a destructive leader. Indeed, when employees are afraid to lose their jobs, most managers take advantage of the fear of being cruel. The utilization of power to negatively influence how people behave is not ideal in the long run. 

Failure to set clear goals leads to misunderstandings and prolongs the duration of achieving the intended purpose. As leaders, it is possible to assume that followers know what is required of them. However, such a misconception does not provide scope for people to work towards what is expected of them. In return, the leader ends up being frustrated while employees are led to believe that they have underperformed. Lack of clear goals shifts priorities without the focus on what is more important. 

Traits and strengths compared to those you have observed in nurse leaders

Similarly, integrity trait compares to nurse leaders as they rely on the characteristic to provide quality care to the public. Lacano (2018) suggests that all practitioners provide ethical medical solutions that adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) through honesty. Indeed, with patients suffering from different ailments, nurse leaders provide the information needed by the patients to make medical decisions and, at the same time, guarantee confidentiality. Building on the nurse-patient relationship requires professional integrity to assist families and patients in making difficult decisions. 

Nurse leaders are communicative with access to vital information before making decisions. They can listen and exchange data, which is essential to their decision making. By working together, they have the resources needed in caring for patients through coordination. For instance, they advocate for their area of knowledge towards seeking desirable medical feedback. Through an exchange of ideas, nurse leaders build on interpersonal relationships towards being direct and concise. 

Create a plan to develop your strengths and address your weaknesses to meet the anticipated leadership responsibilities

Future role	Weaknesses	Action step	Strengths	Action Step
Finance manager	Being overly critical	Requesting feedback after two days	Creativity	Promote flexibility through exposure to challenging work situations and reliance on feedback
	Failure to set clear goals	Set daily goals and Track daily progress.	Kindness	Plan a quarterly team-building exercise

In conclusion, leadership roles present a challenging yet manageable task of ensuring that a team is competent in achieving set goals. Since dealing with people with varying opinions can be challenging, a great leader is intelligent, confident, communicative, and relies on integrity to be moral. Also, strengths such as creativity and kindness go a long way in promoting a conducive work environment. Nonetheless, since leaders are human weaknesses such as over criticism and lack of clear goals, they have to be managed.

References

Gage, T., & Smith, C. (2016). Leadership intelligence: Unlocking the potential for school leadership effectiveness. South African Journal of Education . 36. 1-9. 10.15700/sage. v36n4a1328. DOI:10.15700/saje.v36n4a1328

Lacano, M. (2018). Nursing Integrity : A Moral Imperative.Journal of Periniathesia Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jopan .

Luthra, A. (2015). "Effective Leadership is all about Communicating Effectively: Connecting Leadership and Communication." International Journal of Management & BusIness studies. 5.3. 43-48.

Northouse, G.P. (2018). Introduction to leadership concepts and practice. California: Sage

Surji, K. (2015). Understanding Leadership and Factors that Influence Leaders' Effectiveness. DOI. 7. 10.7176/EJBM/7-33-2015-03.

Zarghamifard, M., & Fard, H. (2019). What drives leader integrity? International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics . In press.