Create a Leadership Portfolio. The purpose of this leadership portfolio is for you to reflect on your current journey and development of your leadership approaches, styles, experience and plans for growth and development as a leader.
Leadership is one of the most important qualities that an individual must possess in order to excel in fields where there is a need to manage people and complete work in teams (Giltinane, 2013). There are various responsibilities that are assigned to the leaders, and primary of these is to manage the people and work in tandem with the employees to produce common goals.
It is often said that the leaders are born, that implies that the leaders are born with leadership qualities and they are naturally having the characteristic traits to be leaders. Whether or not a person is a born leader, every leader also has to possess many qualities and acquire qualities by learning the skills of leadership from external sources. Leadership portfolio is the art of keeping a track in the leadership traits of a person. It is important for the aspiring leaders to keep a track on their leadership activities and learnings by maintaining leadership portfolio. In my case I have been always a introvert person. However in my journey throughout the college while learning the art of leadership I have been able to transform my characteristics and after years of working on my traits I am now able to lead a small group of people efficiently.
A leader must be having the inherent qualities such as empathy, trust, honesty and team work mentality. These are some of the characterise traits that must be followed by the leaders. I have always been a supporter of the leadership style that includes empathy and team work. Some leaders have the characteristic of showing partiality towards certain members of the group. This is one of the negative aspects of leadership. I believe in democratic philosophy of leadership in which the leader works with the team members and establishes team work as the primary working principle of the whole machinery. It is important for leaders to be honest and trustworthy. Apart from that the leader must be trusting their followers in order to make sure that the environment of trust prevails within the team. The leadership philosophy also states that the leader will be taking into consideration his or her followers or group members interest first before his own interest.
The leaders must be working with teams, I believe and the leaders must be behaving with the team workers equally without showing preference over singular employees. The leader is the person responsible for the team bond and the prevailing scenario of the team (Bhatti, et al., 2012). Any breach of trust must be taken care of the leader so that environment of trust is again established and the employees or the group members can trust each other again. Team work is very important for creating ideal results by performing the given task with maximum reliability. There are situations where the team has to perform different responsibilities at a time to perform a particular task responsibly. Each of the team member in such situation has to perform certain tasks with high level of accuracy and the leader must ensure that it happens in that way.
The leadership style that is preferred by me is the democratic type of leadership in which the maximum control of the task is given in the employees’ hands and the leaders trust the employees with their competency and quality (Woods, 2004). What the leader does is to guide the group members or employees, as is the case, to proceed in the work with great strategy and also the leaders interfere when there is a crisis that needs the leader’s interference or decision making to be solved.
In democratic style of leadership the election of the leader happens by the group members and the leaders serves as the person who is taking care of the benefits of the employees. Here comes the role of motivation. The leaders in their style must be working with tactics that must be motivating the employees or group members (Woods, 2004). It is usually seen that the group members of a particular group after prolonged performance of their assigned tasks become fatigued or demotivated. It comes upon the leaders to take the charge in situations like these and motivate the employees as far as possible. The leaders may use various tactics to motivate the employees. The employees need verbal motivation. This is the process when the leaders use verbal statements to charge the group members. The verbal statements can include the past potential of the employees and how they performed in the past. I personally prefer to enthusiast the employees by offering them with interesting gifts when they perform well (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). This is historically seen to be very useful in the process of employee motivation. “Frederick Herzberg developed the two-factor theory of motivation”, these two factors are motivators and hygiene factors. The various motivators have been identified as “challenging work, recognition for one’s achievement, responsibility, opportunity to do something meaningful, involvement in decision making, and sense of importance to an organization” and the hygiene factors are “status, job security, salary, fringe benefits, work conditions, good pay, paid insurance, vacations”. Though the primary motivating factor according to me is money, however nice job environment, supportive colleagues and lesser working hours are important factors.
The preferred democratic style of leadership considers the employees opinion as well as it is a sort of leadership in which the most extreme control of the assignments or jobs are given in the representatives’ hands and the leaders believe the workers with their competency and quality (Woods, 2004). The job of the leaders in democratic style of leadership is to manage the individuals or representatives to work in as a team and to continue in the work with extraordinary procedure, and furthermore the leaders meddle whenever there is an emergency that needs the leader’s intervention or basic leadership to be comprehended. The democratic style of leadership the strictly consider the fellow employees or the other individuals who are in a leading position. In this regard, it must be mentioned selection of leadership is an important decision for any company irrespective of its size.
