Leadership : Framework Of Foundation

This report reflects an assessment on the developmental strategies for the leadership plan. Leadership skill is one of the important parts for a functional framework of any foundation. In this study, report has involved six dimensions of the leadership characteristics. Ideal leadership characteristics influence several attributes like motivation, guidance, confidence, co-ordination, maintenance of the proper environment in the workplace. Here in these study leadership characteristics like behaviors, traits, skills, knowledge, attitudes and different styles have been discussed to get an idea on the importance of the effective leadership for a group and its members. Consequential effects of implementation of these components have also been included here. Self-estimation of the strength and weakness is also incorporated in this study. Moreover, this report has embedded impact of the culture on the leadership style. To make the report more strong comparative study has been done contrasting between the analytical findings.

The important inclusion of this report is that here evaluative plan has been put so that development can be occurred on the leadership skills. This part has provided scope for the personal development of the characteristics. Moreover, few strategies have been included in this report along with success indicators.

This report has encompassed all the approaches required to understand actual planning for the development of the leadership skill.

With the help of trait leadership theory, 6 distinct characteristics of successful leaders can be found. These characteristics are such as behaviors, traits, skills, attitudes, and knowledge and leadership styles (Vaccaro et al., 2012).   All these characteristics are discussed below:

It has been found that all successful leaders have 5 common behavioral drives (Hill et al., 2012). They are such inspiring and motivating others, driving for results, trusting followers, collaboration and supporting followers. Leaders like Nelson Mandela who inspired and motivated other have a high level of energy and enthusiasm.   As Vigoda-Gadot and Beeri (2012) stated that leaders like Steve Jobs always drive for results. They always try to develop a high standard for the work groups.  They always push their followers to develop new skills and abilities (Yukl, 2012).  Successful leaders always trust fellow members. According to Shao Feng and Liu (2012), leaders can engender trust by increasing awareness about circumstances, aspirations, and concerns of others.

Leithwood and Sun (2012) investigated about leadership and found various leadership traits. These traits are such as 1) demographic vs. interpersonal vs. task competence 2) distal vs. proximal.  Both these categories are described below:

According to Leithwood and Sun (2012), traits of most of the leaders have three categories.  They are such as demographic, task competence and interpersonal attributes. It has been found that female leaders and male leaders are equally effective (Joo, Jun Yoon & Jeung, 2012). From the distal vs. proximal trait it has been found that the characteristics that distinguish effective leaders from ineffective one are stable throughout the life span. García-Morales Jiménez-Barrionuevo and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez (2012) had found that distal individual differences like creativity, self-confidence, honesty, energy and motivation are correlated with the effectiveness of leaders.  

Great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Steve Jobs have some common leadership skills that are effective communication. They are such as motivating others, honesty, effectively solving problems, powerful communication skills (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, 2012).  Great leaders always try to make an effective relationship with the help of strong communication skills. There are different techniques used to develop effective communication. They are such as team meeting, Skype calls, blog posts and one-on-one conversations. As Shao Feng and Liu (2012) stated that, most of the leaders started their business with some specific skills. However, leaders like Tim Cook have developed technical skills and professional skills over time to become valuable experts in their specific skills.     

It has been found that the attitude of leaders must need to be supportive in nature. They have to increase their self-awareness by meditating daily. It helps them to increase their self-awareness.  It also helps to increase the self-confidence level of leaders. 

As Vigoda-Gadot and Beeri (2012) stated that gaining knowledge, consists of four elements. The first thing about gaining knowledge is self-knowledge. It helps leaders to be aware of their own strength and weaknesses. Then leaders also need to gain knowledge about the followers. It helps them to develop a better relationship with them (Yukl, 2012). They also have to gain knowledge about leadership and the industry. Leaders like Steve Jobs go through various books, blogs to gather relevant information about leadership. 

It has been found that there mainly 5 types of leaderships are used by successful leaders. They are such as Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, participative, transactional and transformational. Laissez-Faire lacks direct supervision of followers. It is effective in the case of highly trained and efficient employees (Vigoda-Gadot & Beeri, 2012). On the other hand, autocratic leadership style allows a leader to take decisions without consulting with followers. Countries like North Korea and Cuba operates under this leadership approach. Participative leadership style is often known as a democratic leadership style. It helps to improve the morale of employees as it seeks participation from them and asks for their advice (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, 2012).

