Dynamic Leadership And Organizations: Reflection And Strategies Essay.

Reflection

Discuss about the Dynamic Leadership and Organizations.

Leadership is a continuous process. In course of time, an ordinary person can become an extra ordinary leader, with the help of his traits, skills, behaviors and decision-making power. This reflective essay is dedicated to explore and discuss the leadership journey of the writer. From a short sighted, autocratic decision maker, the author has gradually become a democratic and transformational leader. It is a journey, which is continuously evolving and developing the leadership skills of the author. A leader can inspire and motivate others to identify their own goals (Dvir et al. 2015). The author is also striving to achieve the greatness of an inspirational and transformational leader in the course of his journey of being a leader.

Leadership can best be identified as a journey. As mentioned by Avolio and Walumbwa (2014), it is an art of motivating, inspiring and persuading people to act towards achieving a goal. My own leadership pattern has been evolving with my life. A number of situations, challenges and peoples have made me enrich myself with the qualifications of a good leader. ­in the initial years of my career, I had an idea that a leader need to make his followers do the tasks set by him. However, with the course of time and experiencing failure in leading people I have realized that it is the task of a leader to inspire people to set their own goal and achieve it with their own motivation.

In the initial years of my professional career, I have tried to control all my employees, but it led me to experience employee dissatisfaction and loss in profitability. I have also found the employees, who were adaptive to the control I exercised, but in course of time, I have found that it as being impossible to challenge the status quo and experience growth in the company with them. Here, I realized that it is important for a leader to be democratic and let people communicate and express their views. As mentioned by Trivellas and Drimoussis (2013), unlike a manager, a leader strives to achieve innovation to grow farther. For achieving this goal a leader, needs to make the employees come up with their ideas and communicate in an open manner.

Self-awareness is typically needed for the growth of my leadership style and personality. As mentioned by Furnham and Crump (2015), self-assessment provides better insight into the personal and leadership style of an individual which is helpful in improving (Bales 2016).

MBTI Assessment

A number of strategies can be used for executing a self-assessment. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can be used to identify my own personality or leadership style. As mentioned by Bales (2016), based on the type theory of Carl G Jung, Katherine Biggs and Isabel Myers developed the MBIT model of self-assessment.

As per the dichotomies set by the model, I can place myself in the ISTP level. As per my own sense and exercised leadership style, it can identify me as an introvert, as I focus on the thoughts, emotions and experiences of others and myself. With the course of time, I have realized that it is important for a leader to concentrating on listening that speaking.

On the other hand, I prefer sensing dichotomy. For the decision-making, I prefer using experience and the learned skills. I believe on to be realistic even while being visionary for the future. Hence, while opting for a new strategy, I love to be democratic, as it helps me in looking at the big picture, which is hard for me as a “sensing” personality. I know, I need to develop the N dichotomy while making decision.

Moreover, in the T-F dichotomy, I can place myself in the “thinking” position. I prefer to make decision based on the logic or situation. I like to be truthful in my interaction with the followers. I consider impartiality and fairness as the utmost value of life.

Lastly, for the J-P dichotomy I found myself as perceiving. I love to take challenges and I do not fear the unpredictable odds. It helps me in growing for future and provides me the confidence to implement new things in life and in the context of my career. Hence, I can count myself as an ISTP leader. According to the MBTI chart, it makes me open to face challenges (Bales 2016).

One of my partners has identified that I am being too much calculative while making decision as a leader. It is hampering my risk taking capability. Moreover, as mentioned by Chemers (2014), it is important for the leaders to take risks sometimes. It helps them discovering future. Moreover, as per my partner’s feedback, my ability of taking risks and the behavior of being too much logical and responsible, it is being contradictory. Hence, I need to make a subtle choice, between them, so that it helps me in actualize my leadership goals.

