Leadership Capability Evaluation and Development Plan

Empowering and Engaging Others

Critically Evaluate Your Leadership Capability In These Three Areas, Discussing The Leadership Behaviours You Use (Verbal And Non Verbal)  And The Impact You Have On Others.

Identify One Priority Need In Developing Your Leadership Capability, Justifying Why You See This As a Priority. You Should Make Reference To Your Current Job Role And/Or Future Career Plans.

Produce a Development Plan To Show How You Will Address Your Priority Need And Discuss How You Can Overcome Challenges In Achieving The Development Set Out In The Plan.

Empowering and engaging others is the most important attribute of the successful leaders where they achieve great things by helping other to do the task in the best possible manner. According to Borghuis, empowering others has the positive effect on the people of organization as they can achieve the great things by helping the organization to achieve its goals and visions (Borghuis, 2016). As a manager in the company, I have learned about these from starting that the best way to deal with the teammates is to help them achieve the best personal self.  By helping the teammates to empower them to achieve the great heights will build in good connections with the them thus resulting in greater achievement of the set goals and visions of the organization (Caproni, 2011). From the starting, I have built good rapport with my peers that included subordinates, colleagues and top managers. The establishment of the good rapport with them was helpful in getting various tasks done by them in an effective and efficient manner.

According to Arditi is one of the most important ingredients in happily engaging with others in the best possible manner (Arditi, 2017). Empathy promotes looking at a situation from other person’s individuals thus giving the individual the chance to express his or her concerns in the efficient manner. during the team projects there used to be various disputes among the members on non-fulfillment of the targets (Carlyn, 2017). During one of the most important client projects, one of the team members became absent due to some kind of personal emergency that led to the dispute among the team members regarding the careless behavior of that person. I as the leader of the team used my team engagement qualities to initiate the positivity in the team so that the stated goals of the client can be achieved.  I was able to convince them on the issues and able to satisfy them with the situation and after period, we were able to meet out the objectives of the clients. Such situations of team handing where I had to infuse positivity to initiate the positive engagement among team members helped me in becoming an effective leader in the organization.  These scenarios helped in achieving the right goals among the team members.

Assertive Communication

As a behavior, I have used the quality to build meaningful connections with people. During college days also, the quality had made me the leaders of various groups as people found me capable of handling various tasks.  The quality helped in being interactive and winning many rounds of the Group discussions of the reputed companies because of the habit of engaging the other person in the conversation and making the environment cheerful. According to the Couto, highly interactive people are able to exploit various opportunities because they have the habit of dealing with people creatively (Couto, 2015).

According to Belbin, I have scored the lowest score as a team worker that means that I might fail as the team worker but I could say that although team worker is not the right role for me but I am good as the leaders. I remember the time when the company had to face with the severe organizational crises where it had to go for the structural shift and during the structural shift, many employees were rendered jobless. During that period, I had to keep the employees motivated and hopeful so that they do not get broken in the middle of the journey of the organization.  I organized various recreational activities that included the lunch at different venue or an informal chat session in the meeting. During these activities, I discussed various future projects of the organization that would undertake and positive employee initiatives, it will achieve in the long period. I took these initiatives for the team so that they do not lose hope and stay committed to the organizational goals and promises. After organizing such activities, I could sense that the members of my team felt a little empowered and capable of getting the goals done. As a leader of the organization, it gave me the great feeling complacency that I was able to achieve the great team engagement even during the periods of organizational crises. As Belbin mentioned the importance of the team worker where he has mentioned the important qualities of the team worker that include co-operation, diplomatic and perceptive and warned for the weak side that include high level of Indecisive nature (Belbin, 2019). 

Although in many situations, I performed well as leader by incorporating high level of team engagement among team members (G, 2013). There were situations where I was not able to understand the situation in an effective manner thus leading to poor results. One of the situations included where one of my subordinates who was consistently the top performer of the company was not able to perform effectively for the past few days. Due to the consistent organizational pressure, I got completely irritated and rebuked him for his bad performance.  In the conversation with the employee, I said some inappropriate words without understanding his situation that made him to grab another exciting offer of the company.  My lack of understanding of the situation led to the loss of one of productive employees of the company.

