Essay On Good Leader: Characteristics, Strengths, Weaknesses, And Skill Development Plan.

This includes sections 4-6 of the report. Each section should have an appropriate heading (not Section 4 etc).

Section 4 - The essential characteristics of a good leader 

This section is descriptive and should explain what you see as the key characteristics of an excellent leader in your field of business. This section needs in-text referencing to tell the reader where your ideas and/or words come from.

Section 5 - Analysis of leadership strengths and weaknesses 

This section involves an analysis of your leadership strengths and weaknesses.

Here you describe your THREE BEST Leadership skills or strengths, as well as THREE Leadership skills you will DEVELOP in future.

This section is reflective and personal so you can use ‘I’.  The section is based on your journal, in which you were asked to ‘follow a process to improve self-awareness and capture what you determine to be the key aspects of Leadership required to manage and implement change’.

In this section you need to demonstrate critical thinking. You need to say how you identified your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. To do this you need to consider what you have learned in this unit about the qualities needed for leadership, for being a strategic leader and a leader of change. This includes lecture material, guest lecturers, textbooks and Discussion Board. Use your journal entries to help you. You need to reference everything here.

Section 6  Plan for developing leadership skills

This section is your forward plan and should be expressed using ‘I’. It is the most important part of your assignment. Be specific about your intentions. You should include the following:

There is no point in stating the fact that the quality of strategic leadership helps an individual achieve enormous success in life, and contribute to the sustained growth of the organization he works for, as well. While there is no dearth of people possessing leadership qualities in the world, very few possess the quality of working strategically towards the accomplishment of a goal. It requires vision, a sense of direction as well as the ability to influence others. Strategic leadership helps an individual achieve any goal within the stipulated period of time, despite all the challenges and odds (Bergh et al., 2016). Hence, this report intends to discuss the principal traits that a successful leader possesses, and in the light of the same, analyze the strategic leadership as possessed by the author. After critically evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the leadership skills of the author, the report intends to offer necessary recommendations to improve the same. Usually, leadership is being deemed as a very commonplace concept that can be adopted by simply commanding a group of subordinates. However, such a perspective is very fallacious and each individual needs to have a comprehensive idea regarding primary qualities and responsibilities of a chief strategist, and the report intends to state how the leader can emerge to be the architect of the strategy process.

While usually people believe that the term “leadership” refers to the ability of an individual to command and boss over a group of people, true leadership constitutes in the ability of the leader to motivate and influence people to achieve desired goals within a definite time. According to Dubrin, a leader must be driven from within, so that he can motivate all his subordinates and influence them to perform the jobs that need to be done (Dubrin, 2015). A leader must be patient, dedicated and highly assertive as well, and he must possess a positive outlook towards life. Unless a leader believes in his vision, he will never be able to influence and inspire others to work towards the fulfillment of all his goals. Again, Daft states that a leader should believe in his vision, and at the same time, communicate the vision and the benefits of achieving the same, to the respective employees so that they can feel motivated to achieve their objectives (Daft, 2015). A leader must also be assertive and confident, or else he will fail to establish his perspective before the subordinates and execute his plans properly, as pointed out by Thompson (Thompson, 2014). At the same time, a leader must be balanced as well and he should neither be too tender while handling the subordinates, not too tough and bossy that will prevent the subordinates from freely interacting with him. A leader is focused and dedicated in his work, and nothing less of a visionary. Lussier has pointed out that a leader is self-inspired and self-motivates, who never loses track of the goal he wishes to achieve, and he continually keeps on thinking in an innovative way, that makes his action and plans harder to emulate (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Last but not the least, it should be remembered that a true leader is more of a team worker who encourages others, and believes in working in a coordinated way.

Characteristics of a Good Leader

While I do possess the potential to emerge as an effective leader, as far as my leadership skills are concerned, I have strengths as well as weaknesses which are being analyzed as follows:

As it is evident from the above table, one of the major leadership strengths that I possess, is that I am very passionate and a motivated individual, who always feels fueled by an inner drive to strive harder to get my task done. Being highly motivated, I never easily give up to challenges and odds, and I believe in my capacity of outshining every problem out there. Being self-motivated also helps me to keep my workers focused on their work, and I am able to arouse enthusiasm amongst them to work harder towards the accomplishment of a specific goals. Secondly, my persuasive skills also compliment my leadership ability (Neves et al., 2013). I can easily exercise my control over others, and the same is especially possible because I have a dominant personality. I usually do not conform to what others say, and I possess my own take on every issue, and being eloquent and persuasive at the same time, I can convince people to follow my footsteps. Even when a subordinate is unwilling to execute an action, I can convince him that it would be the best option for him to avail. Since I possess an assertive personality as well as an effective communication skill, I can easily convince others, establish my perspectives and get my job done. I believe that one of the most important features that helps me distinguish me as a leader is that I am incredibly focused to my work. I do not ever get distracted by the odds and challenges, nor do my competitors, doing well can discourage me to proceed further. I always know what exactly my plan requires me to do, and I work in an organized way towards the accomplishment of the goals. I am very committed and dedicated to my work, and I thus always work with rigid determination to ensure that I can complete my work within the specified period of time. In case a leader is focused, he can easily concentrate on the goals and objectives as well as the expected outcome of the proposed strategy. My focus on my work helps me achieve success and it also helps in motivating my subordinates to remain focused on their work (Knapp et al., 2014). I barely miss deadlines, and never will I miss any opportunity, as I always remain wary of the chances around me.