Feedback

While mentoring my partner’s leadership style, I have identified that he is a situational leader, which helps him to modify his approach as per the situational requirements. However, in order to maintain good organizational culture, a leader should maintain one particular approach (Trivellas and Drimoussis 2013). Therefore, I have mentioned that he must identify his leadership approach and organizational requirement in order to avoid risk. For my partner, I can suggest him to be more considerate before acting. As a leader, the team and his followers are his responsibility. It is good to use the trial and error in life, but with the responsibility of others, it cannot be counted as a good step. Moreover, I would suggest him from my own experience that is important to look at the big picture for future growth in life. As mentioned by Tourish (2014), most of the eminent and popular leaders were intuitive in their personal lives. It helped them to create future for their own rather walking on the path carved by someone else. It was their intuition that made them memorable even today. Hence, I would suggest my partner to be more intuitive in his leadership style and personal life as well.    

I accept that the national and various organizational cultures have developed my leadership pattern for today. Hence, I believe that the national and the organizational culture have a deep influence on a leader and his leadership style. As mentioned by Trivellas and Drimoussis (2013), “culture is about values, norms, and practices.” Hence, by identifying what is right and what is wrong, the national and the organizational culture can influence a leadership pattern.

According to my own idea, an effective leader needs to be democratic. It is important for them to make people aware of the decisions and include them within it. It helps in creating faith and a sense of security within the followers. National democracy fundamentally induces people to be democratic in their personal dealing. Moreover, as mentioned by Erkutlu (2012), an organization, which believes in autocratic decision-making, no future leader will come up with a democratic attitude. Moreover, I personally like a transformational leadership pattern. As mentioned by Girma (2016), a transformational leader welcomes the idea of others, which helps them to be innovative. However, in a core bureaucratic organizational culture it is hard to exerciser this leadership pattern. Moreover, a nation, which is orthodox it its culture, innovation is not much supported and encouraged.

Providing Feedback

Hence, it is important for the organizations to be democratic and participative in its decision making process to support the transformational leadership style.

Communication skills obtain a significant role in the effectiveness of a particular leadership pattern. As mentioned by Mikkelson et al. (2015), only a good communicator can be a great leader.

As mentioned by Martins et al. (2013), to be an effective leader, it is important to be a great listener. With listing, commitment from the followers can be gathered. Trust and respect can be interacted via active listing. Moreover, with this skill, the concerns and idea of the followers can be gathered which will be helpful in transformational leadership.

As opined by Hackman and Johnson (2013), an effective leader is open to all emotional possibilities. I need to be apt in putting my own emotions and paying focused attention. It will help me in obtaining confidence of my followers.

It is important for the leaders, to uphold an open horizontal and liner communication channel. With an open communication channel, it will be helpful for me to collect feedback from my followers about my leadership and they will be directed in a better manner (Martins et al. 2013).  

As mentioned by Martins et al. (2013), by observing one to one communication I will be able to understand each of my followers and it will help me to know the motivating factors for them. Thus, a one to one communication strategy will be helpful for me to be a successful transformational leader.  

There are a number of leadership theories and models, which can be discussed for analyzing my own leadership pattern. As mentioned in the trait theory, there are a certain qualities, which make a leader different from his/ her followers (Chemers 2014). As mentioned by Trivellas and Drimoussis (2013), the trait theory considers honesty and integrity as one of the major traits of an effective and successful leader.  It makes them different from his followers as people often find it difficult to be honest. I have this particular quality within myself. It has helped me to gain confidence from my followers. My quality of maturity and intelligence can be considered as the traits those will be helpful in lead people.

On the other hand, Avolio and Walumbwa (2014) stated that the behavioral theory the pattern of actions of a leader differentiates him/her from their followers. As discussed by this particular theory, the inner traits of a leader will not be helpful for him to be an effective leader, if the behavioral part of him does not make him different from the others. As per the Ohio State Studies, the behavior of a leader can be dignified as two different characters: initiating structure and consideration. As discussed by Trivellas and Drimoussis (2013), in initiating structure, the leader is concentrated on supervising the activities of the employees. On the other hand, the in consideration, a leader focuses on supportiveness, welfare of the employees and respect.

