My Leadership Style

Keywords: my personal leadership style, personal leadership style

According to my results, it indicates that my leadership style is predominately Participative, which means that I am capable of working with group members who understand the objectives and their role in the task. My biggest strength is hard work, sharing the sense of responsibility, punctuality, time management and the ability to meet deadlines. I am a very trustworthy person with an ability to work as a team player or as an individual which helps me to survive under different kind of environments. According to my past experienced, my supervisor came over and praised me for my hard work for the past five weeks and he also informed me that they will offer me a team leader job once I finished my course.

My Weakness is that I get hurt very quickly if someone disregards my sincere efforts, or accuse me of being guilty of a mistake which I never did, this does results in a mental stress which ultimately effects my performance .Secondly sometimes I get emotional. This is what I think are my biggest strength and weaknesses. And I need to improve this strength and weaknesses.

Leadership theories

Leadership is a way of leading others to get the desired results. There are many theories presented by different author and I am going to discuss some of the theories which are as follow:

Situational leadership theory

It is developed by Hersey and Blanchard, is based on the premise that leaders need to alter their behaviours depending on one major situational factor-the readiness of followers. It focuses on two behaviours: task behaviour and relationship behaviour.

Task behaviour is the leader’s tendency to spell out duties and responsibilities of the group. Relationship behaviour is the leader’s tendency to use two-way or multi-way communication

To determine which combination of behaviour is appropriate for a given situation, a leader must access the follower readiness. Follower readiness means follower’s willingness and ability to accomplish a task. The following are the leadership style that might be used:

Telling- giving specific task directions and closely supervising work; a high task , low-relationship style

Selling- explaining task directions in a supportive and persuasive way; a high task, low-relationship style.

Participating- emphasizing shared ideas and participative decisions on task directions; a low task, high-relationship style.

Delegating- allowing the group to take responsibility for task decisions; a low task, low-relationship style.

In using this situational leadership theory, leaders decide the task areas they want to influence assess the individual’s readiness level, select the leadership style corresponding to that level.

Path-goal theory

It explains how leader behaviour can positively influence the motivation and job satisfaction of subordinates. It is closely associated with expectancy theory; it is focused on the way leader’s influence subordinates’ perception of work goals and paths to achieve both work and personal goals. This theory argues that the perception of subordinates is affected by the following leader behaviours.

Directive leader behaviour- letting subordinates know what is expected of them, providing guidance about work methods, developing work schedules, identifying work evaluation standards, and indicating the basis for outcomes or rewards.

Supportive leader behaviour- entails showing concern for the status ,wellbeing and needs of subordinates; doing small things to make work more pleasant; and being friendly and approachable.

Participative leader behaviour- it is characterised by consulting with subordinates, encouraging their suggestions, and carefully considering their ideas when making decisions

Achievement-oriented leader behaviour- involves setting challenging goals, expecting subordinates to perform at their highest level, and conveying a high degree of confidence in subordinates.

Leaders should also consider two important situational factors: subordinate and context characteristics.

Normative leadership model

The Normative leadership model developed by Vroom and Yetton helps leaders assess critical situational factors affecting the extent to which they should involve subordinates in particular decisions. In this model, decisions made by managers in relation to group problems are identified as belonging to one of five basics groups.

A1: the leader makes the decisions using available information.

A2: the leader obtains necessary information from subordinates then makes the decision.

C1: the leader shares the problem with relevant subordinates, individually then makes the decision.

C2: the leader obtains information and an idea from subordinates in a group session then makes the decision.

G2: The leaders share the problem with the group and coordinate their efforts to devise a solution.

The model includes a number of questions the manager can ask about the decision or problem, which may help him/her to decide which method is most appropriate given the situation.

