Leadership is the act and ability to motivate, inspire and guide a group of people towards achieving a common goal. There are several scholarly leadership theories; Great man theory, trait theory, contingency theory, behavioral theory, transactional theory and transformational theory. From my self-evaluation, I believe my leadership style conforms to the characteristics of the transformation theory. This theory states that a transformational leader is the one who interacts with others and creates stable relationships based on high levels of trust, motivates and inspires which finally results in better performance and productivity.
2(a) One of my great strengths of leadership is the ability to motivate my followers. I enjoy leading by example; I do not shy away from trying new ideas and am always in the front line to implement change. By instilling passion in my line of duty, I inspire others to follow as my work can be evidenced. This trait is essential as it makes it smooth to lead others. When you actively participate in carrying out work with your followers rather than giving instructions people tend to follow you quickly as they can readily associate with you as the leader. Motivation and inspiration lead to higher productivity.
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I always share and collaborate. I believe that for a team to achieve its desired purpose, a leader must instill knowledge to his team. I am always very active in training members of my team to make them competent enough to carry out their tasks. I passionately care about the success of others and always co-operate and collaborate with my team members in my work. Knowledge builds a lot of confidence in my people and through collaboration; we build trust in our work, and eventually, this drives productivity. Further to this, am always ready to listen and I appreciate the feedback, and this brings many synergies creating a suitable working environment.
I exercise high levels of discipline in my work. As I am doing my work, I try as hard as possible to maintain utmost professionalism and integrity. In all my duties, I always work in line with the code of conduct. To drive performance, I always treat my team with equity and fairness and avoid giving unnecessary favors to others. When my follows believe that you are just, they will often find you approachable when they have conflicts, as they believe that you can offer the best judgment and solutions to their issues. When assigning work, I focus on equal distribution of work, and this dramatically promotes teamwork thereby increasing overall productivity.
2(b) On the flipside, I tend to be a perfectionist. I believe in achieving perfect and great results in my work, and therefore I work hard to attain excellent results so that I can inspire others to do the same. This can at times backfire for me and my people as it may cause burn out as all of us strive to achieve the so desired outcomes. It may also have the influence of making people believe that they are not good enough to accomplish a task because of the high bars and standards set out by their leader. People may also tend to shy off from difficult assignments because of the high level of expectations.
Sometimes I also tend to be soft in conflict resolution. I rarely punish but usually, coach and settle for other dispute resolving ways. It sometimes works very well when you correct and coach as some people typically turn around and produce excellent results. However, this might not always hold. When you do not punish some people tend to take advantage of this, as they know that they might violate the code of conduct and easily get away with it. To some people, this might pass a message to them that their leader is weak and he cannot take control of certain situations by strictly striking a balance between what is right or wrong. It can be very provocative when the same errors are repeated severally just because the leader cannot take stern measures to curb a problem and may even result in the leader eventually crumbling down. The fact that people see you as approachable might tend to make them cozy in their work.
Trust is always another weakness in my style of leadership. I usually over trust people in their ability to do their work and rely heavily on people trusting in me. However, this narrative does not work in all situations. Trust takes time to build and therefore to rely on people to believe in me to follow my leadership is very time consuming and at a time can be very frustrating when the task requires limited time. Further to this, I usually encounter difficulties when I entrust people with assignments, but these people lack the necessary skills and experience to complete the task or where people expect an immediate reward for doing a job. When people believe in you, they at times cannot challenge you in situations where you are wrong, and this might lead to a whole team being misguided by one person. Trust involves a lot of energy, and therefore it is not always ideal in a situation where instant results are expected.
2(c) To be successful as a transformative leader, I need to have a diversity of thought (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015) . I have to ensure that all the relevant stakeholders are represented in decision-making. In addition to my team coming up with ideas, I should honestly care about what my people need and make sure that those needs are adequately represented in the solution or decision made. I would purposefully find people with different perspectives to bring up new ideas and avoid coming up with ideas myself. I would strive to find an expert in every situation. When people are actively involved in formulating ideas, this creates a sense of purpose and makes it easy to transform an organization as people feel like they own their work.
The other change that I would instill to my style of leadership is to be more of a mentor. Transformational leadership relies on motivation, empowerment and morale boost for the employees. A good leader has to take time to know his people, understand how they think and act towards being their role model. Leading by example mobilizes people to the common good. The ability to create a natural environment for sharing ideas and having conversations can go a long way in supporting the overall organizational goals. Motivational leadership gets into the minds of people, and they understand that they are not doing just a task, but instead, they are part of a bigger picture or something more substantial.
Planning and visionary leadership are key to maximizing success in managing organizations and in leading its people to prosperous future. A transformational leader has to assess the company’s current situation and formulate a vision for growth or overall improvement in the future. Further to this, he or she has to effectively communicate the same vision to the leadership and all employees so at to get everyone on board; this allows the leader to focus on the bigger picture as his vision is enshrined in the overall company’s strategic objectives.
2(d) To help me improve my leadership practice, I would do so by setting up two goals. My first goal would be to provide at least two feedbacks to each of my employees daily for the next twelve months to become a better leader. This goal meets all the components of a SMART model (Kibbe, 2015) . It is specific in that it defines the result expected of becoming a better leader. It is measurable, as I have quantified to give at least two feedbacks on a daily basis. This goal is achievable as the number two seems attainable rather than some twenty or two hundred which might not be realistic. This goal is also relevant to an organization; studies show that leaders who provide regular feedback to their employees increase employee engagement which in turn promotes employee productivity and retention. This goal is set within a particular time frame of twelve months, and it is critical to assist in reviewing a specific goal to assess the success levels rather than insisting on something which cannot bring the desired results.
My second goal would be to facilitate two training sessions per week for the next three months to increase employee awareness on the company products and policies. This goal is specific as it set outs the objective which is employee awareness. It is measurable as it outlines the training sessions to be two in a week. It is very attainable to organize two training sessions in an entity rather than daily sessions where it might not be possible for people to learn on a daily basis as they might need time to digest what they have learned. For a company to achieve its objectives knowledge has to be shared, and therefore the idea of training is very relevant to the core business of a company. The period of three months is also crucial to allow for measurement of the training results.
2(i) To allow achievement of these goals proper structures have to be put in place. I would start by formulating a standard document to be used by all employees. In this document, staff would be expected to report their day’s work in guidance to the document and then report to me with the document and receive feedback and guidance on their performance. It would involve short sessions per person. For training, I would come up with at least two trainers from the employees themselves. The two trainers would facilitate training session in addition to myself and all reports and feedback documented. There would also be room for external trainers for technical issues. Training materials would also be shared with all employees via email just for future reference.
In conclusion, leadership is very critical to the growth and survival of an organization. One of the most critical skills that a leader should have is people skills. When a leader can manage, inspire and motivate his people then results follow; This is because the employees are in line with his visions and objectives and therefore they can work together to achieve the overall organizational strategic objective. Transformational leadership is very ideal to impact change in a company. A good leader should transform positively the way things are done and actively lead by example towards accomplishing tasks. He should inspire others to follow and always maintain a high level of discipline and integrity. Finally, leadership can make or break an organization (Landis, Hill & Harvey, 2014).
References
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management , 5 (1), 6-14.
Kibbe, M. R. (2015). Leadership theories and styles. In Leadership in Surgery (pp. 49-57). Springer, Cham.
Landis, E. A., Hill, D., & Harvey, M. R. (2014). A synthesis of leadership theories and styles. Journal of Management Policy and Practice , 15 (2), 97.
