Dynamic Leadership For Effectiveness And Areas Of Development

Leadership Journey

Discuss about the Dynamic Leadership for Effectiveness and Areas of Development.
 

As mentioned in a number of sources, the leadership style implemented in the workplace of an organization plays a significant role in the success of the organization. The leadership style implemented in the workplace controls or affects the interactions and communications of the management with the employees in the workplace. This in turn allows the employees to feel motivated to carry out their responsibilities and roles. The leadership style in the workplace of the organization also affects the productivity and performance of the employees. This report focuses on my leadership journey along with its effectiveness and areas of development. The report also describes a development plan for my future leadership journey (Smith, 2013).

This section of the report describes my current leadership journey in terms of my current organization and the role which I play in the workplace along with the challenges I face in playing the role of a leader. 

I’m playing the role of a leader for a team in a retail store, which is a part of a large retail store chain. I have more than 12 people in my team carrying out different business activities with different responsibilities. All the people in my team are responsible for interacting with the customers at least once every day. I have been the leader of this team for quite some time and my responsibilities include managing and monitoring the activities of all the team members to ensure their maximum performance in the workplace. I’m also responsible for the increase and maintenance of the motivation and productivity of the employees through effective leadership style and implementation of effective business guidelines. I’m responsible for devising the development plan for my team members along with their annual appraisal along with their training and development activities (White, 2016).

I implement the transformational leadership theory in my current organization and team, which requires me to maintain strong and close relationship with all of my team members. I utilize my interpersonal and communicational skills to get the trust and confidence of my team members, which in turn leads to the presence of a close relationship. I try to inspire my team members and become their role model to allow them to have their full potential in the workplace of the organization. I also allow each and every member of my team to put forward their opinion and feedback in various important decisions taken for the team. Another factor that I focus in the workplace, is to ensure that the team members always feel a part of the team (Christensen, 2014).

I face a couple of challenges in leading the team in my current organization. Some of these challenges are mentioned in this section of the report. The team which I’m leading in my current organization has members with different cultural backgrounds and are from different parts of the globe. This in turn poses as a challenge to manage them and ensuring that they work with each other in an efficient manner. My cultural and social backgrounds are also different than that of my team members, which in turn poses as a challenge to avoid misunderstandings or to have a casual talk.  Another challenge which I face in my current workplace is creating a close relationship with the team members who can’t speak English fluently, which in turn leads to problems for them to show their feelings. Another challenge which I face in the workplace is the lack of participation from the team members in a number of team meetings. I feel that the team members don’t open up a lot in a group meeting (Madsen, 2014). 

Current Strengths

This section of the report mentions a number of my strengths in my current organization and the role of a leader in the workplace.

• I have efficient interpersonal skills, which allow me to develop a good relationship with the team members quickly. The interpersonal skills also allow me to understand the feelings of my teammates in an effective manner, which in turn strengthens my relationship with them (McCleskey, 2014).
• My efficient communication skill is also a strength, which allow me to put my thoughts and opinions in front of the team members in an effective manner. The efficient communication skills also allow me to have good relationship with my team members and to avoid misunderstandings.
• I have good problem solving skills, which allow me to determine the best possible solution for any issue in the workplace in an efficient manner. The problem solving skills provide me a number of techniques and strategies to tackle various business goals and objectives in the workplace of the organization (Blomme, 2015).
• The critical thinking skills which I possess also allow me to think outside of box for solving various business issues in the workplace. The critical thinking skills allow me to develop effective operational strategies and business guidelines for the team to follow and perform better.
• Another of my strengths is my good personality, which always allow me to influence my teammates and allows me to have a good bonding with them. This also allows me to be a role model to the members in my team, which in turn allows me to motivate them in an effective manner (Miner, 2013).
• Another strength of mine is the activity of defining SMART goals for the members of my team in an efficient manner. This allows my teammates to have good performance in relation to their status of the goals allocated to them (Powers, 2014).

There are a number of areas for development in my leadership in my current organization. Some of these areas for development are mentioned in this section of the report.

• One of the areas which I can develop is my conflict management skills, which allow me to maintain better understanding among my team members and resolve any conflicts among my team members. The enhanced conflict management skills will allow me to have better team synergy and better synchronization among my team members (Hannah, 2014).
• Another area of development in my leadership is the monitoring of my team members in terms of the development of their skills and in terms of the goals assigned to them. I feel I can develop this monitoring and feedback skill to ensure better management of the individuals working in my team.
• Change management in the workplace of the organization is another area where I can develop. The changes introduced in the business model of the organization are generally opposed by the employees in a negative manner. By improving my change management skill, I can ensure that my team members handle the changes in the workplace in a better way, which in turn leads to maintained performance and efficiency of my team (Bullough, 2014).

These are some of the areas where I can focus on developing my leadership skills and expertise. This will allow me to have a better leadership in the workplace of the organization along with better working environment in the workplace of the organization. 

This section of the report focuses on the feedback provided by my partner regarding my leadership in my current organization. These feedbacks were provided after effective analysis of the current situation in my workplace and the leadership style I implemented in the workplace.

