Introduction
Having a passion in the teaching and academic field, my chosen profession that I look forward to pursuing in the near future is teaching in universities, which is an academic-oriented career that fulfills my dreams and ambitions. As I have a vision in the long-run to become an Associate Professor and later on to handle a position as a Chairperson of the business department I would be teaching, of course after years of experience and writing of articles and research and publishing in major global journals like Emerald. Achieving such a dream is not just restricted to me; it is also related to how I would communicate my message to people around me, primarily my students. My students would be my audience, my colleagues, and my team at the same time.
In order to be capable of becoming an effective and influential university professor, I look forward to investing heavily in my personal leadership philosophy.
I believe now, through the progress in my graduate studies, those good leaders do have personal leadership abilities that they cultivate over the years through a specific leadership philosophy and approach. To start with, the first indispensable constituent of my leadership philosophy is that leadership is based on communication. Basically, I would not be able to become a leader unless I have followers, and here I don’t mean followers in its traditional typical meaning. I look forward to obtaining followers with whom I can act as a catalyst who highlights for them the ways of thinking rather than what I think. Yet, I know this is not an easy task to fulfill, however, its start point is to have a keen and clear vision that can be communicated to and understood by my students in terms of its benefits to them. Developing and sustaining such a relationship with followers is an everyday task that should not be utilized as granted, which means that such a relationship has to change and advanced by time and circumstances.
Another feature of my leadership philosophy is related to knowledge, knowing that it’s a wide world where strengths and weaknesses have to be identified and developed to the benefit of the team and the organization. It is essential to master what I truly have knowledge about and learn what I don’t know, to be able to effectively teach my students and enhance their knowledge.
Furthermore, I strongly believe that leadership is about coaching in order to be able to assess the potentials of the students and watch them grow step by step and helping them when they fall or misunderstand. Moreover, my leadership philosophy would be basically based upon respect, trust, and integrity, as those principles have to orient and guide every act and behavior in our daily life.
In order to motivate the team, we need to maintain respect in the first place and make every person feel special for his/her achievements.
Finally, Leadership is maintained through and within people, starting from developing a vision and passing through communicating, Emotional Intelligence, coaching, motivating and respecting. My leadership philosophy is based on my personal knowledge and acquaintance of information and humble experiences. The most important thing is to understand myself to be able to understand others and give them the best I have and lead them in the most suitable direction that fits both their will and capabilities on one hand and my potentials on the other. I can effectively teach others when I truly understand what is teaching about. I truly believe that my leadership philosophy would provide me the requirements to become an effective leader within the academic field.
- Communication
- Integrity and Honesty
- Vision
- Coaching and Developing Staff
- Emotional Intelligence
Here: List the main 5 skills and he wants me to change the planning skills and replace it with other leadership skill
Leadership Skills
He is ok with this part
Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That’s probably a good thing because if the people being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them. Some cynics might say that a leader is someone who gets people to do things that benefit the leader. But that can’t be a good definition because there are so many exceptions, as you well know.
To be able to define the leadership skills that I believe I would need to succeed in my academic profession as a university teacher, I believe it is essential to shed light on effective leadership in universities and academic field as defined by previous researchers and maintained through major literature. As defined by Weihrich et al (2005), leadership is ‘the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals’.
Have you read This:
According to Mills (2005) “Leadership is a process by which one person influences the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of others. Leaders set a direction for the rest of us; they help us see what lies ahead; they help us visualize what we might achieve; they encourage us and inspire us. Without leadership, a group of human beings quickly degenerates into argument and conflict, because we see things in different ways and lean toward different solutions. Leadership helps to point us in the same direction and harness our efforts jointly. Leadership is the ability to get other people to do something significant that they might not otherwise do. It’s energizing people toward a goal.”
According to Bloch (1988), it is among the tasks of an effective leader to maintain an organizational common vision that influences the organizational development, and characterizes the vision as follows (1) has to be a reflection of strong commitment to enhancing the organization’s current and future position (2) has to be realistic, strategic at one end and practical on the other, convincing, and comprehensible (3) has to be shared among everyone who is concerned with the organization’s success.
Wren (1985) argues that “leadership in its full compass is neither a position or title nor the actions of an identifiable “leader”. It is instead an interactive process in which leaders and followers engage in mutual goals. Viewed in this light, leadership requires keen communication skills, in addition to coaching and planning”.