Analysis of Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

Alongside the abovementioned leadership strengths, I also have a few leadership weaknesses that I would like to mention. These are the areas I would like to work upon in order to improve my leadership skills. As it is said team work makes dream work, and despite the importance of team work and group effort, I fail to be an effective team player. I feel that there are times when I cannot properly coordinate with my fellows, and tend to lose track of what they are doing. I have to continually monitor my team members and ensure that each member of the team is working on the assigned projects. However, as a leader, I usually try to maintain distance from my subordinates, and approach them only when it is necessary. Consequently I fail to keep a note of what they are thinking about the assigned project, if everyone is comfortable with the new plan to be executed or if anyone is encountering any problem in achieving the target. I believe that an ideal leader is someone who can seamlessly move back and forth between leading the team mates as well as supporting the workers and offering professional assistance to the workers. I have realized that at least an individual, who is always the leader, must take up the supporting role, so that he can keep himself updated about the views and ideas of the team mates, as well as recognize the strengths and qualities of each co-worker (Pinzur, 2016). Since I am not a good team player, my coordinating skills are also not effective. This is partially because of the fact that I do not have effective interpersonal communication skills, and being more of a withdrawn individual, I usually hesitate to go ahead and coordinate with the team members. As far as a leader is concerned, the coordination skills are of utmost importance simply because they help the leader set a common goal, communicate the same to the subordinates as well as define the team roles. Because of the absence of my coordination skills, I fail to unify, integrate and synchronize the efforts of my group members so as to provide a unity of action in the pursuit of common goals. A leader needs to have an analytical skill, and yet I lack this quality, as I fail to critically analyze and evaluate the business problems, and develop an understanding of the specific abilities and the shortcomings of the workers. Consequently, while allocating tasks, I end up allocating unsuitable task to the team workers (Silvester et al., 2014).

SWOT Analysis

I would like to mention here that in the process of the learning course, I got the opportunity of getting to know about a variety of successful leaders, some of whom are women too, assuming leadership roles with great success. Ben Auld and Allan Williams are the two leaders who influenced and inspired me to a considerable extent. I got to know about the leadership style, organized approach as well as the optimistic attitude each of these leaders had. While the presentation on Ben Auld taught me that an individual can reach heights of success, if he can be motivated sufficiently by his near and dear ones, the lecture on Alan Williams shows that an individual can reach heights of success by continuing to improve himself through learning new things.

Many of my friends also came up with interesting lectures on some of the great leaders of the world, such as Martin Luther and Ratan Tata. The contents of each of the presentations as presented by my friends truly inspired me to work perseveringly towards the accomplishment of my goals. I have realized that a leader can only acquire and retain his position, when he agrees to work I collaboration with others without losing the sight of his vision. With the help of the lectures and presentations of my friends, I have realized the importance of focus, dedication and assertiveness in the process of becoming a leader.

I would like to mention here that I found it totally surprising how my approach to life as well as my life goals has drastically changed over the last few years. In fact, my career goals or my vision of life is completely different from what it used to be, approximately 10 to 15 years before. I would like to draw the comparison through the following table:

Since I wish to assume a leadership position in future, I wanted to analyze if I possess all the important qualities of a leader or not, and accordingly I gave a few leadership skill examining tests such as MMDI Personality Questionnaire and DISC Personality Test, the result of which I am going to discuss here.

As it can be seen from the above diagram, I have a high dominance, high influence, and average steadiness power. In other words, I can easily influence the people around them, exercise my authority over them, and persuade them to get my work done. I also strive for excellence and try to do each thing perfectly, since my compliance rate is equally high. However, the test also shows that I am a little impatient, and often fail to control my emotions. However, I usually do not tend to take risks, an important pre-condition of becoming a leader in future. 

In this connection, I would also like to refer to the results of the MMDI Persoality Test that I undertook as well. The test clearly stated that the I am more of an action-oriented leader, who is good in organizing the efforts in order to achieve the goals within the definite period. I also have a commanding personality, according to the test, consequent upon which my leadership style can be defined as the Executive Leadership Style. 

