For the goals of a particular company to be successfully accomplished, the firm should be split into smaller teams that make the work easier. These several teams formed in a company need a leader to guide their activities. In order for the leaders to influence the employees, they ought to choose the leadership style that they are comfortable implementing and will be capable of commanding influence from the subordinate. The current paper discusses my leadership style and my leadership traits, the plans to enhance my style of leadership, and the steps that would help me accomplish the plans.
Servant Leadership
Servant leadership is the leadership model which best defines me as a leader. Servant leadership denotes a style of leadership that is based on the idea that a successful leader can serve the people he leads. Instead of taking charge, a servant leader makes sure that individuals under her/him are attended first in order to ensure that the organizational objectives are easily realized. The other individuals that this type of leader attempts to attend first are consumers, fellow workers, associates, and society (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). I love being a servant leader since I trust that the things that are imperative regarding leadership in an organization are what I do to improve other people and not what others do towards me.
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Describing myself as a servant leader through the use of the skills approach, I normally first do my best to be skilled with the technical expertise needed to accomplish my leadership objectives. Since I have the technical expertise, I am capable of helping other persons to obtain very similar expertise and thrive since I believe in helping those that I lead to accomplishing their goals. Also, I am capable of applying human skills in that I am capable of easily communicating with others and make other persons open up to me. It is simple for me to handle other persons since I constantly show them that their opinions concerning the organizational objectives are imperative. By doing so, people under my leadership are capable of connecting and relating well with me.
Also, applying the situational approach to describe myself, often, I am capable of making various circumstances appropriate for servant leadership. In circumstances that necessitate speedy consultation and decision making may not be conceivable since I all the time make the group members feel that they are still a portion of the decision-making (Liden et al., 2014). I apply servant leadership in circumstances in which a choice must be made, and I cannot decide for the members of the team. Moreover, in situations in which I wish employees to develop their skills at work, I find it crucial to enable team members to apply their skills instead of employing my skills only.
Moreover, using the behavioral theoretical approach, the servant leadership expertise is shown through the noticeable conduct that others observe in me. In order to motivate my followers to work towards achieving the organizational objectives, I demonstrate to them that they are imperative and their opinions matter. It is via an act of behaving like a servant to my juniors that encourages them to put more effort, and thus we end up accomplishing the goals.
Additionally, using the trait approach, I use the attributes that show me as a servant leader to my subordinate. I trust that, through my distinctive attributes, I can command inspiration from the employees. In my servant leadership, I employ traits such as self-awareness, active listening, devotion to the development of other persons, empathy, persuasion, and conceptualization of opportunities as well as the future. Describing myself using the path-goal approach, I ensure that my followers know the goals and the path to accomplishing these goals. By doing so, my subordinate is capable of using this path to accomplish the goals and receive the rewards presented.
Several leadership attributes differentiate me from others. To begin with, listening is one of the most distinguishing attributes in my servant leadership. Although my position as a leader is above the team members, I trust in actively listening to other people’s needs. This is because servant leaders purpose to uplift others, which is achievable when the leader listens to them. I also possess an empathy trait which I apply in my leadership. As a leader, I do not refute my colleagues simply because their manners may not be in agreement with our principles, but instead, I embrace them just the way they are and direct them accordingly.
Furthermore, I possess a self-awareness trait, which I apply in my servant leadership. I trust that in order to be an effective servant leader, one must understand his/her capabilities as well as weaknesses so that he/she may understand the degree to which he/she is able to assist the followers in improving themselves. Moreover, I am an extremely persuasive leader. I have an aptitude to demonstrate to my team members that I cherish their interests, which makes it easier for me to convince them to complete a particular assignment. What is more, I can conceptualize opportunities in certain circumstances. Even the problems that might impact the company in the future or may place my leadership at risk, I foretell them by conceptualizing realism. Lastly, I am devoted to the development of employees. The eventual objective of a servant leader is to make sure that the team members develop through their leader’s service (Nawaz & Khan, 2016).
Nevertheless, there are some attributes that, to date, I still face difficulties in learning and developing as a servant leader. For instance, I struggle to learn to be a suitable steward of the company I operate in. According to Liden et al. (2014), stewardship is a crucial leadership trait of servant leaders since it enables the leaders to shoulder total responsibility for the organization’s resources to make sure the company improves its processes. Moreover, as a servant leader, I struggle to establish a community. Community building is a vital leadership attribute a servant leader should possess in order to build a community within the workstation where each worker feels like a portion of a bigger community (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Nonetheless, in my servant leadership, I struggle to nature individual workers to become valuable, but I fail to make them become community members who wish to accomplish a superior-good of the company. Therefore, I would like to learn to build a community with my followers.