Transformational and transactional leadership

Transformational leaders motivates individuals to perform beyond normal expectations by inspiring subordinates to focus on broader missions transcending their own immediate self-interest, to concentrate on intrinsic higher-level goals rather than extrinsic lower level goals, and to have confidence in their abilities to achieve the extraordinary missions articulated by the leader. Transformational leadership is supplementary to transactional leadership; it does not replace it. Transformational leadership includes three important factors:

• Charisma is a leadership factors comprising the leader’s ability to inspire pride, faith and respect. To recognise what is important.
• Individual consideration is a leadership where leader’s pays attention to the individual follower’s needs and treat every individual as equal.
• Intellectual stimulation is a leadership factor involving offering new ideas to stimulate followers to rethink old ways of doing things, encouraging followers to look at problems from multiple vantage points.

Transactional leaders are leaders who motivates subordinates to perform at expected levels by helping them recognise task responsibilities, identify goals, acquire confidence about meeting desired performance levels, and understand how their needs and the rewards they desire are linked to goal achievement.

leadership role model/s

Leadership means different things to different people. It refers to the process of influencing others to achieve organisational goals. There are many leaders who have proven themselves in front of others such as Manmohan Singh, Adolf Hitler. They change the future of whole world by their leadership styles. I have chosen two political leaders to compare and contrast their leadership theory and styles. The First political leader is a current Prime-minister of India (Dr.Manmohan Singh) and the second one is ex: President of Libya (Muammar Gaddafi).

Leadership profiles

Manmohan Singh was born in 26 September 1932 in Goha village, Punjab But after India’s partition now this village is in Pakistan. His family was migrated to Amritsar sahib, India during partition in 1947. He was very intelligent and bright student from the starting of his study career. He was always come first to learn something new. After the partition he starts his study in Hindu college. In 1952 & 1954 he got his bachelor’s and master’s degree. He stands first in his whole academic career. He receives a Wren bury scholarship as well. He finishes his study from university Oxford in 1962.

After receive doctorate in economics from Oxford University, he worked for United Nations and after this he began his bureaucratic career. He works as an advisor in the ministry of foreign trade with Lalit Narayan Mishra. After this he handled so many posts for government of India like Chief Economic Advisor (1972-76), Governor of reserve bank (1982-85) and head of planning commission (1985-87). In 22 may 2004 He selected as a 13th Prime-Minister of India.

Manhohan Singh follows participative and bureaucratic leadership style in his whole career. He is the in charge of every action related to development of a country. He takes other ideas into consideration while placing any step further towards the development. He follows the rules and regulations and ensures that other people follow the rules and regulations consistently and accurately. From the starting of his Prime-minister career he set up many rules for the people of India to decrease the bribe and poverty in country and Increase the economy of country.

Muammar Gaddafi was born on 7th June 1942 in Libya. Initially he was ruler of Libyan Arab Republic till 1977 and then Brother Leader of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya till his last breath. He was considered as an Autocratic leader. He took the Libyan politics to a new height where he defined ideal autocratic style. He ruled the country with his power for a long period of time. He closed American and British military bases immediately when he came to power. He expelled Italian settlers in 1970 when he saw western imperialism battling against Arab nations. A lot of similar activities were introduced during his rule but it made a negative impact on the public of Libya. People never recognized him as a leader but because of his power nobody took a step forward to compete with him. (2008)

It is clear that both the leaders were going in a different direction. Manmohan Singh was a well educated economist and Gaddafi was not qualified. Manmhohan Singh has never tried to bring his successors to politics whereas Gaddafi has used his power to bring his successors in different professions. Manmohan Singh was prime minister of independent India and got elected with co-operation from political parties. He was working as an employee of the country rather than ruling it and any decision made by him was agreed by rest of the party members. On the other hand, Gaddafi took the country in his hands and introduced new rules according to Arab believes and thoughts. He never took suggestions from anybody and has always been against western nations.

In summary, even though both the leaders were a lot different from each other in terms of commanding but there were some similarities as well. For the growth of country’s economy Gaddafi introduced new taxes for oil companies. Manmohan Singh has always focused on growth of Indian economy and was an advantage because he worked previously as finance minister of India.

