Exploring Definitions And Personal Experiences In Leadership And Management Essay.

In an organization, an effective manager can see to it that the set goals and objectives are achieved, whereas an effective leader can take part through participation to ensure both competitive advantage and excellence are achieved. This aim of this essay is to explore the different meanings of a leader while using literature resources to support my view. Having had an experience as both a manager and a leader, I provide a short part of my life’s history that explains my motivations and values, which have today become a part of me as a person. To support this audit, I will provide some personality tests that paint a clear picture of my traits and skills objective assessment. Last but not least, a 360 degrees evaluation feedback from my colleagues, friends, and family is essentially used to give feedback on my weaknesses and strengths as a leader. The last part of this essay will entail the assignment’s findings that will be of significant value in helping me to continue developing as a leader I hope to become in future.

Taking the current economy into consideration, which is basically a core factor determining whether an organization thrives or survives, effective and efficient management are vital. Management has numerous definitions that are mostly made on the basis of theories that were made decades ago by the likes of Henry Fayol indicating management’s primary functions: controlling, leading, organizing, and planning. These functions are vital because they are essential in the management of human resources to attain an organization’s set goals and objectives. This being the case, leadership plays an important role in management given that people are heavily depended upon to attain the organization’s goals and objectives depending on the way they are influenced by a leader (Howell, 2004).

Robbins, Millett, and Waters-Marsh (2004, p. 338) define leadership as the influence capability that an individual possesses towards directing a group of people in attaining an organization’s goals. In addition to their definition, they indicate that leadership involves orienting people as opposed to orienting a task, which in turn makes attaining the set goals more effective. According to Pullan (2011), in management, influence is required to provide people with an extrinsic motivation for tasks to be completed, while in leadership intrinsic motivation is used in influencing people to complete their tasks.  

Quite similar to the experience I had as a project manager in an IT firm I worked in some few years ago. The roles I had entailed reporting processes and budget control, outlining responsibilities, setting goals, and arranging meetings. My team composed of middle-aged men and women, who appeared to be unenthusiastic and unappreciated, which made the situation all the same difficult considering the gap in our age differences, and to make it worse, I was their project manager meaning they reported to me regardless of how they felt. Since motivation is an essential factor in the attainment of set goals, I had to ensure that they felt enthusiastic and appreciated by recognizing their different skills and talents, which would encourage or trigger excitement and creativity intended to create a vision for them.

Self-Audit

Over the years, several leadership theories have evolved from the behavioral and traits theories to more recent theories. These recent leadership theories have mainly evolved as a result of situational influences on the types of leaderships; contingency and situational theories. The style of leadership approach is founded on task oriented and relationship oriented behavior, which depends upon the follower’s ability and attitude (Reinke, 2004). It came to my attention that university students workshops require an involving relationship oriented and task oriented leadership. However, with an experienced staff such as the middle-aged team I worked with, I adapted to delegating leadership style. As such, it can be noted that the ideal leadership style in my case depends on personality, task nature, and the staff members’ competence (Jost, 2013).

An additional field research was focused on transformational and transactional leadership. According to Jung (2001), transformational leaders inspire and motivate followers to make an extra step to attain the goals set in an organization. Being the case, this leadership style involves having a distinct awareness of a person’s high level of emotional intelligence and motivation. From studies conducted from literature research, there are numerous questions that arise from the contingency and situational theories and the connection they have with transactional leadership style, which mainly pertains management given that the employees are guided and motivated in a task-oriented manner. According to Özaralli (2003), by taking an additional step, transformational, visionary, and charismatic leaders encourage workers to view an organization’s goals as if they were theirs, which in turn results in a worker’s elevation through the hierarchy of needs by Maslow thus moving from self-interest to the good of the organization.

From various literature research, it is evident that transformational leadership, as opposed to transactional leadership, results to employee satisfaction and greater productivity that is necessary for any organization in an ever-changing and highly competitive marketplace (Bryant, 2003). Taking all these into consideration, it begs the question of who is better between a manager who focuses on tasks and a leader who focuses on people? There is a likelihood of being a bad manager yet a good leader. This is because it would be useless to encourage a team to do a great job on a certain project when it fails to be delivered on a budget or on time. Similarly, a good manager can be organized, timely, and clearly communicating to the employees about tasks, yet if the employees’ have no common vision or low morale, the productivity level can little affecting the attainment of set goals. For this reason, the attributes of a leader and a manager working together can be quite significant, while possessing the qualities of a visionary or transformational leader collective with exceptional managerial skills can be the ultimate combination (Dvir et al., 2002).

Human Metrics Jung Typology Test

My personality traits together with the weaknesses and strengths of both my leadership and management style are highlighted by a self-evaluation that is based on four behavioral and personality tests. Both the tests and test results can be found in Appendix I.