Gardner (1988) believes that “effective leaders enhance the organization’s image, prestige, and reputation within the community and are instrumental in establishing the partnerships, collaborations, and other working relationships that advance the goals of the organization”.
Moreover, Ricklets (2006), determines the following major skills that shape effective leadership in academic fields
“Efficient coaching skills, Confidence, Consistency between word and action—“walking the talk”, Creativity, Empathic listening skills, Visionary tendencies, Ability to inspire, Long-term focus, Ability to balance individual needs and team needs, Awareness of realistic conditions, Strong self-esteem, Sense of priorities, Service mentality, Sincerity, Technical or contextual expertise, Trust, Willingness to share responsibility and Willingness to share credit or recognition”.
Five Most Important Skills
As for me, I strongly agree with the above literature, especially with Wren (1985), Gardner (1988) and Ricklets (2006). The five most important leadership skills that I believe I will need to succeed in my profession as a university teacher/ academic professor are the following
(1) Communication
(2) Integrity
(3) Vision
(4) Coaching & Development and
(5) Planning. The elements of each of the above-mentioned skills will be listed briefly, and the two primary skills to be further discussed are Communication & Integrity.
Communication
Communication skill is one of the highly valued in any business or academic field or organization as it is the major competency upon which relationships between leaders and followers are determined. The communication is made up of numerous elements including primarily (1) willingness to speak and enhance the information flowing (2) keeping confidential information secretive and concealed (3) listening skills and the ability to listen to followers effectively (4) developing interpersonal effectual and successful relationships.
For instance
The most effective leaders are very aware of the simple but powerful idea that effective leadership, like communication, is a two-way process
Real life examples where communication a key success factor:
In the present era, many successful leaders have regarded that leadership is not “telling people to do” rather it is a two-way process of mutual influence and cooperation cultivated through effective communication. For instance, the role of communication for becoming an effective leader can be recognized from the success of the Australian Cricket Team which received the Sports Industry of Australia Award in 2003 and won several World Cups. The main power behind this success was Australian Cricket Team Captain, Steve Wash. He was quiet and introverted, however, he managed to develop his communication skills after he was appointed Australian Cricket Captain. After realizing the importance of communication skills, he also received coaching in media and public speaking skills. He then was able to overcome the difficulties and spent many hours with each member of his team in private one-to-one conversations in order to find out what made them tick and how to get the best out of them. By thinking out of the box and applying effective communication skills, he brought in people from many walks of life to give motivational speeches to his players.
Integrity and honesty
Integrity is the leadership skill that comes from deep inside and targets every action we do. Based on several elements (1) personal guiding beliefs and values (2) willingness to find the mutual ground (3) honesty (4) transparency (5) developing mutual trust (6) respecting others and treating them the same way I like to be treated. According to Forster (2005) ‘the avoidance of deliberate decisions and/or actions that defraud, deceive, harm and exploit others, or which deprive people of what is rightfully theirs’.
A real-life examples chapter one and twelve from the book
The significance of the qualities of integrity and honesty can be recognized from the success of truly great companies of the US. During the 1990s, these companies made the transition from being merely good to being truly great companies since they had leaders who were characterized by low public profiles, self-effacing modesty and humility. They also attributed success to good fortune or their employees and their failures to themselves. These facts show they had high standards of integrity and honesty to make their organization top performers in their respective industries.
Vision
As a leader, it is of high importance to have a clear vision that leads the followers and the organization to potential performance and results beyond the monthly performance or annual budget; it is more into what the organization is about? What is its purpose, and where are we heading to in the long-run. Such vision has to be (1) clear (2) well-developed (3) inspirational (4) understandable (5) easy to communicate (6) based on the organizational capabilities. According to Carney (2006) in the 21st century, the academic field requires leaders to articulate a vision that can motivate students and followers to adapt to changing environments. According to Forster (2005) “the power of visions is that they can act as ‘paradigm busters’, moving groups of people and companies forward from the present to the future”.
Real life examples for a visionary leader, chapter one and eight from the book
Vision is important as visionary leaders often bring together already existing bodies of knowledge and transform these into something new to bring innovation. For instance, Richard Branson had the vision of bringing something new when he founded Virgin. He combined the existing record selling business with mail order delivery to bring the big breakthrough in the industry. He also made full use of mass marketing techniques.