Change Management

The many complications of change in organisation begin with human nature. People tend to act habitually and in stable ways over time. They may not want to change even when circumstances require it. In order to keep them up to date and be acceptable for change both the leaders need to use kurt lewin model of change management. There are three stages in that unfreezing, changing, refreezing. Unfreezing is the stage in which a situation is prepared for change and felt needs for change are developed first both have to unfreeze the situation. Changing is the phase where a planned change actually takes place. In this both can put their change planning into action. Refreezing is the phase at which change is stability. By using these both can evaluate results and give feedback.

Benchmarking criteria

Leadership is the most important part of an organisation. Because organisation growth depends on leadership, it means how leader perform well with their group to gain productivity and trustful environment which make their business do well with maximum support. Leadership is the way of leading others and creating role model for follower to follow as an example. Lots of qualities make a leader perfect in leadership. There are many qualities that a leader should have but I am only going to discuss few of them:

Creativity- a leaders should be creative in ideas to be productive. Creativity makes a person to think outside of the box to get the desired results. It is the magic wand that helps leaders to achieve organisation goal and overcome of barriers.

Openness- leader should always be open to new ideas and listen other point of view. Openness means creating good relation with other by listening their views and encouraging their work. It builds trust and mutual understanding among leaders and followers.

Dedication- means having a “can do attitude” towards the task. Getting task done by using maximum energy, to set an example for follower to do the same. Followers always look up to their leader so it is important to set an example by accomplishing the goals by giving full dedication to the work.

Honesty- it makes a person trustworthy among others. Leader should be honest to their follower to build trustful relation with them to achieve required goals. Because honesty is the best policy.

Well known to code of Ethics- leader should follow code of ethics so the follower can also do the same. Code of ethics is rules and regulation that an organisation brings for everyone to behave ethically according to the law by treating everyone as equal. It keeps the sensibility of deciding what is right and what is wrong.

Keep high standards- it is the responsibility of leader to keep high standards by having regular meetings. Keep up the morale of the employees by motivating them and by giving them feedback on their performance.

Collaborative- being collaborative means to work in a team with maximum effort. Collaborative makes teams productive and attainable.

Responsibility- it is important for a leader to understand the responsibility of the leadership to lead the team. A leader should run the organisation by organising effective and productive team meetings.

Confident- leader should demonstrate integrity and personal commitment and be confident to take several decisions. He/she should be confident to lead the team by creating friendly environment and should use the appropriate decision-making style for specific issues. If the leader is confident it is easy for him/her to gain trust of others.

Communication skills: it is important for a leader to have communication skills to interact with other. Leader must have the knowledge of several cultures. If a leader lack this skill then it will be very difficult for leader to lead the group. All the qualities in a good leader are useless without this communication skill.

Section 2: self assessment

2.1 benchmarking

Creativity- creativity is something that relates with thinking. I have creativity in myself for generating ideas and it is proven because I have completed my applied management case study in which I did think out of the box to generate possible solution to the problem.

Openness- I always get excited about group task because it gives us opportunity to listen other point of view and share views with each other. I am a very open person I always admire other ideas and point of view because it lead us to success.

Dedication- I always give my full dedication to the task that has been assigned to me for example at my workplace they have weekly audit regarding performance of employees, in that audit I always score 99% or 100% out of 100%.it shows how much dedicated I am towards my goals.

Honesty- in the school times I learn honesty is the best policy and I always use to follow that in my life. Be honest; be reliable so that other can trust you under any circumstances.

Well known to code of ethics- code of ethics is set of rules and regulation that each individual needs to follow. I follow every rule at my job such as we need to be in professional dress, always speak in English so that other can also understand and no one can do others clock in or clock out.

Keep high standard- at my work place they always keep their standard high. Sometime I rate myself by doing my own audit at work so that I can also understand where I stand. I always come to college as organised always have my folder of notes with me, so that I can perform well while lecture or task.

Collaborative- I am very collaborative because I perform well in group discussion. Being collaborative means gaining knowledge through others.