According to the Myers Briggs type indicator of personality, I got the personality type of INFJ that means I had introversion, intuition, feeling and judging qualities in me as the leader (G, 2013). The quality of introversion had helped me to be highly empathetic with the people and to understand their situations in the best possible manner. the other quality of intuitive had helped me to analyze the right needs of the employees in the organization. The right knowledge of the needs of the employees helped in getting the things done in an effective manner. According to Harris, personality test of the employees is helpful in knowing one’s weak and strong areas to deal with the situation (Harris, 2008). The INFJT personality type had been of great help in practicing the trait of empowering and engaging employees but it had also affected them in a negative manner (Linton, 2017). The quality of judging had affected the quality of engaging with other people. As a manager, I had sometime judged the individuals negatively thus affecting my way of handling organizational matters. The qualities were helpful in getting the things done in an effective manner.

According to Moyle, standing for one’s right is most important trait of the leadership as it gives an individual the strength to listen to his mind and do the right thing (Moyle, 2018). Assertiveness is the quality that provides the strength to an individual to boldly specifying their arguments in a manner that make the subordinates to follow it (Nahavandi, 2015). It is the essential trait of an individual can guide the people or the followers towards the path in the best possible way. Assertiveness is the important element where the employees are able to understand the point of view of the leader. There can be two types of assertive people that include aggressive and passive assertive. In the aggressive assertive state, the leader communicates to its followers by violating the rights of the other people in other words simply imposing on them while the passive assertiveness is all about where the employees disregard the values and judgments of the leader in a negative manner (Olsson & Bosch, 2015).  According to Belbin, I have got the good percentile score as a coordinator that means I am able coordinate the efforts of the employees in the company in the best possible manner. there were several instances where I had acted as the good coordinator by solving the disputes among the employees of various departments. 

I as the leader of the team has always used the combination of approaches to achieve the targeted goals of the team.  I tried to be assertive in the tone while positively influencing my team members. The high degree of assertiveness has been of great help where I could positively guide them towards the certain behavior. My assertive behavior as a leader was reflective in my verbal and non-verbal cues. Some of the scenarios in the organization were where the department was undergoing the change in the policy structure and many of the employees in the company were finding themselves dejected to adjust according to the policy changes.

During the meeting, one of the employees told me in a frustrated manner that the change is of no use as it affects the organizational culture in the bad manner and most importantly frustrates the employees in the organization. on this I as the leader replies to be him in the assertive tone by making him understand the positive impact of the policies in his future career and salary in the organization. I was able to positively influence the employees by assertively influencing them on benefits the policy will bring in them in their future career in the organization. According to Phadermrod, it is important for the leader to be positive in their approach while communication in the organization as it will be helpful for getting the things done in an effective manner (Phadermrod, 2019).

Although I was positively assertive to the people around me in the organization, there were various cases where I had reacted in a very aggressive tone. In one of the scenarios, I negatively answer one of the employees in the organization. My negative reaction was due to the excessive workload of the organization as at that time the organization was going through the period of trouble and I as the manager had the pressure to initiate various changes at the executive level. My aggressive reaction came at the time when employees were unnecessarily about the change in the process system brought down by the organization. At that time, I had used the aggressive tone and behavior to make people understand the reasons for bringing the change and negatively motivated them to follow the new set of conduct. After the period of time, I regretted my actions of aggressively communicating my intentions to the people as it yielded negative results for the long period of time. My connection with the employees got affected negatively as in the later period employees were not ready to accept my suggestions and opinions. I could also find that there was a dip in the productivity level as they felt de motivated to work.

There was also time where I acted passively with the employees in the organization. The reason for my passive behavior was my low confidence in my leadership qualities to influence people. According to Quintana, Passive behavior can result in increase in the cases of employees defying the orders of the organization as passiveness leads to increased lightness in following the code of conduct (Quintana, 2015). In the early days of leadership, I was given with the task of managing the team where I had to guide them towards them new system of performance appraisal that would lead to effectiveness in appraising the performance of teams and would result in less time of the employers. The tone that I had taken in conveying them about the new performance appraisal system was highly passive where I was not able to convey my point of view as I lacked knowledge of the right leadership skills to influence them.

 My non-verbal cues that included low body posture and unconfident facial expressions made the employees to disregard my point of view thus leading to the non-compliance of the project. According to Reader, there is deep connection between the verbal cues and style of communication that affects the communication system in the organization (Reader, 2017). Although passive style of communication negatively affects the leadership style of communication in the company but it has its own set of benefits as it is quite helpful in dealing with the adamant employees of the company (Saaty & Ergu, 2015).  Adamant employees have the habit of sticking to their ways of doing things so it becomes easier to make them understand by adopting the passive style of communication.  

According to Saraswat, it is essential to understand that the combination of both the assertive style that include passive and aggressive to convey to the employees is the best as it helps them in understanding them in an effective manner (Saraswat, 2018). The aggressive style is helpful in guiding the employees who are easy in nature towards the important goals. It can be concluded that it is the combination of approaches that are helpful in getting the things done in an effective and efficient manner (Ross & Clarke, 2015).