• The approach to employee engagement can be modified to include more number of team building activities and team work activities along with a number of fun activities. The employee engagement activities will in turn allow the members in the team to have better understanding of the character and thought process of each other, which will in turn result in the maintenance of better synergy in the team and the workplace (Baker, 2013).
• The project management activities in the team should be carried out by being aligned to the agile framework, which allows better ways to track the project status, define the goals for the individuals and keep the roles of each of the members in the team clean. The agile mindset in the team also allows the team to be open to changes at any point of time, may it be project specific changes or business model specific changes (Avolio, 2013).
• The communication in the team can be enhanced by having email or instant chat facilities enabled in the private smartphones of the employees in the team. This in turn allows the employees to have the flexibility of communicating regarding their business activities from any place according to their convenience. This also allows the employees to have better productivity and to be better satisfied with their employment in the organization (Foti, 2014).

I have analyzed these feedbacks to understand their feasibilities in the workplace of my organization and have analyzed the complications involved in the implementation of these feedbacks in the workplace of my organization. 

This section of the report focuses on some of the implications of the development of my leadership skills.

• The migration of the entire team into the agile mindset is a difficult and time-taking process, which in turn poses as an implication in improving my change management and monitoring skills in my leadership. The implementation of the agile mindset in the workplace of the organization takes a significant amount of time along with the implementation of various tools and technologies. The purchase of licenses of these tools is also a possible implication in the process of enhancing my leadership skills (Kaigh, 2014).
• Another implication for future development is the implementation flexible communication solutions in the workplace to allow employees to work out of the workplace. This implementation will take significant amount of time to actually allow the employees work out of the workplace due to the security issues and the risks associated with the business activities (Tyssen, 2013).
• For the future development of my change management kills as part of my leadership skills, I need the team members to go through a number of training and development activities. The training and development activities can be planned by the management of the organization, but for the effective execution of the training and development activities the team members should be interested and motivated in them. In my current organization, my team members are more focused only on the business deliverables and generally tend to avoid the training and development activities. Changing that mindset of all the members in the team is a tedious activity, which affects the efficiency of the change management strategies implemented in the workplace (Landis, 2014).

These are some of the implications which I think will come in the way of developing my leadership skills. I can focus on these implications in my development plan to ensure that I can avoid the negative impacts and enhance my leadership skills. 

References

Avolio, B. J., & Yammarino, F. J. (2013). Introduction to, and overview of, transformational and charismatic leadership. Transformational and charismatic leadership: the road ahead. London: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Baker, J. P. (2013). Leadership Theories and Approaches. Leadership in Psychiatry, 49-62.

Blomme, R. J., Kodden, B., & Beasley-Suffolk, A. (2015). Leadership theories and the concept of work engagement: Creating a conceptual framework for management implications and research. Journal of Management & Organization, 21(02), 125-144.

Bullough, A., & de Luque, M. S. (2014). Women’s participation in entrepreneurial and political leadership: The importance of culturally endorsed implicit leadership theories. Leadership, 1742715013504427.

Christensen, L. J., Mackey, A., & Whetten, D. (2014). Taking responsibility for corporate social responsibility: The role of leaders in creating, implementing, sustaining, or avoiding socially responsible firm behaviors. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(2), 164-178.

Foti, R., Hansbrough, T. K., Epitropaki, O., & Coyle, P. (2014). Special issue: Dynamic viewpoints on implicit leadership and followership theories. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(2), 411-412.

Hannah, S. T., Sumanth, J. J., Lester, P., & Cavarretta, F. (2014). Debunking the false dichotomy of leadership idealism and pragmatism: Critical evaluation and support of newer genre leadership theories. Journal of organizational behavior, 35(5), 598-621.

Kaigh, E., Driscoll, M., Tucker, E., & Lam, S. (2014). PREPARING TO LEAD: FINANCE PROFESSIONALS ARE ESSENTIAL IN NARROWING LEADERSHIP GAPS. Corporate Finance Review, 19(2), 5.

Landis, E. A., Hill, D., & Harvey, M. R. (2014). A synthesis of leadership theories and styles. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), 97.

Madsen, S. R., & Storberg-Walker, J. (2014). Advancing Theories of Women and Leadership.

McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.

Miner, J. B. (2013). Miner (2013), Addendum: The Role Motivation Theories of Organizational Leadership. Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead 10th Anniversary Edition (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Volume 5) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 5, 395-398.

Powers, C. L., Morgeson, F. P., & Lyons, B. J. (2014, January). Dynamic Shared Leadership Theory: Understanding the Structures and Processes of Shared Leadership. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2014, No. 1, p. 10495). Academy of Management.

Smith, P. A. (Ed.). (2013). Dynamic Leadership Models for Global Business: Enhancing Digitally Connected Environments: Enhancing Digitally Connected Environments. IGI Global.

Tyssen, A. K., Wald, A., & Spieth, P. (2013). Leadership in temporary organizations: a review of leadership theories and a research agenda. Project Management Journal, 44(6), 52-67.

White, M. D. (2016). Dynamic Leadership: Moving HBCUs Toward New. Administrative Challenges and Organizational Leadership in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 58.