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Personal Leadership Skills Reflection Paper

Assessment: Reflection on Leadership Skills

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Importance of leadership
  • Analysis of the leadership of Brené Brown
  • Importance of reflection in the role of manager, leader and industry specialist
  • Self-assessment of performance in the assessment
  • Self-assessment of leadership style
  • Conclusion
  • References

Introduction

Leadership is an important factor in relation to the enhancement of motivation among people working in a given workplace. It is often regarded as an important function in relation to the delivery of effective management that contributes to the maximisation of efficiency as well as production in order to enhance the probability of achieving organisational goals. It is considered to be vital for an individual to identify their personal leadership style in order to examine the suitability of the same in their workplace and recognise the areas for further improvement. In this paper, different leadership strategies will be taken into consideration for the examination and align the same with my personal leadership styles in order to recognise areas for improvement in the same.

Importance of Leadership

Leadership can be identified to be a vital consideration in relation to the execution of a proper management procedure within an organisation that would ensure the maximization of efficiency and production of an organisation. It has often been analysed that in absence of appropriate leadership all other elements of the business die dormant (Vélez, Lorenzo and Garrido, 2017). A strong leader is able to contribute with regard to the maximization of productivity and achievement of organisational goals. On the contrary in absence of effective leadership skills a weak leader can affect the productivity of the organisation. During my self-assessment of leadership skills while working in an organisation I have observed that leadership cannot be defined as a sole defining factor to suit every individual. Rather it depends on the personal creativity of the individual as well. The managers and team leaders are considered to be the leaders of an organisation who show the right path to the other employees working in the same workplace (Huszczoand Endres, 2017). Motivating employees and initiating action where the employees’ effectiveness can be identified to be one of the major considerations to be taken into account by a leader in order to enhance the productivity of the organisation. This way, considering the importance of leadership within an organisation a leader can either lead the organisation towards its ultimate success or be the reason behind its failure due to lack of leadership skills.

Personal Leadership Skills Reflection Paper

Analysis of the Leadership of Brené Brown

Leadership Courage is about the capacity of the leader to go for courage rather than comfort. Building an authoritative culture is largely dependent on courage and weakness. Leadership isn’t about titles or the corner office. It’s about the readiness to venture up and incline toward mental fortitude. Brave leaders are always demanded by the world in their different sectors (“Dare to Lead | Brené Brown”, 2020). Brené Brown’s book, “Dare to Lead”, I realised that it was considerably hard to avoid the message of Brown for the development of effective leadership practices. Brown has defined a leader to be an individual taking responsibilities in relation to the recognition of the potential in individuals and their respective ideas, and accumulate the required courage for developing that potential. In the given book, she has tried to answer the question in relation to the leaders in different organizations regarding how they cultivate braver, more daring, and how value has been embedded in relation to courage in different organsiational cultures? However, in her words, “it is less about who people are, and more about how they behave and show up in difficult situations.”

“Dare to Lead” can be recognised as the culmination in relation to a seven-year study based on Brown’s courage and leadership in her journey. The “Big Idea” as prescribed by Brown can be recognised as the necessity for building sufficient courage that is to be delivered in the workspace in order to enable creativity as well as innovation (Influence, 2020).As observed from the analysis of the book, entrepreneurship can be identified as a hard road to walk on. Disappointments as well as setbacks can be recognised as two vulnerable parts of entrepreneurship. This book and point of view of Brené would significantly help the readers to engage themselves with various situations and further, enable them to consider creative as well as innovative ideas to the teammates. The very first step in relation to the implementation of effective leadership can be recognised to be the willingness as well as the capability for rumbling with vulnerability (Brown, 2016). Brown further adds that most people tend to avoid necessary conversations. This conversation further includes delivering honest feedback. From the assessment of Brené’s point of view towards effective leadership, it was recognised that courage and stability are two primary factors in relation to effective leadership. Thereby, in the future profession, I would be productively implementing the suggestions accumulated from the assessment of the given book in order to gain the most benefit.

