MY DEVELOPMENT AS A FUTURE LEADER

I personally believe that one should always work on developing themselves in terms of habits that can influence others. As Himanshu Bhatia once said to be a good leader, it is a huge responsibility on one’s shoulder to be able to practice a certain behaviour that we want others to follow (Suebhatia.com, 2019). I come from a part of world where women are not seen as strong leaders just because she is a woman. This male dominating society is what makes it hard for any female to be able to voice out her opinions at a workplace. They must fight for their basic civil rights. Being an international student and being away from my home country Pakistan has made me realise the potential and talent we Pakistani women have in ourselves is commendable.

I have been working in teamwork for many years now, I figured all these years I was practicing Kouzes & Posner’s 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership as it reflects my vision and values of leading others around me. The 5 main practices including Model, the way I do things and the way I work. We are modeling some certain ways that influences people. Then comes Inspire; the values I share with others to inspire them for the vision I have within myself (Kouzes and Posner, 2011). Challenge is the process, during the influence I have on others comes with challenges. It is not easy to impact other members of your team if you don’t understand them and value their opinions. Forth practice is enabling other to act. Giving them chances to express themselves and valuing their ideas can create a personal change in someone’s life. Last but not the least, encourage. This is the most important aspect of an individual’s life (Kouzes and Posner, 2011). Encouraging other people around you for doing something they have been struggling to do for a very long time can make a huge difference. Having courage to do something is not as easy as it may sound. Further working on these 5 practices will not only help me be a better leader but it will have an impact on my personal development as a person.

In this module, we were taught different frameworks every week. Action Centered Leadership by Adair’s Model reflects on my cultural norms and values that I have been brought up with. It covers three major influential factors including task needs, team maintenance needs and individual needs (Adair, 1976). Achieving the goals and objectives of team, allocating resources, organising responsibilities and duties all these come under the task needs. On the other hand, individual needs cover the needs of an individual in the team, attending to their problems, resolving conflicts (Adair, 1976). Not to forget team maintenance needs, creating a system of communication within the teams and maintaining standards/discipline (Adair, 1976).

Based on the feedback I received from my team members I can now work more on my weakness. One of my main struggles while working with a group is my behavior of taking control, whenever I see people not willing to come in front. I tend to put myself there and take over the situation. This is something that could cause some sort of tension between other team members, making them feel I know it all. Which most certainly is not the case. My intention always is just to get things started. For this I believe I should use the situational leadership approach. This model is based on the readiness of the people that the leader/person needs to influence (Mullins and Christy, 2016). Situational leadership by Hersey and Blanchard (1997) emphasis on the combination of two behaviours; task behaviour and relationship behaviour. Task behaviour is something that I have always been doing, providing team members with appropriate directions for them to act on and setting goals for the members, making sure they know their roles (Mullins and Christy, 2016). Whereas relationship behaviour is what I need to work on to overcome my weakness, I need to engage myself in two-way communication with my team members for them to be able to listen to me. I also need to listen to them and provide them with extra support and help they might need.

I have created a development plan where I will work on myself with the help of situational leadership approach. I will make full use of my strengths, such as being a team player, helping and provide support, understanding and resolving the issue and giving other the benefit of doubt. By working on my weakness will not only help me in future but also for my MBA course. It will give me right direction and sense of empathy towards others.

References:

Adair, J.E. (1976), “Action-Centred Leadership”. McGraw-Hill, London

Kouzes, J. and Posner, B. (2011). The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. Hoboken: Wiley.

Mullins, L. and Christy, G. (2016). Management and organisational behaviour. 11th ed. Pearson Education Limited.

Suebhatia.com. (2019). Himanshu Bhatia, Chairman and Founder of Rose International.

[online]

Available at: http://www.suebhatia.com/ [Accessed 22 Jul. 2019].