Vision sets a direction and transforms the existing organization into a whole new corporate entity. For instance, Steve Waugh, Australian Cricket Captain transformed the landscape of cricket and enabled his team to win successful world cups. He basically had the vision which motivated him to combat his weakness and successfully deal with challenges personal and professional.
Coaching & Developing staff
Coaching and developing are critical leadership skills that are essential for teaching followers, helping them and providing them the needed knowledge to expand their potentials and give the best they have, all maintained through progressive supervision and recognition. This involves (1) encouraging (2) motivating, nurturing and cultivating capabilities (3) training (4) team development. According to Forster (2005) “effective leaders treat their employees as intelligent human beings who have in-built hard and soft-wired capacities for improvement and learning and will want to contribute more, give the right opportunities and appropriate rewards”.
Real life example
For instance, in the arena of Rugby, Martin is one of the best-known leaders since he was able to cultivate a gift of fellowship in everyone else through the coaching and development. Although he always instated that he was not a natural leader, he created commitment in those around him. Though his coaching and development efforts, his made his players committed to performing better, play beyond their capacities and take roles that otherwise would have been beyond them.
Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is one of the most important clusters or learned leadership traits. According to Goleman, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills make up Emotional Intelligence (EI). In the corporate world, emotional intelligence has great significance; since it has been found in a study conducted among several hundred from 12 different organizations that accurate self-assessment-foundation of emotional intelligence- is associated with superior performance.
Thus, the leaders who are emotionally intelligent, they better understand their physical and psychological boundaries and are better able to withstand against pressures and uncertainty. It has also been found that smart leaders are emotionally intelligent and very adaptable. They learn from others’ mistakes rather than blaming others for their mistakes. They realize the importance of association and cooperation and understand how to connect emotionally with their followers. The emotional intelligence trait of leaders enables them to unleash the full potential of their employees by taking interest in them and adopting flexible leadership style.
For instance, Egon Zehnder Internation, the search firm, conducted a research study and found that more emotionally intelligent senior executives were more likely to succeed than those who were stronger in other relevant traits of intelligence and past experiences. In other words, it was found that in contrast to relevant previous experience or high IQ, emotional intelligence was a better predictor of success.
Then, select three of these and describe, specifically, how you will develop and enhance them over the next 4-5 years (14 marks – 1800 words).
Communication – integrity, and honesty coaching and developing
Communication
Explain why this skill is important to me and how can I have this skills and specify some elements such as listening skills and how can I improve it
“Effective leadership is still largely a matter of communication.”
A keen understanding of communication skills is most important for leaders and organizations. Whenever there is a problem in the organization, it is most of the times attributed to the “lack of communication.” The Communication skill is a leadership skill that develops interpersonal communications between the leader and the followers on one hand and enhances the effective flow of information on the other; hence the role of this skill is evident on the individual level and organizational level.
For developing effective communication skills, one should focus on enhancing one’s listening skills greatly since effective listening enables us to better understand others and foster the true relationship with others. Another important component of effective communication is making it a two-way process to have a thorough understanding of others. As effective communication is a major trait of effective leaders in the present era, I would try to develop and improve my communication skills by taking some soft-spoken skills courses and lectures. I would also try to improve my listening skills which are essential to show respect for others and creating bonds with them.
Communication is a two-way process, can be verbal or non-verbal, and is very influential in terms of shaping the relationship between leader and followers. An old study for Argyris (1964) argues that effective communication processes (which can be maintained through staff meetings and team briefing meetings within an organization), can encourage innovation and creativity which, in turn, will promote job enlargement and enrichment.
As defined by Garner (1988) “an effective academic leader must be capable of presenting a sense of purpose and then assemble and create a management planning system that will focus the energies of followers on that specific purpose…as leadership is the process of communicating and influencing through which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers.” This explanation by Garner reveals the high importance of communication in maintaining effective leadership and ensuring the creation of anticipated productive performance. According to Fullan (1998) “communication is an essential leadership skill that ensures the development of visioning, planning, empowering, and evaluating for the service of the organizational goals”. Similarly, Clark (1997) emphasizes the role of the communication leadership skill as it ensures that people are influenced by their leader to accomplish organizational goals and direct the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent.