Various definitions of leadership exist, despite the fact that the various definitions, for the most part, combine in the hypothesis that incredible leaders can settle on key and visionary choices and persuade others to follow those choices (Bligh, 2017). The agreement in this case is, leaders tend to make a dream and based on the same they can effectively involve others to chase after accomplishing the objectives as set by the leader thereof. They do this by setting heading and rousing others to need to prevail with regards to accomplishing the outcome. Also, they are equipped for getting individuals energized and propelled to pursue the vision. That is the kind of future leaders that associations should explore the political real factors, advanced change, and speed of progress that associations face, she said. As a leader, weakness influences the manner in which one thinks and leads, one must be eager to be helpless to make trust in their working environment. Leadership is the achievement of an objective through the bearing of human collaborators. The one who effectively marshals his human partners to accomplish specific finishes is a leader(Schoemaker, Heaton and Teece, 2018). An extraordinary leader is one who can do so for a long time, and a seemingly endless amount of time after a year, in a wide assortment of conditions.In that case, it can be observed that, leadership puts a great importance in the case of organisational performance.

Importance of Reflection in the Role of Manager, Leader, and Industry Specialist

Reflection is a great procedure for recognising sales capability and skills in order to initiate further development of the same. Reflection in the case of leadership puts great importance as it helps one to identify their leadership skills and areas of improvement. According to some pioneers, the experience is the only thing that one should achieve in order to expect betterment in their future profession (Raelin, 2017). However, rather than this particular factor, developing a reflection upon the individual skills and abilities can be recognised as another important factor that would have the probability of witnessing improvement in someone’s leadership activities. In that case, it is to be stated that acquiring wisdom in relation to an experience is directly related to the development of reflection. As per my experience in my previous employment, I have observed that different organisations have different procedures for managing their employees based on their different organisational structures. The organisational structure and performance can be identified to be a secondary activity in relation to the leadership style whereas personal attributes are to be recognised as a primary factor for the same. As per, Brenè Brown, leadership is directly linked with courage and personal skills or attributes. During this assessment, I have observed that in relation to my previous employment I was able to successfully utilise my courage and learn a lot from my fellow colleagues. However, with the examination of the given book or Brenè Brown, I was able to critically analyse the same in relation to mine previously learned leadership styles and their attributes. With regard to this critical analysis, I was able to observe some of the loopholes that are present in my personal leadership style and that are further to be developed in order to enhance my managerial and leadership skills.

Given this observation, it is understandable that reflection is not only beneficial for the enhancement of personal skills but it can further help one to be professionally successful. In relation to the observation of personal reflection, one would be able to critically analyse their own leadership skills with that of the leadership skills of successful pioneers with the help of available literary sources (Lawrence, Dunn and Weisfeld-Spolter, 2018). Based on this comparison and contrast one can certainly expect to witness significant development in their personal attributes in relation to the leadership skills they possess and they will further be able to implement the same in their professional field of work.

Reflection can be recognised and defined as a structured procedure that is aimed at the enhancement of our learnings and insights (Anselmannand Mulder, 2020). If an individual is sufficiently practiced at the reflection, they can start reflecting at any situation for unfolding the same and make themselves ever in relation to the potential actions of the other people around. This technology contributes to a successful accomplishment of critical thinking and decision-making procedure which can be identified to be two of the greatest elements of successful leadership skills. Now, based on this examination it is to be determined that reflection is closely related to the development of leadership skills of an individual as it does not only contribute to the development of personal attributes but also shows a path to an individual for further development in their professional roles and responsibilities.

Self-Assessment of Performance in the Assessment

During the execution of this particular task of reflection, I came across many observations regarding myself and my capabilities. It was indeed an experience to revisit all the class learning materials and alignment of the same with my individual capabilities in order to recognise the areas of further improvement. With regard to the accomplishment of this assessment firstly I was capable of identifying my own leadership style based on my previous work experiences in different work sectors. There were many things that I could recognise to be most enduring to me and some of the factors I could enlist as a less attractive area in my learning session. For instance, while evaluating my position in the organisation I have been working in I recognise that workplace hierarchy plays an important role to deliver work experience to different employees by circulating different roles and responsibilities among the employees. It helped me to understand that I should aim at learning as much as possible during my early years of professional life in order to gain success faster in life. In this regard, I have determined that during my course of study as well as after the accomplishment of the same, I will aim at working in an organisation in such a position where I can learn as much as possible regarding management and communication skills that would be beneficial for me with regard to my leadership activities in future employment. On the contrary, I have observed that time management was another important consideration that was to be taken into account by me during my previous employment however I failed to learn the same to its efficient extent.

