My original definition of leadership is an action by a person or group of people to revolutionize change within parameters of practical circumstances to improve or transform into a new reality. Instead of identifying leadership as an action, I would refer to leadership as process a person or group of people establishes. Learning about the various theories of leadership helps me conceptualize leadership that involves fundamentals of context, self and others. Leaders must assess skills they believe are needed for effective leadership being that, the most important would be to engage with followers on the how they perceive their leadership and adjust as necessary. I think leaders should explore different leadership approaches to be a well versed to lead in any type of environment, seeing any obstacle from more than just their own perspective of leadership, to adapt to changes that may affect them personally and the organization.
There is no universal definition of leadership, but, there must be common bound forged between leaders the signify concepts that could measure effective leadership, and performance success because of strong leadership. My own view of leadership prior to this class was that there were only two kinds of leadership approaches. The two were transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership was the easy to comprehend since most businesses I support are all about, “did we make our numbers” and profits. You can’t help but to admire the business models of big corporations like Walmart and how their leadership models have changed as they expanded into other countries. Sometimes your organization model must prioritize factors that were otherwise not priorities at your home base, for example the problem based (PBL) learning the East Asia for Walmart to consider.
The type of leader I aspire to be, is one that allows for growth of followers to exceed my own. I would like followers perceptions to be assessed periodically, engage follower’s to participate in the decision making process, be supportive and coach followers to factor in the external environment. My advice to followers as a leader would be to always investigate your own reasoning when making a decision, who it impacts, seeing from another perceptive and explain to someone else the process, in addition to how you came to the result. One of my weakness is not bragging enough about myself and work ethic when it comes time to brag during an interview or opportunity for promotions. I would like to advise others to practice finding a balance between humility and egoism.
When a new person joins the team, I try not to convince them of the way I view current work environment problems and process they are about to experience when learning a new job, just support them to learn as they practice, keeping them informed of standard operations, and sharing a few examples that have helped me. Sometimes, I noticed for some, my approach doesn’t work, as they need reassurance they are going in the right directions, with a select few who needs everything shown to them before they do anything.
As I grow as a leader, I would like to express more frequently how I’m able to adjust my leadership approach for some follower’s to reach their goals, and lay out goals for the team to meet. I want to harness the power, to expand the thought that all followers can be leaders, to reach back to not expand on things others leaders have started and to not forget to share their lessons learned to those willing to lead after them.