Responsibility- I am a responsible person as I already mention that I always come prepared to college with my notes. I use take responsibility if anything goes wrong.

Confident- I am a confident person because it help us to achieve our goals and I always be confident about my work at job because I know what I have to do to score well in audit.

Communication skills- it is an important factor of leadership because it helps us to communicate with other whether they belong to different nationality. I am good in communicating because I like to learn other languages like in brazil if we have to say “welcome” then we have to say “oi”.

This criteria show how I rate myself in relation to these qualities of leadership. The rating is from 0 to 9, where 9 is highest and 0 is lowest.

Quality

Rating

Creativity

5

Openness

6

Dedication

7

Honesty

8

Well known to Code of Ethics

7

keep high standards

8

Collaborative

7

Responsibility

5

Confident

6

Communication skills

5

Rationale

I have rate myself according to where I stands. 0-6 means low and average and I need to improve that. 7 – 9 means highest and it shows my effort. I have shown this rating according to my performance at job, what I believe, how I perform at work and what I am doing in my day to day life. My creativity and communication skills are low and I need to work on it to develop myself according to the business situation because sometimes I lack this skills. I need to gain some more confident and openness so that I can achieve my goals. Dedication, honesty, collaborative makes me perform well in every task.

2.2 Reflection

I am discussed above about my strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. These I have found where I am working now. My Manager promotes me as a Supervisor in his company. He told me that he have got trust and have confident about me. What I am wanted from my follower, they do the same thing to reach the goals and meet expectations for organisation. I am listening to everybody from my team, what they want to innovate for new things and if they have got the new idea then I am also implement that idea and give reward to the team to get new ideas.

Personal cultural context is a person’s primary source of how he or she would form their identity. It is a source for defining a person, expression, and the sense of group needed by all humans. I am belonging to Sikh religion and I have got my cultural things from my parents. In our culture we respect to everybody and we do not call elders by their first name.

My short term goals are to get information about the business, improve the communication, daily updates in my vocabulary, and finish the tasks to get the work done. I am learning the business leadership qualities from my teacher and implement these qualities in my real life. Implement the new leadership strategy at work so that I will be a good leader for my followers.

My long terms are to establish a business organisation and serve the people and community and earn some money from it so that it will be cover up my all living expenses. Apart of that, I want to also do side business in my life. My dream is to design Aircraft from my own hands and establish big industry for Airlines in New Zealand. What I needs to establish this company is money and that I will be earn from my business organisation.

Section 3: Personal Development Plan

Opportunities

There are following opportunities that I look in myself. These are as follow:

• Short Term Opportunity:

Confident: I need to be confident for whatever I want to achieve. I need to develop myself so that I can accept any change and achieve goals. I need to be competitive at all times. I am not afraid of any challenges I really like when anybody challenges me because it gives me an opportunity to prove myself. Barriers will come in my life but I need to have a potential to face any challenges in my life.

Team player: I want to become more collaborative with others to build trust and understanding to face any challenges with maximum cooperation. Without being collaborative I cannot become a good leader and cannot achieve my goals.

Productive : I am very dedicated person but I want to developed this ability a little bit more because I am enthusiastic person and every time when anybody assign me any task I give my full effort to accomplish that task. I have high energy levels that seem to go on forever and it becomes my passion to achieve the goals. Being collaborative means is also a very important leadership skill. I am ready to do any kind of effort to accomplish my goals and lead my followers as an example.

Rationale:

• Long term opportunity:

Become team leader: my boss already offered me a job to become team leader in the company. And I am pursuing this course to accomplish my goal. I have dream about this job when I join this company.

Improve English: I need to improve my English to become a good leader so that my follower can admire my effort. Sometimes the words don’t come out in fluently on lips. So I have to work more on communication skills. Because this goal is very essential to be achievable in business and in personal life as well.

