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Leadership is not only ability to lead other people but also to govern your own life. That is why would like to start this essay on leadership development from speaking about my background, previous experience that influenced my leadership style. Here I will rely on the “theory of traits of a leader” (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991; Yuk, 201 0) while describing the sequence of my failures and achievements over the period of the life that pretty comprehensively illustrate the strong sides of my personality in terms of leadership and the pitfalls.
My school life began rather early, that is why isn’t prepared for the majority of the tasks I was to accomplish and it took me a while to accommodate to the circumstances but nevertheless I was capable to accept the rules had to follow and I possessed enough of the discipline and diligence even in childhood which helped me to become one of the best in the class.
The same characteristics of my personality gave me opportunity to receive the Silver medal for the excellent grades upon finishing the school as well as obtaining the second place in the city Olympian in literature, that still makes me sorry as didn’t manage to get the first one mostly due to particular carelessness n writing of compositions, and surely entering to the university. The first year of the university was a kind of shock for me as was thrown to the unknown environment and I had to get acquainted with the new laws of existence and the lack of experience in relationships with people made me rather hesitant and uncertain.
However I was open for everything new and curious about not only the subjects I was to study. In order to contribute to the governing of the university from the part of the student society I participated in the activity of the Student Council and owing to the ability to listen to other people’s opinions while expressing my own point of view I was capable of being a valuable member of the team. Though sometimes it took me a long time to think over all the pros and cons in order to make up my mind according to this or that question because I’m not prone to draw hasty conclusions.
Another aspect of my leadership qualities such as self-confidence and personal integrity helped me to take the best from my internship. Due to rather easy-going personality it wasn’t hard for me to communicate with the new colleagues in the office of the subsidiary of the Bank Jaguar in Saint-Petersburg and thus was able to obtain as much of really valuable experience as it was possible while consulting with the members of the team according to the questions connected with my direct responsibilities and their functions.
Also I wasn’t afraid to ask question if I didn’t understand some aspects of the functioning of the bank and was straightforward in requiring information which was particularly necessary for my research work based on the experience obtained during the internship. Sociability an d moderate assertiveness also contributed to the establishment of positive relationships with the company management and the director of the subsidiary took the initiative to write a teeter of recommendation for me when mentioned that I’m going to continue my education by entering an MA course.
Part II. Who am and what do I care about as a leader? In this part of the assignment I would like to outline my main beliefs and roles as a leader within several frameworks: model of freedom and self-perception inventory. All the individuals first of all are the products of their native culture that’s is why it seems to me logical to use Model of freedom as it shows general cultural identity of the particular nation, it’s attitude towards authority and towards systems. By the same manner individual characteristics could be estimated.
According to my cultural profile (you can see it in the chart below) I have almost similar results in all four orientations. The degree of my role orientation and process orientation could be perfectly explained by the fact that I belong to Russian nation. Thus, I share the following characteristics in terms of role orientation: I try to avoid conflicts when working with people in a team in the process of studying or in the office during my internship experience, it is always better for me to find compromise even if it is not the most beneficial cession. Also it is always crucial for me to know exactly my role in team as well as my direct responsibilities, as I provides me with clear goals and limitations In terms of process orientation: – I prone to spend more time taking particular decision prefer to avoid mistakes that are possible to occur when not considering all pros and cons of the solution. – tend to rely a lot on experience of other people approaching the same problem as me, sometimes even undervaluing my own point of view on the question.
Speaking about action-orientation, I is true for me that prone to amplify complicated things, otherwise it is difficult for me to outline the main structure, nevertheless, it is always danger for me to oversimplify complex subjects and thus miss important details of the problem. Also I am aimed at tangible results and it is not usually relevant for me how they might be achieved.
Concerning task-orientation, it is really important for me to know the context of the problem I am going to deal with, that is why I usually try to find out all possible information about the task, though it may be rather time consuming. Another model I used for self-assessment is Beeline Self-Perception Inventory Beeline M. , 1981) which tests how an individual behaves in a team environment.
According to the results of the this test I have features of the team worker (TWO) so try to negotiate all the possible misunderstandings within the team, avoid conflicts and prone not to take any party; shaper (SSH) – I am very task-focused and usually want to see the results of the team work, consequently, if there is no any obvious development, I usually start to feel nervous and bored with the absence of movement; monitor evaluator (ME) – I am trying to estimate the subject of discussion from all different points, find possible advantages ND disadvantages of this or that solution, so to this extent, I am usually rather objective in my judgments. Part Ill. In what ways is my leadership conveyed to others? In this part of the assignment I am going to speak about my leadership style and I’ve chosen the following frameworks: “Types of leader”, “Four types of leadership styles” model (Myers A. , 1995), Transactional and Transformational Leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). According to the approach, that is originally implemented in the Israeli army (you can observe the chart below), in my point of view belong to the type of leader named “Authority’.
From my previous experience when I participated in the Student Council and was responsible of several projects for my university, in most cases pursued policy of achieving the goals by emphasizing my level of authority as I felt to be the only responsible for the whole project to be completed perfectly and before deadline. Thus, I consider that other teammates didn’t feel any identification with me as a leader other than just formal “boss”. Also having considered my previous experience I believe I am more Transactional leader than Transformational one as I usually dative people more by reward or punishment, gave clear instructions to followers about what i expect and when those expectations should be fulfilled (Antiskid J. , 2004).
Although in the framework “Four types of leadership styles” should belong to the type “Leading from the front” as exactly this type of style is common for Russian leaders, I suppose that “Consensus” style of leadership is closer to the one I prone to pursue due to the fact that I am always searching for consensus while working with people but not take the dominant position and at the same time prefer “effective communication” and “open dialog” (Myers A. 1995) to rules and formal procedures that usually have negative effect on the performance. Part IV. Where do I go from here? The main aim of my plan is to be able to capture the position of a consultant in the area of CRM. In order to achieve the stated goal I have to poses several essential qualities such as: strong analytical, communication and research skills, to be good at numbers and have strong knowledge of Microsoft Office as well as being a team player but at the same time poses the ability to work individually.
Undoubtedly the further career development in consulting includes also rowing with a company where I continue to learn by enhancing my transferable skills such as leadership, communication, innovation, stress management, interpersonal skills that are universally sought by employers, and at the same time keeping my specific technical skills correspondent enough to the requirements of the framework. One more significant aspect in the process of development of the career is to take additional responsibilities and contribute as much as you can as well as continue involvement in professional associations. And finally I suppose that in the constantly changing world you have to stay runner and aware of all the newest events, tools and tendencies in order to be always one jump ahead of your rivals. Believe that all the above is only possible if you constantly assessing and reassessing yourself as a leader in order to be aware of the weak points and strengths that distinguish you from all other employees in the company.