Taking into consideration a more specific dimension that is the academic field, Wynne (2001) argues that the ultimate measure of the contributions of teacher leaders is the communication between leaders and students which impacts the student academic performance. Similarly, Katzenmeyer (1996) emphasizes the role of the communication skills in improving students’ performance as follows “leaders can motivate students through developing a clear way of communicating the motivational message to the followers, in addition to seeking communicative tools to demonstrate how motivation plays an important role in educational setting.
Maintaining effective communication skills is crucial for individual and organizational development. As long as a leader is capable of maintaining “healthy” two-way communication approach with his/her followers, an effective performance will be generated at the individual and organizational level. A famous quote says that a problem that is well-known and understood is half solved. Hence, any problem or dilemma or even a simple message that is well-communicated to the concerned surrounding, can be resolved and perceived successfully as it is well-understood.
According to Barrett (2006), when CEOs, managers, and leaders in any industry in any country globally, are asked to rate and list the most important leadership skills that a leader must have, the first answer is “effective communication skills”. According to Mintzberg (1973) and Eccles et al (1991) managers spend 70 to 90 percent of their time every day engaged in communication. Accordingly, good communication is the major factor that allows people to handle leadership positions as effective communication is the most important leadership trait. According to Bowman et al (1964), the individual promotion within an organization and the overall organizational success are maintained through “the leader’s ability to communicate, to make sound decisions, and to get things done with and through people”. Accordingly, having the skill of communicating effectively does allow an individual to tackle a leadership position.
Thus, this leads us to argue that improving the leadership communication skills has to be an ability should be the main concern for individuals looking forward to becoming effective leaders within their companies and society. However, mastering the leadership communication approaches is not an easy task to do, yet by doing so, leaders will be capable of positioning their selves strongly in their organizations and will help enhance the latter performance.
Integrity and honesty:
Chapter 12 from the book, explain why it is important, what are the core values I should have and what I will do to adapt this skills, supported by an example
Integrity and honesty traits show how and to what extent the leader is ethically strong. Its importance has taken a new dimension since even the leaders at the world’s largest corporations have been found guilty of unethical practices and weak on integrity and honesty traits.
For instance, the collapse of Enron revealed even prior to declaring the company bankrupt, its senior executives had lined their own pockets, and several Federal politicians had also sold their stocks prior to its bankruptcy.
Realizing the importance of integrity and honesty, I would develop myself into a leader that would never compromise on ethical practices and principals. I would also try to learn from the severe punishments and fines imposed on dishonest leaders in the past. Most, importantly I would try to focus on long-term financial and personal and business development goals rather than short-cuts of earning money by unethical ways (Barton, 2011; Frean, 2011).
Every leader has to question his/her beliefs, guiding values, basic principles and compromising boundaries, as Integrity is one of the most important leadership skills that affect the leaders’ positioning and the organizational performance. As integrity stand for honesty and having a set of internal guiding values and beliefs where compromises are not accepted, leaders have to value this skill as it ensures that they are treating others (their followers) the way they like and prefer to be treated. Integrity is very important for leaders when based on differentiating between the right and wrong through effective guiding values, as nothing can be accomplished without building honesty bridges and mutual trust and respect between individuals. This can be said as an essential leadership competency that cannot be ignored as it leads to any leadership behavior.
In order to be able to gain the trust of their followers, leaders have to be honest and have a high degree of business ethics, in order to be able to hold the responsibility of every action. Integrity is not about saying I’m honest; it is more about reflecting leaders’ honesty, trust also respects in thinking and attitudes.
Quigley (2007) argues that “simply put those who bend rules are not considered trustworthy, and without trust, an individual’s value is severely diminished. Without trust and confidence, markets do not function, and value is destroyed.” This quote reveals why leaders have to value integrity in order to maintain professional success on one hand and lead the organizational success on the other. When individuals lack integrity, other skills become meaningless, as people who are not trustworthy won’t be assigned high responsibilities and won’t be taken into consideration for good career opportunities and advancements, and most of all, won’t be respected by team members (Quigley, 2007).
According to Kouzes et al (2002), the spread of integrity in the workplace allows the initiation of the set of shared values and stimulates the improvement in the organization in terms of productivity, performance and work conditions, culture and environment. Kouzes et al (2002) argue that trust (1) strengthens personal effectiveness, corporate loyalty, and ethical behavior (2) fosters teamwork, corporate pride, and consensus. Hence, corporations that value integrity as a major competency and business quality do outperform other companies in terms of revenue growth (ROI), job creation, stock price and profitability (Kouzes et al, 2002).