While examining the leadership strategies prescribed by Brenè Brown, I observed that based on my present capabilities and skills I can improve my leadership performance with the implementation of the skills learned from her strategies. It has been observed that, in order to become a successful leader, I need to be courageous in relation to risk-taking and decision making alongside implementing proper time management skills. It has been recognised to be another drawback from my reflection in relation to my lack of time management skills that if I fail to improve in the given domain of learning I may lack leadership skills in my future employment. This will put a significant negative impact on my professional expertise. Therefore, besides learning the other factors in relation to leadership practices I need to enhance my time management skills as well.

Self-Assessment of Leadership Style

As an outcome of my learning session, it was learned that there are five different types of leadership styles based on different strategies of performance. The leadership styles as studies are as follows:

  • Autocratic leadership
  • Delegative leadership
  • Participative leadership
  • Transformational leadership; and
  • Transactional leadership

With the examination of all the different leadership styles, it was observed that there is a clear distinction between the above-mentioned styles of leadership. During the completion of this paper, I tried to observe which leadership style would fit my existing skills of managerial activity and leadership performance. In this case, I have observed that participating in leadership would be the perfect fit based upon my managerial and leadership skills. In the case of participative leadership, the style is rooted in relation to the democratic theory (Al Khajeh, 2018). The main concern of this form of leadership is to include the team members in the procedure of decision making in order to ensure the ultimate participation of all the members of a team (Odoardi et al., 2019). However, despite the active participation of all the team members the leader generally proposes is the last word in the procedure of decision making and concludes the same. There are several advantages associated with this form of leadership styles including an increase in employee motivation as well as job satisfaction and encouragement among the employees that would eventually enhance employee creativity (Anselmannand Mulder, 2020). On the contrary, there are certain disadvantages that can affect the performance of the entire team as well as the leader. This type of leadership style can make a decision-making process time-consuming. Due to the active involvement of all the team members in the decision-making procedure or security issues may arise depending upon the transparency in the case of information sharing.

Conclusion

With the accomplishment of the given reflection study, I have come to learn about different factors in relation to leadership style and management skills and the importance of the same within an organisation. Based on this observation I have come to the conclusion that I need to work on the disadvantages identified in the case of this particular leadership style and enhance my leadership capabilities. I will thereby follow the identified areas of improvement in order to learn further and polish my existing skills in order to ensure better professional activity in the future.

References
  • Al Khajeh, E. H., (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research2018, 1-10.https://doi.org/10.5171/2018.687849
  • Anselmann, V. and Mulder, R. H., (2020). Transformational leadership, knowledge sharing and reflection, and work teams’ performance: A structural equation modelling analysis. Journal of Nursing Management28(7), 1627-1634.https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13118
  • Bligh, M. C., (2017). Leadership and trust. In Leadership today (pp. 21-42). Springer, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31036-7_2
  • Brown, B., (2016). Brené Brown encourages educators to normalize the discomfort of learning and reframe failure as learning. About Campus20(6), 3-7.https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.21224
  • Dare to Lead | Brené Brown., (2020). Dare To Lead.
  • Huszczo, G. and Endres, M. L., (2017). Gender differences in the importance of personality traits in predicting leadership self‐efficacy. International Journal of Training and Development21(4), 304-317.https://doi.org/10.1111/ijtd.12113
  • Influence, S., (2020). Brené Brown – Leadership Courage – Strategies for Influence. Strategies for Influence.
  • Lawrence, E., Dunn, M. W. andWeisfeld-Spolter, S., (2018). Developing leadership potential in graduate students with assessment, self-awareness, reflection and coaching. Journal of Management Development.https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-11-2017-0390
  • Odoardi, C., Battistelli, A., Montani, F. andPeiró, J. M., (2019). Affective commitment, participative leadership, and employee innovation: a multilevel investigation. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology35(2), 103-113.https://doi.org/10.5093/jwop2019a12
  • Raelin, J. A., (2017). Leadership-as-practice: Theory and application—An editor’s reflection. Leadership13(2), 215-221. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715017702273
  • Schoemaker, P. J., Heaton, S. and Teece, D., (2018). Innovation, dynamic capabilities, and leadership. California Management Review61(1), 15-42.https://doi.org/10.1177/0008125618790246
  • Vélez, S. C., Lorenzo, M. C. A. and Garrido, J. M. M. (2017). Leadership: its importance in the management of school coexistence. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences237, 169-174.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2017.02.059

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