As Shao Feng and Liu (2012) stated that successful leaders always measure their strengths to influence other and try to increase efforts in order to minimize their weaknesses that distort their ability to lead. Hence, in order to measure my personal strength and weaknesses as a leader, self-insight exercises such as personal SWOT analysis has been undertaken. It helps to tap into my skills and leadership styles in a systematic approach. It also helps to find out my weaknesses as a leader, which I need to work on in order to become a decorative leader.

I have analyzed some of the strengths of my personal leadership styles depending on the 6 leadership characteristics mentioned above. They are such as influencing, supportive, seeking follower’s advice and result oriented. I have found that my leadership style is a combination of the autocratic and democratic (transformational) leadership style. I always try to adopt changes in my leadership style in accordance with the demand of the situation. All my leadership strengths are discussed below:

Leadership traits (Influencing)

I consider my leadership traits as influencing types and it is people-oriented leader. I personally think that we can achieve any target by hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. I like to motivate others to do hard work. I think I have developed this ability by learning about some great influencing leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the late king of Saudi Arabia.

 Communication skills (Supportive)

While working with my team member, I always try to remain supportive. I always try to develop effective communication system within the team so that a task can be completed efficiently. There are various strategies that I have adopted to improve the communication system. They are such as motivating others, honesty, effectively solving problems, powerful communication skills, building relationships, displaying strategic perspective and professional expertise. I use different techniques like team meeting, Skype calls, blog posts and one-on-one conversations to make communication with my subordinates. As Leithwood and Sun (2012) mentioned that supporters have the ability to hold their team together. Like good leaders, I always try to support my team in any condition. In some conditions, they lose their temper and start accusing one another. At that time, it is my responsibility to keep my head cool and keep the team spirit high. It helps to improve the allover performance of our team.    

Behavioral drives (Seeking follower’s advice)

My leadership drive is highly driven by follower’s advices. I always give value to my follower's advice. I always ask them to share their thought and views about a job. It often helps them to complete our tasks more efficiently. It also helps to boost up our team spirit.

Leadership style (Result oriented)

It has been found that my leadership style is a mixture of autocratic and democratic Leadership style. For example, in order to achieve the success, I have to become result oriented. I give direct orders, and I always have a constant sense of urgency to complete a job. It helps my team to complete some tasks successfully within time.  As a leader, I always welcome change and give value to new ideas. I personally think that I am not afraid of any confrontation. For this reasons, I am able to get things done.

Leadership drives

Sometimes my leadership drive is often recognized as egoistic. I often become impatient, as I desire to move forward quickly. I always try to decisions on impulse that leads to mistakes. I always expect my followers to work at the same pace, which not possible all the time.

Communication skills

I often feel trouble to stay focused. It disorganizes our teamwork. As I do not have much experience as a leader, I often let my relationships and fears get in the way to make good decisions. Sometimes I have some communication problems for which I am not often capable of taking good care of all my followers at the same time.

Knowledge level

I do not have enough experience as a team leader. Rather it can be stated that, I have just started my journey as leader. For this reason, I do not have ample knowledge about how to handle critical situation, while working on project.  I have gathered all leadership knowledge on the basis of different leadership books, journals and autobiography. I do have enough practical experience on leadership skills. Hence, I need to improve my practical knowledge related with leadership capability.         

Behavioral drives

I found that my culture has some negative impact on my leadership styles.  Poor organization, weak communication, less emphasis on quality, the old trend of management, lack of team bonding and lack of IT systems are the main drawbacks of the working culture that I am habituated with. It has negatively affected my leadership style. However, in order to overcome those barriers, I have made some necessary changes in my leadership styles. I prefer to become more democratic rather than an autocratic leader. I try to take advice from my followers and always try to remain supportive. I help me to improve team spirit.  

I like to compare my strengths with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the late king of Saudi Arabia. He had safely navigated Saudi Arabia through an extreme period of change. Like King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, I have the capability to influence my team members. I have the clarity of mind, and I always thrive for success just like the great king of Saudi Arabia. He has high influence among international peers and partners. He has the courage to tackle domestic and regional issues of the country (Shao Feng & Liu, 2012). I always try to take care of my fellow team members as much as possible. After becoming the Sixth King of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz sought to fight against poverty, literacy, and unemployment problem. Like King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, I always try to maintain, team spirit despite the personal conflicts arises in my team. Similarly, with the help of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’s leadership capability, Saudi Arabia is able to maintain strong bonding with the world despite different terrorist attacks. 