Influence of culture

As mentioned in the Michigan studies, the behavior of the leaders can be identified as employee centered vs. task centered (Avolio and Walumbwa 2014). As opined by Girma (2016), an employee-oriented leader emphasizes on the interpersonal relation and accepts the individual differences among the members. On the other hand, a task-oriented leader emphasizes on rigid work standard and considers the employees as the tool of accomplishing goals. 

Here, my democratic leadership behavior will make me different from the others. I personally believe that a democratic leader is more likely to gain the confidence and ideas from the employees. It helps them in encountering various contingent situations. Moreover, my employee centric approach will make me a considerate and employee centered leader.

The theories of leadership talk about various kinds of leadership styles. I personally prefer the transformational leadership style. According to Dvir et al. (2015), a transformational leader initiates change within the followers. As discussed by Chemers (2014), these leaders highly self motivated. I have this particular quality within myself. It helps me in motivating others. Moreover, as mentioned by Hackman and Johnson (2013), a transformational leader is inspirational. They do not confine in providing formal acknowledgments but treat each employee as a valued individual and understand what motivated them. I need to grow this quality within myself. It will help me in creating motivation among the employees within themselves. Last but the most importantly, a transformational leader leads with vision. As discussed by Chemers (2014), “they then communicate the vision effectively to their followers, and also inspire a sense of commitment and purpose.” I want to develop this power of intuition within me. Being an ISTP leader, I lack this quality. However, a transformational leadership can be counted as the best for modern day career approaches. Hence, I need to develop this particular leadership quality within me.

Conclusion:

Hence, from this above discussion, it can be noted that my leadership journey can be considered as a journey from an autocratic to democratic transformational leader. However, I have not achieved the inclusive qualities of a transformational leader, but I am trying to be one. My leadership journey has made me understand that by exercising effective leadership skills, success can be achieved. With a personality assessment, I have found that I have the qualities of a successful leader. However, it is needed for me to develop certain behavioral pattern to be successful in inspiring and motivating others.

References:

Avolio, B.J. and Walumbwa, F.O., 2014. 16 Authentic Leadership Theory, Research and Practice: Steps Taken and Steps that Remain. The Oxford handbook of leadership and organizations, p.331.

Bales, R., 2016. Using the Myers-Briggs type indicator for personal and professional development in the Miller Business Honors Program.

Chemers, M., 2014. An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.

Dvir, T., Eden, D., Avolio, B.J. and Shamir, B., 2015. The impact of Transformational Leadership.

Erkutlu, H., 2012. The impact of organizational culture on the relationship between shared leadership and team proactivity. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 18(1/2), pp.102-119.

Furnham, A. and Crump, J., 2015. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Promotion at Work. Psychology, 6(12), p.1510.

Girma, S., 2016. The relationship between leadership style, job satisfaction and culture of the organization. IJAR, 2(4), pp.35-45.

Hackman, M.Z. and Johnson, C.E., 2013. Leadership: A communication perspective. Waveland Press.

Martins, A., Donald Ah, P. and Martins, I., 2013. Communication and leadership—Dialectical tensions in virtual communities of practice. Management, 68, pp.23-30.

Mikkelson, A.C., York, J.A. and Arritola, J., 2015. Communication Competence, Leadership Behaviors, and Employee Outcomes in Supervisor-Employee Relationships. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 78(3), pp.336-354.

Tourish, D., 2014. Leadership, more or less? A processual, communication perspective on the role of agency in leadership theory. Leadership, 10(1), pp.79-98.

Trivellas, P. and Drimoussis, C., 2013. Investigating leadership styles, behavioural and managerial competency profiles of successful project managers in Greece. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 73, pp.692-700.