Although anyone can become a leader, only the mightiest ones can retain their position. I wish to become a successful business manager in future, supervising and monitoring the business activities of the organization. However, at the same time, I have realized that to be a successful businessman, I would also require to possess a variety of skills, which though are no innately present within me, can be improved upon. I wish to develop my leadership skills and make them stronger in future so that I can achieve my goal of becoming a successful business manager in future.  As I have already stated before, I do not possess effective interpersonal communication skills that ultimately leads to the problem of workplace coordination (Day et al., 2014). Hence, I will enroll myself in different communication skill training courses and seminars, so that I can develop the positive interpersonal communication skills. While working as a business manager, I will need to coordinate properly with my employees, without being bossy, or without being too rude. Hence, the communication skill training will help me behave in a more organized, coordinated and collaborative way (Komives & Wagner, 2016).

Besides, by participating in different leadership skill developing seminars and workshops, I wish to be more assertive in communicating or negotiating with the staffs, without being unpleasant (Nahavandi, 2016). Besides, I have also realized that there are areas on which I will need to work, rather than merely enrolling in training classes, and hence I wish to work individually on my weaknesses. Usually I am more of an upright, reserved person with a withdrawn personality, unwilling to interact with people. I would need to work on my communication skills and my interaction skills, by speaking to myself before the mirror, or by asking my friends and close ones to talk and listen to how I communicate. This will help me become more approachable. As a future Business Manager, I will have to ensure that I have a personality that can relieve the stress and anxiety of my team members, and at the same time, can assertively communicate the goals and benefits of the proposed plan so that my team members can work towards the accomplishment of the same (Heider, 2014). I will learn to be more of an outgoing person, who can spontaneously talk with the team members so as to keep them motivated. It is important to acknowledge the support provided by each team member, and hence I must learn to appreciate them, offer them the positive feedback and collaborate with them (Dayet al., 2014). Although I am not an autocratic leader, the very fact that I usually stay withdrawn, can make me appear to be an autocratic leader that in turn can de-motivate my subordinates. Hence, I wish to learn to improve my communication skills so that even if the subordinates working under me encounter any problems, they approach me for the same. I believe that leadership is not an innate quality, and that it can be worked upon as and when required. I wish to work on my weaknesses, and for the same.

Even though I wish to be a successful Business Manager in future, I also have got alternative career options as well. Along the way, I also see myself being in the job of a Restaurant Manager, Team Lead in a retail company or a Site Supervisor in a Construction Site. I believe that no matter what profession I ultimately end up working for, the legacy that my work will leave the world will be incredibly impressive. I wish to be a unique leader, who will inspire hard work, dedication and innovation amongst my subordinates. I want to work harder and I wish to inspire the subordinates in an effective way, so that they feel encouraged to work towards the accomplishment of goals. As an effective leader, I want my action to exhibit unique leadership ability that will help me formulate and implement some of the most unique plans that can help my business achieve long term sustainability in future. I wish to be remembered as the poised leader, who will neither be extremely harsh with employees, nor too easy on them. I wish to strike a balance between a leader who is approachable, humorous and friendly enough to keep his staffs involved, engaged and motivated, and at the same time, I wish to be an authoritarian leader, who can also motivate and influence the subordinates to bring in a desired change. As I started researching, I realized that there are multiple qualities that contribute in shaping a great leader. However, I do not possess all the important characteristics that define an ideal leader. In future, nevertheless, I wish to possess at least three most important leadership qualities, namely, integrity, strength of character and assertiveness, which I believe to be integral to make an individual an exemplary leader.

Conclusion:

As it has been stated earlier, leadership, although is considered as a commonplace concept that can be embraced by anyone willing to embrace leadership roles, requires strength, assertiveness, courage as well as incredible focus. The professional success of an individual leader as well as the corporate success of a company largely depends on the strategic leadership ability of the leader. As it is a well-known fact, that it is impossible for an individual to analyze himself without any external guidance, I have resorted to the use of several leadership personality tests. The results of the test clearly showed the specific strengths and weaknesses as possessed by me. While qualities like focus and dedication add to my competitive spirit, enabling me to motivate a larger group of audience, the lack of coordination skills can be a huge impediment on my way to retain my leadership position for a long time. I have realized that strategic leadership qualities enable a leader possess a powerful vision of future, and at the same time, motivate and persuade others to accomplish the same. The unique vision, strategic approach and the ability to organize all the efforts to achieve the organizational goals help in distinguishing a strategic leader from an ordinary leader. I have realized that although I possess a few leadership skills, I will still need to develop a few of them, such as an exemplary personality, positive outlook and confident nature, and the visionary quality.

Reference:

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