Leadership Development Strategy: Reflections And Learnings

Importance of Leadership in Organizations

Leader is one of the most talked topic especially while considering the achievement of organisation goals is concerned. My team and I was given a project to execute. The concept of leadership is not limited to the school, classroom, college, or politics but it has emerged as an important concept especially in organisations. Leadership and effective management are the most important ingredients when considering the successful execution of any plan or goals (Tobin, 2014). While considering the leadership development strategy, I need to consider the condition of employees and team members. There are conditions in which the leader faces the problems such as cultural issues and lack of accountability. These problems lead to non-fulfilment of group goals. The essay will focus on reflection of oneself as a leader and employee or team members (Webster, and Webster, 2018).    

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As a leadership quality, I need to develop the traits of person who is extremely knowledgeable. The leader should have the ability to influence the team members. The leader should communicate to all the team members irrespective of whether the team members might face cultural differences and lack of accountability. The skill model provides an overview of skills that is necessary to be an effective leader. The skills focused on three major skills such as technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills. Technical skills includes decision-making regarding problem solving and analysing the situation of the company (Tsingos, Anticevich, & Smith, 2014). The career of a leader depends on the skills to solve the complex problems and tackle the difficult situation during the execution of group project. Throughout, the professional learning and experiences, I met a different set of people with varied experiences and skills. I, as a team member can equally contribute to the responsibility of oneself while executing the personal goals, which will ultimately led to achievement of group goals. Communicating with the sub teams can lead and delegate responsibility. Conceptual skills are generally enhanced during the course of professional study at the organisational level. A conceptual barrier occur when the method of implementing the rules differs and they are feasible for all the team members. Team members should have an entrepreneurial skills and knowledge skills to achieve success in the future goals. No team members should remain only a member, every member dreams of a position where he holds all the power but the position of leader is both only about enjoying the power but also brings a lot of responsibility (Tsingos, Anticevich, & Smith, 2014). 

Skills of an Effective Leader

Reflection clearly defines a person strongly wants to improve the activities that could result into general direction for the thinking process. Before forming the leadership development strategy, I should chose a type of leadership theory, which I want to follow ardently. Moreover, it is often said that leaders are born not made but I do not follow it, what cannot be done with the hard and smart work. Leadership is an art of managing and influencing people effectively and efficiently. In order to from a leadership strategy, I should communicate the visions, which can direct the actions to achieve objective. In order to set a goal just for self is not enough especially when you are a team leader. I should make such organisational goals that could accomplish and match the vision. My ideal leadership team could set the organisational goals that can be accomplished (Centre of creative leadership, 2018).

After selecting the goal of achieving and executing the group project, I need to choose a method that can accomplish the goals. For example- I decided to develop script where the sales team will fall. I established a strict timeline that will allow me accurately to track the results, where the employees can accomplish the goals in the given time. To understand leadership style and theory, when setting the organisational objectives, the leadership style can facilitate the goals. While developing leaders, organisations should understand the vision and culture of different style to achieve the mission. By understanding the theories of all the leadership styles, I prefer to adopt characteristics of a charismatic leader, who is recognised as a leader by the deeds, behaviour, and attitudes (McCauley, and Cooper, 2018).

The suitable understanding of various styles can permit the executives to adopt the characteristics of not only one leadership style but also follow good from all the leadership theories (Savery, 2015). One should understand the importance of all the traits and attributes of a leader. Finally, develop a method that can identify the core values of the great leaders (Blomme, Kodden, & Suffolk, 2015). This will help me to get an idea of the company to execute the company`s development strategy. I should also undertake various leadership workshops, online training courses, leadership coaching, and graduate programs. Moreover, as an employee I should undertake a site coaching of learning the best approaches, where the manager suggests that there should be a delicate and proper balance between the conversation of employee and a leader so that we can focus on depth and quality (Latham, 2014). 

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Choosing the Right Leadership Theory

As a leader, I faced problems during the project execution when every person or the team member belonged to different cultures. One of the barrier related to team unity was miscommunication due to different perception of the every person. Moreover, to coordinate and develop a sense of team, I as a leader conducted activities to develop and feel united without having any sense of differences amongst anyone (Hannah, Sumanth, Lester, & Cavarretta, 2014). I conducted activities related to groups where a small group of people can show a sense of belongingness to a same team. I divided the entire project team into smaller teams when conducting the activities. I saw that everyone have become comfortable with each other. Earlier due to miscommunication and internal team clashes, we were not able to execute and achieve goals (Landis, Hill, & Harvey, 2014).

The second incident is related to lack of accountability. A group cannot be united as a team when big things are done or executed but the feedback of the small task is not reported to the whole team or the leader (Fairhurst, & Connaughton, 2014). Here in our team, due to cultural differences, everyone was not very comfortable while talking to each other. The responsibility was not properly allocated to the whole team. Before forming the team, a leader should identify the ability of every individual. It is necessary for the leader to know the strength of its team so that I can allot the activities of the tasks to the members of the team. On the part of the member, one should report the leader about the execution of smaller task if it has been achieved which can support the leader to identify and know what actions are remaining to execute the whole project (Bolman, & Deal, 2017).  

A leader should maintain a written report of everything that how each member is performing and how each task is completed with its procedure, how near they are to execute the whole project. Moreover, due to miscommunication and incoordination of activities, there exist a lack of accountability among the members (CEO coaching international, 2018). Due to cultural and linguistic differences, it became difficult for the leader to align the activities and make the progress report accordingly. The decision-making became difficult because not all the team members agree to the same path of executing the whole project. As a leader, my visions were all blurred. Mainly, there are three reasons why leader fail to execute. Initially, I was not able to follow the plan with discipline with the co-operation of team then I realised that the plan is not according to team`s ability. The second problem, which I faced, was the failure to keep the score that matters. Final is the assembling of the puzzle strategies to keep the project work on track (Leadereconomics, 2017).  

Importance of Coordination between a Leader and Team Members

Conclusion

From the above self-reflection, it can be concluded that, a coordination between a leader and an employee (team member) plays an important role in executing and directing the actions as per the requirement of the situation. Apart from the role of leadership, it is important for an employee to equally balance the relationship between a team members and leader. A group project can be achieved only if when all the team members are directed by one goal in one direction. The reflective essay strives to improve and form the leadership development strategy. The development strategy undertakes to form the strategy when I was able to discover my strengthens and weaknesses. The incidents are not also very convenient and favourable. Due to lack of accountability and cultural differences, it become difficult to coordinate the activities of the whole team. 

References

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