Introduction
To be a good leader, you will have to be able to influence and inspire the people around you with your behavior, communication skills, and charisma. The main ingredient in leadership is to have a vision and manifesting that vision into reality. Leadership also involves the use of a particular character to overcome a challenge, therefore, how a leader is able to influence and use that character depends on the effectiveness of the leader. Effective leadership simplifies complicated situations and makes action compelling and successful (Nikooparvar and Shekari 2012). In an organizational context, employees would be highly motivated with effective leadership as they are able to achieve personal and career goals in addition to organizational goals (Naile and Selesho 2014).
My Vision of Leadership
Figure 1
Source: Google
In my opinion, a good and effective leader has to be able to demonstrate various leadership styles to suit a particular situation. According to CMI (2013), there is no single way of leading as the best approach varies to circumstances and individual characteristics. I could not agree more with the above statement because situations and circumstances in an organization changes on a constant basis. In that sense, I would like to be a situational leader. Situational leadership is perceived to be an adaptive leadership style due to its flexible nature (Spahr 2015). This style changes according to the employee’s knowledge, skills and commitment in a given task (MWAI 2011). There are four stages in the situational leadership model are directing, coaching, supporting and delegating (Spahr 2015). All of these four stages focus on developing the ability, confidence and willingness of employees to accomplish tasks (MWAI 2011). Additionally, leaders coach and guide the employees to be handling various issues in an organization, hence enabling them to be always ready to overcome challenges (MWAI 2011). When employees are deemed to be delivering exceptional performance and collaborating well among themselves, a leader could empower his/her employees to act independently with the right resources to get the job done (MWAI 2011).
My Inspiration
Figure 2: Richard Branson
Source: Google
I admire the leadership style of Sir Richard Branson who’s the Chairman of Virgin Group. Virgin Group is one of the most successful conglomerates ranging from travel and leisure, financial services, music and entertainment and many more known in today’s rapidly changing world (Virgin n.d.). Branson is an inspiring leader to me because of the way he carries himself as a charismatic, confident and determined person. Despite his enormous wealth, he is down-to-earth person, a good listener and prioritizes his employees before himself (Niphadkar 2014). According to Branson, people are his greatest assets and he treats them with a lot of respect and care that they don’t want to leave the company although paid slightly lesser than the market value (Niphadkar 2014). Branson does not believe in his employees following blindly but gives them the liberty to think and freedom to be empowered (Niphadkar 2014). He capitalizes on the entrepreneurial spirit of his employees while minimizing the bureaucracy of the systems (Niphadkar 2014). Branson is more motivated by the challenges he faces in the business world rather than the money he makes. Additionally, he creates a work culture which is fun and exciting which makes employees to deliver their best (Niphadkar 2014).
Team Reflection
Throughout the entire module, I am under the impression that I have worked with my peers in a democratic manner. I believe in inclusiveness and that everybody’s opinion matters before making a decision or presenting a case. Based on my peer’s feedback, I understand that I would need to improve on my time management skills and communicate my ideas in a more efficient manner. My peers also believe that I should be more persistent and keep inspiring others around me. These are constructive feedback which I would definitely work on to become a better person. The leadership skill which I would want to develop as I progress through my MBA is on ways to inspire and convince people around me. Additionally, I would like to enhance my critical thinking skills and develop team-building skills which are a vital step towards becoming an effective leader. I could achieve all the skills mentioned by continuous reading on various materials, attending progressive workshops and improving my personal traits by eliminating my weaknesses.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the leadership module has been very informative in terms of learning and identifying various leadership and management styles as well as theories. It has broadened my horizons of the leadership perspective as there is no one particular leadership style that works best. I have exposed myself to many exemplary leaders from various industries and simultaneously identifying weaknesses of certain leaders who abused their authority for their personal or corporate gain which is morally unethical. This module has been very inspiring to me and without a doubt, I would leverage on these theories and leadership styles when I stand a chance to lead someday.
(765 words)
References
Maxwell, J. (n.d.) Situational Leadership Quotes. Quotesgram [online] available from <http://quotesgram.com/img/situational-leadership-quotes/2575908/> [26 March 2017]
MWAI, E. (2011) “CREATING EFFECTIVE LEADERS THROUGH SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP APPROACH”. JAMK University of Applied Sciences [online] available from https://publications.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/33027/Mwai_Esther.pdf
Naile, I. and Selesho, J. (2014) The Role Of Leadership In Employee Motivation [online] available from <http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/viewFile/2131/2118> [26 March 2017]
Nikooparvar, M. and Shekari, H. (2012) Promoting Leadership Effectiveness In Organizations: A Case Study On The Involved Factors Of Servant Leadership [online] available from <http://sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijba/article/viewFile/698/335> [26 March 2017]
Niphadkar, C. (2014) Richard Branson’S Style Of Leadership [online] available from <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140615050729-230514046-richard-branson-s-style-of-leadership> [26 March 2017]
Spahr, P. (2015) What Is Situational Leadership? How Flexibility Leads To Success [online] available from <http://online.stu.edu/situational-leadership/> [26 March 2017]
Virgin, (n.d.) About Us [online] available from <https://www.virgin.com/virgingroup/content/about-us> [26 March 2017]