Settled down in New Zealand: It was my dream to come to New Zealand and settled down in New Zealand. Now I am here in New Zealand, one part of my dream I s fulfilled and I want rest will also come true. But for that I need to work hard and learn the criteria of getting settled down in New Zealand.

Rationale

I have chosen these short term and long term opportunity that I need to improve in myself for future. I have found the less communication skills in myself when I talk to another person. I cannot speak the words correctly so that why I think I need to improve these skills to read the newspapers, websites, improve in vocabulary, and speak up in front of mirror. I really have to confident when I start conversation to other person.

It’s very tough to be a good competitor in my field. But I need to try a lot to get adequate knowledge. I have seen at work that the two another person who has a good knowledge and the boss has only discussed with them. But when the boss asks me something then I cannot answer him properly. Then I thought I need to get insufficient information about the work.

I have to really improve for short term goal as well. These goals I am very hard working in my field. But I need to build the relationship with people so that I can improve my interpersonal skills. Everyone should have ability to make relation with customer and the community. Because of if we need something then they can help us to make our business easier and best.

I want to be assertive in my field. I found some difficulties at my work. Some of the other staff asking me question and sometimes they want to be share their ideas with me but all the time i ignored to them. So I need to become more assertive so that I can help them and become a good leader.

Once I have stuck some difficult situation at job. One day I have very tired and feeling weakness and my performance was reducing to some extent. When my manager review me and he said your weekly performance has go down. So in that area I need to improve my strength and be a hard worker all the time.

I had desire to become a GM in any organisation after the Business Management course. This is my long term goal and I have to complete it within the time. I need to be more qualitative and confident to become part of good management. I have to go through the any material that I need to use for a General Manager.

Strategies

I want to use the strategy to develop my communication skills. First I will record my voice on a digital recorder and play back to hear what I just said. Determine whether my sound confident and assured and I understood what I just said. Be willing to listen to what others have to say in all environments; at work, at school and with my friends.

I want to have good and right attitude when doing conversation to others. Because good attitude can take me further where I want to go otherwise people can ignore me. I want to be a punctual in my life.

To become a good competitor I need to be go through every learning material that improve my skills in future. This can be getting by to read the books and go to the internet. Everything I can find in the Google. There are various techniques to use these skills in business.

Timeframe

I have set the time to improve these skills for my future. I have set all the short time goal and long term goals that I need to use in the future. I need to be 1 year time (1/09/2013) to improve my all skills including short term plans. This can only be done by me to use the various methods. Long term plans need the 4 years by (1/09/2017) time so that I can learn everything including short term goals.

In the one year, I have to improve my skills and short term goals to go further in future and set the long term goals. I need four years to set up my business and then I will go for further to set the short term and long term goals after get these goals. This way I can fulfil my dreams.

I need to implement the strategy to develop my skills for next four months. For this I have select the date (5/05/2013). This strategy I can be writing and implement till this date. After that I can reach on these short term and long term goals.

Measures

I can measure these objectives when I have got the knowledge about everything and I have prepare for everything that I need to go further and set business in future. Skills I can measure it from if I will confident to do something because the person who have skills and he have the knowledge about everything then he is the confident to do anything because he knows all the things what and where can it happens.

The second I can measure it from the society, if I have the good communication skills and have can do attitude rather than the other people then I can forecast that I achieved my objectives that I need to use in the future.

Resourcing

According to my short term goals and long term goals and the skills and objectives that I need to accomplish these goals. I need the internet resource so that I can go everything to learn and get adequate and advance knowledge. Google and Wikipedia sites have everything that I can help and learn easily my skills and objectives. I can found the survey online and give paper online to compete myself to the whole world.

I need the training from my company. I can get help from my leader to improve these skills and goals. My manager can give me the training about the leadership from where I work now. I can get various knowledge from my team members and followers. I want to go through with the volunteer work.

I need to read through the books, magazines and newspapers. Everything has mention in the newspaper and we can learn from our politician. I can also improve these things from TV. Because TV has run various channel like discovery and other channels so I can get my knowledge from these channels.