According to UNESCO, one of the most essential qualities of a leader is to listen to his peers and respond accordingly ( UNESCO , 2016). Listening is one of the most important traits of a leader as it helps them know about the mindset and perceptions of the people and act accordingly. A leader charts his by actively participating in other people affairs. Various types of listening are there but the best among all types of listening is the active listening as it involves the heart and brain of the listener (Marshall, 2015). In the study conducted by one of the prestigious university on the leadership behavior of the great leaders in the history, it was reported that all the great leaders in past had one thing in common that was the gift of active listening (Caproni, 2011).It was due to the quality of active listening the great leaders were in the position to take the major life decisions. According to Belbin, I have got the moderate percentile in the area of shaper where I actively listen to people opinions to shape the understanding   (Belbin, 2019). 

I as the leader of the team was the good listener but not an active one. My listening quality can be rated as 6 on the scale of 1 to 10.  I had taken various major decisions of the teams by actively involving myself in their matters through listening.  I had also achieved the support of my peers through the power of active listening as they started considering them as their great advisor. In one of the cases, one of the team members who was the top performer of the company stopped performing all of a sudden.  He seemed very frustrated   all the time and no amount of motivational programs could revive back his productivity and motivation at work place.  I got concerned about his performance and felt like asking him about the reason. I called him in the meeting room where I asked him about the reasons of his lack in the productivity and interest towards the organization. He told me about the clashes or the conflicts he had with the colleagues that was the major cause of his lack in productivity. When he was explaining me about his problem, I listened to him consciously by noting his expressions and tone.  When his explanation was over, I guided him towards the right way of dealing with the issues faced by him. On the suggestion, he felt quite relieved and after the point of time, his performance improved and he became the top performer of the company.  There are various other cases where I was the good listener of my teammates and they appreciated my efforts.

According to Vasyakin, active listening can solve various problems in the best possible way than the speaking can solve. It is considered one of the greatest weapons in the hands of the leader where he can use it to solve the problems of his peers (Vasyakin, 2016).  With the good experiences, I had various other bad ones also where as a leader, I displayed the poor listening capability to my co-workers or peers. During the peak season of the business, one of the employees wanted extra funds to complete the project of the client. He, on various other occasions asked me to render some amount of money for the project but I dismissed his request. The reason for extra funds was the additional requirements of the client. Due to the workload of the organization, I was not able to concentrate on the needs of the employees so I simply ignored their interest. After a point of time, it was found that the request of getting funds to meet out the client’s needs was genuine and if only I had been an active listener to the employee’s needs for money. The situation of unsatisfied client could have been avoided. These situations gave me the understanding about the importance of active listening and its positive impact on the productivity and profitability of the organization.   

In today’s world, various organizations are not performing well in terms of effective organizational culture and profitability. The reason behind their non-performance or low productivity is the leadership skills of the leaders. In the study, it was recorded that the leaders lack in the important leadership skills to manage the organizational affairs. One of the leadership skills includes listening quality, as the leaders tend to take the leadership in a wrong way by simply directing its workforce but not understanding them well (Walker, 2016).

 To succeed as a leader, it is essential to have all the essential qualities that her helpful in getting things done in an effective manner. According to the Mayer Briggs personality test, I got the INFJ personality type where I had the high degree of intuitiveness that means I had the good listening quality where I could sense the thought and feelings of the other person with ease (Whetten, 1998).  These qualities of leadership helped me surf through the toughest times in the organization.

One of the priorities need in developing leadership capabilities is to make employees work in the team effectively. It is the toughest task to get employees to work in harmony with each other as there are huge differences among the employees regarding culture, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. As my current job role is of manager then it becomes important to organize people in groups in an effective manner to accomplish stated goals and objectives that leads to the need of development of the essential leadership qualities. The priority needs will be addressed by taking part into various events that require the use of leadership skills. There will be various challenges to achieve the targeted leadership skills as one of the challenges will be fighting, one’s old qualities to acquire the new one that will result in one of the toughest batteles 

The leadership qualities discussed in the report helped me in becoming the good leader of my team. It had taught me the ways of dealing with the situation in an effective manner where I have understood various ways of motivating the workforce and to maintain the composure in the tough times.  I have also understood the ways of dealing with the situation in an effective manner and the type of approach to be used in making the employees understand the given situation in an effective manner. These qualities helped me in becoming the best version of myself and helped the employees in achieving their goals.

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