With trust, individuals will be capable of growing professionally and gaining vital understanding and experience. According to Quigley (2007), the integrity culture within an organization is way more imperative than the starting salary in an individual’s quest for personal and professional fulfillment. Organizations that do have a culture of trust, integrity, and respect are companies that offer support to the employee, view consultation as a strength, support a work-life balance, reduce job stress, and directly contributes to job satisfaction (Quigley, 2007).
Moreover, other researchers have highlighted the importance of trust in terms of creating time and cost efficiency. As argued by CoveyLink Worldwide (2006), the lack of integrity does affect the transaction speed, which will increase the time consuming and increase the costs in an efficient way, which reveals that integrity within an organization does influence the organizational economic performance, as maintaining high levels of integrity do create higher time and cost-efficiency. Integrity is of high importance as it influences the overall performance and conditions within an organization. In order to explain this point we will highlight the characteristics of low-integrity organizations, as maintained by CoveyLink Worldwide (2006), (1) High employee turnover (2) Lack of honesty and transparency (3) Disrespect (4) unanticipated financial drawbacks (5) Reluctance in implementing written rules and regulations (6) Limited access to information.
According to Barrett (2006), “Integrity is a prerequisite to personal success and for developing leadership skills as individuals who have the integrity to build trust in their relations with others and become valued as friends, colleagues, mentors, and supervisors”. As for organizational level, Turknett et al (2005) argue that individuals with high integrity do have to discuss their ethics and beliefs openly which would help to develop an organizational culture that is built on trust and respect, which will lead in turn to employee motivation that will be reflected in higher innovation and creativity, higher organizational commitment and better performance.
Understanding integrity is very important on the individual and organizational level as it ensures the development of a great workplace, wherever turnover is delimited, employees are motivated and productivity is enhanced. Trust does enhance the relationship with customers, suppliers, and employees, which lead to increased time and cost efficiency. It is noteworthy to conclude with the argument of Barrett (2006) that companies with an organizational culture that is based on integrity and trust are those that tend to be market leaders with very efficient performance, competitive market-edge, and strong financial performance, hence they are termed as best firm to work with and for.
Add about coaching and developing from the book ch1
Coaching and Developing:
Coaching and development important traits of being an effective leader, since effective coaches better understand their followers’ needs and then develop their talents. They also set challenging goals and also give sincere feedback. Hence, leaders should develop themselves into effective coaches who try to lead by example and reward subordinates on concrete results.
The concept of ‘the leader as coach’ has been embraced at some of the world’s largest corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Intel, HP, and Microsoft etc. Moreover, due to the significance of coaching and development, the number of books on coaching and leadership traits is growing day by day. Now the corporate world has also started to headhunt the leading sports psychologists since their abilities to teach effective setting skills, how to cope with pressure and manage emotions are becoming highly valued (Maguire, 2002).
Effective leaders must develop themselves into effective coaches as effective coaches treat their followers as human beings, motivate them for improvement and learning, and give the right opportunities and appropriate rewards. When leaders have coaching skills, they would treat their employees as a unique individual who might have different needs and desires. They start to reward every appreciable job performed by an employee and do not resort to punishments when they see mistakes. Rather, they think it a learning and development activity.
Developing Three Leadership Skills “Communication, Integrity and Coaching”
According to Geoff Colvin, many of these companies, ‘believe that nurturing future leaders earlier than other companies creates a competitive advantage that lasts for decades, as their talent pipelines become bigger, better and more reliable’. Such activities have also become a significant part of executive remuneration in some of these companies. At American Express, 25 percent of the discretionary pay of senior managers is linked to ‘talent development’.
Through the growth towards becoming an effective leader, an individual passes through numerous influential stages, wherein each a specific position is held, along with complementing responsibilities, that have to be accompanied with skills’ enrichment, enhancement, and development. Teachers and Professors in our days work in a continuously changing business environment, as the demands are progressively evolving and developing. For the purpose of being capable to enhance the potentials of the students and ensure they are well-prepared to become successful contributors within the community, university teachers will have to prepare themselves for a very challenging leadership role that has to be nurtured through keen learning, observing and developing of capabilities and knowledge. Teachers, as leaders, will have to be able to develop and initiate a learning environment that ensures effective communication and collaboration, recognition and coaching, in addition to integrity and trust.