Extrovert (52%)

Sensing (10%)

Feeling (70%)

Perception (42%)

The results varied for the different characteristics indicating different personalities at different times depending on where or whom I am with. In both workplaces and social settings, I would describe myself as an ‘extrovert.' I enjoy interacting with people and really getting to know them, which is why the ‘Feeling’ trait reflects me to be more of an intimate person. This is because I am a subjective and caring person who values relationships. My ‘sensing’ character reveals what I have always believed to be true given that I am a conservative individual who is practical and enjoys sequential facts. Additionally, I believe that everyone and everything turns out for the good eventually, which is why I do not like making assumptions as can be identified by my sensing level. On ‘perception’ I would say that I like watching or being part of things playing themselves out or flowing without interference, which is why discoveries amaze me and make me who I am.

In the assessment, I had a good score but I it was definite that I could benefit from developing in all the four areas that were tested given that there is no particular area that I scored 75% and above. My highest score was being respectful and responsible by managing my emotions and having integrity, which indicates my work ethics to a certain point. My second highest score was in managing relationships, whereby it showed that I am capable of managing the individual within the team. The third highest score was in managing and communicating existing and future work, where I scored 58.8% indicating that I could do better by developing in this area. My poorest score was reasoning/managing difficult situations where I scored 55% indicating that I do not work well under pressure, which is an area that could use a lot of developing.

Competing (6, middle)

Collaborating (9, high)

Compromising (7, high)

Avoiding (7, high)

Accommodating (6, middle)

As per the conflict model instrument, I had a high score in collaborating, compromising, and avoiding, while I had middle scores for competing and accommodating. From the results, it would be suggested that I should highly prefer to collaborate, compromise, and avoid while I can either prefer or avoid to accommodate and compete. This test is especially created to show the preferred styles that are cooperative in ensuring people are satisfied.

Respectful and Responsible Overall Assessment

I conducted a 360-degree evaluation made on four short interview questions that were completed by my friends, family, and colleagues at work. In brief, the evaluation on my management style appeared to be positive indicating that my self-evaluation was consistent with the findings. From the data I collected from the interviewees, my people-oriented leadership style was evident indicating my focus staff needs while being positive and friendly as I use a participating approach to managing. In addition, according to the information collected, I am a situational leader considering I never micromanage but rather delegate tasks.

Through my experience as a project manager, it is expected that my leadership skills are still growing, which means that I can presently communicate well with my subordinates, colleagues, and peers while clearly articulating responsibilities and goals. Due to exposure, my interpersonal skills have adapted making my communication skills both efficient and effective, which means I am good at listening as well as passing information on or out. According to the interview feedback, it is indicated that I contain and control conflicts appropriately ensuring that the set goals and objectives of the organization are attained, and not because I am task oriented, but because I am people oriented. As a result, this makes me more of a diplomat in any case that needs to be solved.

Even though I am still learning and developing the necessary skills of becoming a great leader and a good manager, I would still like to learn ways that would enable me to become an inspiring, empowering, visionary, and emotionally intelligent person. From the feedback, my friends, family, and work colleagues mentioned me to be a trustworthy individual who shows deep concern for other people encouraging them to keep on going until they can take that extra step that they did not believe was in them. By learning to appreciate others, I have empowered numerous people whether within or outside work by appreciating their efforts and valuable skills in their achievements, which by so doing has grown team spirit as they have come to learn that one’s achievement is the whole team’s or organization’s achievement.

Conclusion

Through this self-evaluation, I have learned so much in that I am in a position to identify my weaknesses and strength, which gives me an advantage of becoming a better version of the person I aspire to be. In addition, I have received valuable information that will allow me the opportunity of further developing my leadership and management skills.

The development of these skills will not only be to my personal benefit but to all my friends, family, colleagues, peers, superiors, subordinates, groups, and organizational objectives and goals through increased productivity and competence. In essence, this self-evaluation has only made things clear to who I hope to become by means of ever searching for better and new ways to achieve goals by being mindful about continual improvement as I stand to always encourage and embrace change.

References

Özaralli, N. (2003). Effects of transformational leadership on empowerment and team effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 24(6), 335-344.

Dvir, T., Eden, D., Avolio, B. J., & Shamir, B. (2002). Impact of transformational leadership on follower development and performance: A field experiment. Academy of management journal, 45(4), 735-744.

Howell, G., Macomber, H., Koskela, L., & Draper, J. (2004, August). Leadership and project management: time for a shift from Fayol to Flores. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC-12) (pp. 22-29).

Jost, P-J. (2013). An economic theory of leadership styles. Review of Managerial Science, 7, 365-391. doi: 10.1007/sl1846-012-0081-1

Jung, D. I. (2001). Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on creativity in groups. Creativity Research Journal, 13(2), 185-195.

Bryant, S. E. (2003). The role of transformational and transactional leadership in creating, sharing and exploiting organizational knowledge. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(4), 32-44. 

Pullan, M. (2011).1ntrinsic motivation. Leadership Excellence, 28(12), 6-7.

Robbins, S.P., Millett, B. & Waters-Marsh, T. (2004). Organisational Behaviour (4e). Sydney, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.

Reinke, S. J. (2004). Service before self: Towards a theory of servant-leadership. Global Virtue Ethics Review, 5(3), 30.