Unlike King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, I do not have effective communication skill. Often I am not capable of understanding the state of mind of my followers. I often expect them to work at the same pace. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has the unique capability to understand the difference the states of Saudi Arabia. He has adopted peace initiatives to maintain unity between various Muslim and Arab countries like Chad, Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan.  Unlike I do not have the patience. I always try to move forward and desire to take impulsive decisions. Often it leads to mistakes.

I have found that my leadership style has some major weaknesses in accordance to the 6 characteristics mentioned above. I often considered as egoistic. Due to some cultural barriers and other obstacles, I also have some communication problems. It has hampered my effectiveness as a leader. Often I am not able to influence my team member that disorganizes the team spirit. I am often not able to take care of the welfare of my followers, and I expect that my team members to work at the same pace, which is not a feasible plan. For this reason, I think it is necessary to improve my leadership skills depending on the 6 characteristics mentioned above. I have the opportunity to overcome all these weakness with the help of personal development plan (PDP).   

With the help of personal development plan, I will be able to analyze all my weaknesses of leadership styles in accordance to the 6 characteristics mentioned above. For example, I do not have effective communication skill. Often I am not capable of understanding the state of mind of my followers. I often expect them to work at the same pace. Depending on the weaknesses, I can develop valid strategies to overcome all these barriers. For instance, I can attain courses to improve my communication skills. I can read the autobiography of some great leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi to understand their attitude and behavior towards their followers. Secondly, my own culture has negative impact on my behaviour as well. In order to improve it, I can attain short seminar to understand the major changes that occur in the leadership style in recent years. I can look for new job roles that will provide me the opportunity to work with different peoples from different cultures. It will increase my experience as a leader. I will also be able to find out the indicators to analyze the success of all my strategies. I will develop a timeframe to implement all these strategies. It will provide me the opportunity to improve my leadership style and become a more successful leader in future.  

Depending on my weaknesses, I have developed four improvement strategies. They are mentioned below in the table:

The indicators of success for each strategy are mentioned below in the table:

This report has fulfilled all the aspects required to get an idea on the development of the leadership skills. The main components of this report have critically evaluated different leadership criteria with appropriate explanation. Moreover, self evaluation has enriched the content of the report. Analysis of the potentiality to be a good leader and problems that can be array with the perfect leadership has been described in this report that has in turn made the report more reliable. Comparison of the leadership skills have helped to assess the differences and area for the improvement. Moreover, strategic indicators and assumption of the timeframe for the development of the leadership skill has made this report valid as the description of the topic. Comparison has been made relating the leadership factors, mentioned before, with the personal qualities. Thus, this report has become more approachable. A focus has been given on Sixth King of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, to evaluate the personal standards of the leadership parameters.

Therefore, it can be said this report has focused on the different factors, those are important for the evaluation of the standard of a leader. Therefore, this report can be revised while conducting further research.

García-Morales, V. J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M. M., & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. (2012). Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 65(7), pp.1040-1050.

Hill, N.S., Seo, M.G., Kang, J.H. & Taylor, M.S., (2012). Building employee commitment to change across organizational levels: The influence of hierarchical distance and direct managers' transformational leadership.Organization Science, 23(3), pp.758-777.

Joo, B. K., Jun Yoon, H., & Jeung, C. W. (2012). The effects of core self-evaluations and transformational leadership on organizational commitment.Leadership & organization development journal, 33(6), pp.564-582.

Leithwood, K., & Sun, J. (2012). The nature and effects of Transformational school leadership a meta-analytic review of unpublished research.Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(3), pp.387-423.

Shao, Z., Feng, Y., & Liu, L. (2012). The mediating effect of organizational culture and knowledge sharing on transformational leadership and Enterprise Resource Planning systems success: An empirical study in China.Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2400-2413.

Vaccaro, I. G., Jansen, J. J., Van Den Bosch, F. A., & Volberda, H. W. (2012). Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size. Journal of Management Studies, 49(1), pp.28-51.

Vigoda-Gadot, E., & Beeri, I. (2012). Change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in public administration: The power of leadership and the cost of organizational politics. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(3), pp.573-596.

Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. The Academy of Management Perspectives,26(4), pp.66-85.