According to David, (2001) “there have been a variety of formal approaches to cultivating and enhancing leadership skills among teachers and no one approach has emerged as the most effective in all situations. Examples of teacher leaders were found to span the spectrum from classroom teachers who demonstrate and model new techniques within their own classrooms to highly proactive “change agents” who challenge, inspire, and motivate colleagues to initiate university-wide change”.
Accordingly, I believe three leadership skills that I will be working hard to develop and enhance in the coming 4-5 years are the Communication, integrity, and Coaching. Furthermore, I think that the development of my personal leadership skills at this stage is a self-development process, which stands for micromanaging my skills that can be attained through increasing self-awareness and maintaining progressive self-coaching and supervision.
In order to enhance my communication skills, I will have to learn how to be able to let my message be understood by students. I will evolve this scale through further readings in the first place, in addition to observation from my experience that will be expanding year after the other.
Moreover, I will always try to examine my communication capabilities on students and colleagues, whom I notice as strong communicators, and try to communicate thoroughly, stay away from distraction and develop my message in the most convenient manner that helps the second communicator engaged in the conversation, completely understand what I mean.
Moreover, enhancing my communication skill doesn’t only mean to enhance my talking with others, as the development of my listening skill will also be engaged in this process, as I would be always dealing with a two-way communication. I will progressively learn how to maintain complete focus when someone is talking with me, and try to delimit any urge to disrupt his/her speech, even I my interruption would be meaningful, yet it makes the other person feel more comfortable if I don’t.
Perhaps I would be also following the findings of Wynn (2001) whose research was based on teachers as leaders, and hence recommended numerous steps to enhance communication leadership skills, and would be really beneficial in my personal case. Those procedures include (1) sharing personal knowledge with other professors (2) getting engaged in progressive communication workshops and research the enhance communication capabilities (3) work closely with peers, students, and communities, to get engaged in open dialogues (4) become more socially involved (5) try to mentor new younger teachers and students.
According to David (2001)”there have long been formal leadership roles for professors as department chairs, faculty Deans, team leaders, and numerous other positions; however, titles are less important than actually functioning as effective change-agents through enhancing leadership skills over the years.
The following are summarized suggestions developed by David (2001) that I strongly agree with and look forward to implementing on the personal level in the upcoming years in order to develop the concerned leadership skills:
“Participating in professors’ committees and organizations, holding influential positions, creating a culture of continuous learning, sharing ideas with colleagues, leading efforts to make teachers more visible and communicate positive information”. To develop good and competitive leadership skills, I will be focusing on developing my communication skills in communicating my vision, knowledge, education, readings, findings, skills and expectations to students and followers. This process also involves developing my skill in listening to others in addition to developing both verbal and nonverbal communication tools. This can be maintained through developing networks that involve two-way communication.
According to Kline et al (1995), following the “Emerging leadership theory”, significant importance should be placed on the power of conversation, and the challenge of the leader here (especially teachers) will be to offer new information and problem-solving opportunities, in addition to leading the talks about students’ performance and productivity”.
Regarding my integrity competency, this is the skill that I would be evolving day after the other, not only in my workplace but also in my community, as I believe it is a prerequisite for every action in our lives. I will have to reveal my human side and be fair to people.
According to Senge (1990), it is essential to enhance the integrity as leaders to always acknowledge our weaknesses and utilize our strengths to overcome such weaknesses, but never hide anything that can be solved and that others around us can learn from. Accordingly, to be able to trust others and let them know I am trustworthy, I should at first be honest with myself and always try to address my status, realize my weaknesses and utilize my capabilities and skills to overcome any gap or default. Moreover, I will also focus on taking my decisions, choosing among alternatives and taking specific actions based on my guiding principles and values, as this would create a peaceful mind for me which would, in turn, allow me to be more productive and successful in maintaining effective and influential relationships with others around me. As I acknowledge that individuals around me do sense and acknowledge integrity and trust when it’s effortless and this would lead them to respect my opinion also effortlessly (by nature), which would help me evolve my leadership positioning and growth year after year.