Thus while selecting leaders, the business head or the owners of the company give special attention in order to meet the roles and responsibility of his position in accordance with the objective of the company. In line with discussing the responsibility and role of an ideal leader, inspiration is major trait that a leader must possess in order to manage his subordinates (Woods, 2004). The leaders in their style must incorporate strategies that must inspire the workers to work in group co-operating each other. It is typically observed that the individuals of a specific team or group after a long execution of their allotted undertakings end up being exhausted or demotivated. It happens upon the leaders to take the charge in circumstances to persuade the workers beyond what many would consider possible. The leaders may utilize different strategy to persuade the workers.
Competencies of a leader are various qualities that a leader possesses. One of the very basic leadership competencies that I always had is negotiation power. I have been always a good negotiator even in my day to day life. Therefore the main leadership competency I have in my present mental state is the characteristic of negotiation. The leaders must be negotiating with the external factors of the team in order to assert that the team is getting the maximum benefit out of every activity that they are engaging in. Apart from that the team members are also competing against each other within the team in order to gain maximum benefits and achievements (Carmeli, Tishler & Edmondson, 2012). Therefore the leader also has to have a negotiating authority with the employees or the group members. The traditional convention of leadership style considers vision, self-confidence and charisma as the essential qualities for an individual to become an ideal leader. However as per the recent scenario, it has been seen that most of the negotiation is one of the most essential qualities that a leader must possess. Thus in my point of view, leaders must use negotiation skill within the workplace as well as outside the workplace. For example, one of the greatest in-house issues that most companies face is the efficient employee leave. In order retain the most effective employees with the organization; the leaders are bound to negotiate against the demands of the effective employees so that they do not leave their job. However, it must be mentioned that the leaders must negotiate provided the fact that interest of business is not hampered while prioritizing the effective employees’ demands.
While addressing the issue outside of the workplace, it deserves mention that negotiation skill is more important than its need within the workplace. In cases of finalizing deals with business partners, suppliers, managing shareholders, leaders need to use their negotiation skills on behalf of the organization or company. It will be right to state that leadership skill plays an important role which enhances the skill and traits of an ideal leader in order. Negotiation is important for the leaders as the entire responsibility remains on them. Good negotiation skill enables the leaders to manage the whole operation of the business tactfully while fulfilling everyone’s interest whether in terms of employees or in terms of business partners (Carmeli, Tishler & Edmondson, 2012). In regard to the negotiation skill, the successful leaders are observed with a strong persuasive power. Negotiation and persuasive skill are co related and plays a major role in managing different situations. Therefore in my view leadership qualities must include the quality of negotiation skill in order to help a professional to transform into a successful leader.
There are various types of negotiating style that the leader might follow. These are “Distributive negotiation. Integrative negotiation. Stages in the Negotiation Process. Integrated negotiation. Bad faith. Employing an advocate. BATNA. Conflict styles” (Delia Davila Quintana et al., 2014) I personally prefer distributive negotiation which is also the style of “hard bargaining negation”. This negotiation is the process in which the assumption is one parties gain in the negotiation happens at the expense of the other side. I take it very seriously while negotiating for my team hence I assume that if the other side is the beneficiary at the negotiating table it is at the expense of my team.
I have had the experience of leadership in my college when there was a programme that was planned and I was given the charge of the team that was given the responsibility of arranging the program. The program was a college fest that included performances from celebrities and students from other colleges. Therefore there was a need to make sure that everything was coordinated and the team is giving their best in order to ensure that the external celebrities and guests are all getting the best experience of performance. The inter college fest was arranged from our college therefore it also had the question of our college’s reputation. The external college students who comes to perform needs to be given proper arrangement to rest before their performance starts. Also the celebrities had to be provided with proper arrangements of green rooms and refreshments. All these responsibilities were given on our team and I was the leader of the team to care of all these activities. The problem was coordination among the team members and everyone had to be communicated about the various responsibilities throughout the event. I ensured that everyone is having a walky so that they can connect instantly. The whole program list had to be maintained so that everything was going according to the schedule. The person in charge of the stage had to be connected with the person who was in charge of the artists. I was endeavouring to be coordinating all the members. The style of leadership I followed was democratic and the group members had their independence to make instant changes on field if there was an urgent necessity. However when the decision included big changes I was supposed to be consulted.
Team work is one of the most important aspects of leadership. In my point of view an ideal leader must always inspire its subordinates in order to work in a group or team. The reason behind this is to encourage them in cooperating each other. Most of the successful leaders help consider that competition within the team members can bring adverse effect for the productivity of the group or team while affecting the whole business on a larger picture. Thus co-operating each other the teams or groups must aim to give tough competitions to other teams. Group working is way more better than individual working in my point of view as the efficient members help weak member to overcome the challenges or issues that they face (Fitton, 2018). On the other hand, when an employee works in solely, he or she gets less opportunity in order to fetch help from the others. It happens upon the leaders to take the charge in circumstances to persuade the workers beyond what many would consider possible.