Leadership preference as a follower
As a follower, I prefer a democratic leadership style from my leader. In democratic leadership, as it is in servant leadership, the team members are permitted to contribute to the process of decision-making with the team. Therefore, it is not the exclusive accountability of a leader to decide on matters concerning the team. I prefer the democratic leadership style because it is typified by members of a group sharing ideas and opinions before a leader can make the ultimate decision. Moreover, this kind of leadership approach causes the subordinates to feel involved through promoting creativity and rewards to creativeness. Also, as a follower, I like the democratic leadership style since I dislike a leader who micromanages his/her followers and makes every decision for them. Furthermore, I prefer being valuable when I belong to a group in which my views are appreciated the same manner I appreciate the views of other people.
Trait approach
As a servant leader, the trait approach is the leadership theory that explains how I impact other people. It is largely via my traits that I am able to influence my followers to follow suit. Among the attributes that assist me in influencing the employees is my desire for assignment execution and my drive for accountability. Also, I am persistent in chasing after the objectives that my team ought to accomplish, and therefore others follow. Moreover, I usually take risks in decision-making that concern my subordinate as the implementation of servant leadership that may not all the time be effective in certain circumstances entails risk-taking (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Moreover, I am self-confident, which helps me to influence my followers. My team sees that I am self-confident with the things I ask them to execute, and therefore, they obtain confidence from me. For instance, there are certain cases that employees may think that the deadline for project completion is extremely short for them. Nonetheless, I am able to influence them by showing them that I am confident that we can accomplish within the set time frame. By doing so, the followers are capable of working beyond their expectations because of the self-confidence they observe within me. Moreover, they can put up with frustration and delay, which is a vital personal attribute for all leadership styles because there is no perfect group that is always able to accomplish all assignments punctually (Liden et al., 2014). Thus, my followers are influenced to put more effort since they feel I can understand them as imperfect humans.
There are several goals that I intend to implement to enhance my servant leadership. To begin with, I plan to offer assistance to others in achieving their goals. As a servant leader, my primary goal is to make sure I place other people’s needs before mine. For instance, when a team member is having difficulties completing a specific assignment, I step in and assist him/her. Also, as a leader, I intend to boost my skills in communication. It is imperative to pay attention to others’ views and give feedback. What’s more, I plan to punctually and effectively communicate the objectives to be accomplished by the followers.
In order to boost motivation amongst my subordinates, I intend to prescribe attainable goals and provide regular rewards. For a leader, prescribing realizable goals is an incredible technique to motivate the employees so that they may put more effort into accomplishing the goals (Trastek, Hamilton & Niles, 2014). Once the employees achieve the prescribed goals, it is vital to reward and applause them openly to make them feel motivated to accomplish more in the future.
The steps to complete self-improvement goals
In order to ensure that I accomplish the objective of serving others, I will delegate several of my obligations. I will monitor and supervise each individual’s progress on their specified assignments. In situations that assistance is required, I will gladly assist. To improve my skills in communication, I will start by communicating the objectives and goals. Next, I will ask the followers for their views. Thirdly, I will ponder the opinions and offer feedback punctually. Lastly, to boost motivation amongst my team members, I will make sure that all employees understand what is required of them. I will assist where they are stuck. Next, I will assess the outcomes and eventually reward the pledged prizes.
References
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research , 18 (4), 261-269.
Liden, R. C., Panaccio, A., Meuser, J. D., Hu, J., & Wayne, S. J. (2014). Servant leadership: Antecedents, processes, and outcomes. Oxford handbooks Online: Scholarly Research Reviews. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199755615.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199755615-e-018
Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of management journal , 57 (5), 1434-1452.
Nawaz, Z. A. K. D. A., & Khan_ PhD, I. (2016). Leadership theories and styles: A literature review. Leadership , 16 (1), 1-7.
Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of business ethics , 113 (3), 377-393.
Trastek, V. F., Hamilton, N. W., & Niles, E. E. (2014, March). Leadership models in health care—a case for servant leadership. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 89, No. 3, pp. 374-381). Elsevier.