Through the coming years, I will also focus on treating other around me with respect and trust. To be honest with every person, I should be keenly observing people around me, and be capable of recognizing their strengths and weaknesses to effectively be capable of recognizing their supreme value, their insight, and considerations. According to Senge (1990), “most of history’s recognized leaders have confessed and acknowledged that they became what they are because once another leader before has recognized their skills and capabilities and effectively, honestly and through sincere integrity, evolved and cultivated those skills and capabilities.
Taking into consideration the very important third leadership skill that is Coaching, I should be noticing more and more details in my career, as this skill in specific requires continuous focus, supervision, and monitoring. According to Jacobsen et al (2002), Educational leaders are under increasing pressure to coach and develop members of the surrounding educational community. This skill is even harder to evolve than others, as it is based on continuous change.
‘While the need for change will apply to everyone, the role of the leader in coaching will be crucial as they need to identify the changes and coach the change process”.
To develop the Coaching and Developing skill, I will have to set potential and forecasts outcomes, learn how to always maintain a positive attitude as negative perceptions are most of the time destructive. Moreover, I will be willing to admit my failures and let others learn from them as I am coaching and developing their skills, and help them acknowledge that no one is perfect and we all do mistakes. Moreover, I will have to always continue to improve my coaching skills through progressive research and education over the years, I won’t be an expert in coaching unless I learn lots about it, so I will have to keep on getting information to develop this skill effectively and to be able to meet the changing trends and demands of followers. I will try to keep my followers well-informed, well-scheduled, and will try to solve their problems and provide them with chances, new opportunities and most importantly the tools and the supporting environment to motivate and encourage them to give their best.
I will most often try to conduct the motivational session with my followers since high motivational levels lead to the maximum performance in the organization. It has also been observed that when employees have high motivation levels, they do their best, work diligently and are more committed to their leaders. I will also try to have a workplace environment to make the followers alive, energetic, co-operative and flexible so that work becomes fun for them. Ironically, if I don’t cultivate a motivational working place, I might have to face a high rate of conflicts, high absenteeism and lowered productivity. For enhancing their motivation leading to high performance, I will try to create through the understanding of my followers and fulfill their needs.
As I agree that leaders are both born and made, I strongly believe that I should be working hard in order to become an effective leader in my workplace.
As I look forward to advancing my career and become an effective leader in my workplace, I should have to maintain an effective leadership performance and protect my position. Hence, I will be attending leadership classes and seminars in leadership organizational and universities. I will take into account attending leadership classes or even more subject-specific classes such as communication lessons or coaching lessons on annual basis. I will keep on learning in order to be able to enhance my knowledge and successfully increase my involvement in my organization. I will also try to demonstrate my willingness for hard work by volunteering to tasks that are not related to my field maybe, yet I will work hard to impress others through undertaking challenging tasks.
I will try hard to serve as a mentor in order to develop my leadership skills effectively and take advantage of such experience. To be able to reach a leadership position in my career in the future, I will help to develop my leadership skills in the near one through progressive investment in my potentials and capabilities. Having leadership skills in ones’ genes is a great thing, yet it is meaningless if not accompanies with hard work and progressive focus and dedication to enhancing those skills to reach the highest possible position and tackle the best-fitting opportunities. Leadership classes will be a need and a must for me in the coming 4-5 years, as my skills need to be cultivated through further knowledge and education. Hence, I will have to effectively invest in my skills and work hard to reach my targeted position that cannot be attained without a keen understanding of its requirements and challenges. Skills are all about practice and more practice, that’s why I’ll try to practice my skills even at my place and with my family.
Conclusion
This assignment has led me to gain a deeper understanding of leadership, and to be able to relate the theoretical background on leadership with my own perspectives and future career possibilities. This link between theory and practice was very refreshing for the knowledge I have obtained from this class. This assignment did challenge my knowledge in leadership on one hand, and my vision towards my future on the other. Basically, I can say that after this assignment, I started to view the “big picture” of leadership, rather than just a management concept, or a position that one can handle in his/her career. I acknowledged that leadership is way beyond just the title; it is more into a way of being and a way of doing. Another learning outcome from this assignment is that it changed the way I thought leadership can be practiced, and skills can be cultivated. Now, I have more desire and interest in reading more about leadership as practiced by famous leaders and their personal leadership styles and practices. Now I truly realized that leaders like Steve Jobs, Carlos Ghosn, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates have worked hard to reach become whom they are today, they didn’t get there by chance, it is of hard work and focuses on skills’ development.