The leaders may utilize different strategy to persuade the workers. The representatives require verbal inspiration. This is the procedure when the leaders utilize verbal articulations to charge the gathering individuals. Group works also help in maintaining the workplace environment better as individuals remain in close contact with each other. Therefore working unitedly or in group must be encouraged by the leaders. The leaders’ primary objective of leading a team will be orienting its subordinates to meet the objective of the business.
I consider that the team has to work unitedly towards a common goal so that the end result comes out as desired by all the members. I have been associated in leading a team, as already mentioned, in the program at our college where my team was responsible for scheduling the program, arranging all the facilities for the celebrities who would perform and students from other colleges. The team I was leading was responsible for security and coordination among all the departments. The experience I personally had in this regard was wonderful as working in team is something which I really relish. I have been engaging in democratic leadership and therefore I did never autocratically impress my decisions on the various team members who were working with me. Therefore I got cooperation from most of my team mates. They were all performing to the best of their abilities and the ultimate outcome was finally a successful program.
Working with team requires various abilities such as patience, elasticity, flexibility and credibility (Fitton, 2018). The team members most of the time depend on the team leader for showing proper guidance. When there are situations which are unclear the team requires proper guidance and leadership from the leader. There were also challenges that came. There were crisis situations when one of the celebrities who were supposed to arrive was late in arriving, I arranged for a team member who plays the guitar well to play for the audience while the celebrity arrived. Therefore the team faced challenges and the team members unitedly solved the crisis.
The Big 5 personality test that identified my personality test and the kind of leadership I can provide states that I am an empathic idealist and I help others by using my own intelligence and creativity (See appendices) (Goleman, 2017). This is one of the leadership skills I have been using to help my team members. Along with that I am also a practical caretaker which denotes that I have the ability to help people in everyday practical ways. I am 58% in agreeableness. “Agreeableness describes a person’s tendency to put others’ needs ahead of their own, and to cooperate rather than compete with others. People who are high in Agreeableness experience a great deal of empathy and tend to get pleasure out of serving and taking care of others. They are usually trusting and forgiving.”
The leadership assessment tool was also used to analyse the character of myself. I had scored the most in responsibility scale and also in the transformational scale (See Appendix 2). Therefore it is evident that I as a person is very responsible in my endeavours and I can always transform the team or people under me to perform better. The other categories in which I have to improve are Organisation, Assertiveness and Resourcefulness
The understanding of my leadership has changed over time. I have been a very introvert person with very less ability to engage in social discussions in the role of a leader. However I am able to change myself and now I can give leadership to small team and handle responsibilities. The even that I arranged in the college helped me to overcome my previous problem of being an introvert. I have successfully arranged the program and my team performed well in successfully ending it.
I have learnt various aspects of leadership throughout the course of my study. I have learnt theoretical aspects of leadership in my study. I have understood what are the various aspects and styles of leadership and how these can be utilised in order to ensure that the team performs well. My career will get a positive boost because of the change in my attitude of leadership. It is very important for career pursuers to be leaders and socially engaging.
Reference and Bibliography:
Bhatti, N., Maitlo, G. M., Shaikh, N., Hashmi, M. A., & Shaikh, F. M. (2012). The impact of autocratic and democratic leadership style on job satisfaction. International Business Research, 5(2), 192.
Carmeli, A., Tishler, A., & Edmondson, A. C. (2012). CEO relational leadership and strategic decision quality in top management teams: The role of team trust and learning from failure. Strategic Organization, 10(1), 31-54.
Delia Davila Quintana, C., Mora Ruiz, J. G., & E. Vila, L. (2014). Competencies which shape leadership. International Journal of Manpower, 35(4), 514-535.Eagly, A. H., &Johannesen?Schmidt, M. C. (2001). The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of social issues, 57(4), 781-797.
Fitton, R. A. (2018). Leadership: quotations from the world’s greatest motivators. Routledge.
Foels, R., Driskell, J. E., Mullen, B., & Salas, E. (2000). The effects of democratic leadership on group member satisfaction: An integration. Small Group Research, 31(6), 676-701.
Giltinane, C. L. (2013). Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 27(41), 35.
Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Press.
Sendjaya, S., &Sarros, J. C. (2002). Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and application in organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(2), 57-64.
Woods, P. A. (2004). Democratic leadership: drawing distinctions with distributed leadership. International journal of leadership in education, 7(1), 3-26.
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