Context:
The learning design of this subject is to focus on your own leadership journey and not to study leadership as some remote, theoretical concept that applies to other people. This assessment enables you to build self-awareness and a clear sense of how you came to be the person and emerging leader that you are today. It encourages deep reflection on your life and leadership journey to your present position. It helps you to increase your understanding of your current leadership capabilities and potential. The assessment requires you to establish a mentoring relationship with another student in the class so that you can provide mutual learning support and exchange constructive feedback with each other. In addition to this classmate, you can also request feedback from a trusted colleague in your work, personal or wider student networks.
Your Task:
Your task in Assessment 1 Part B is to reflect on you own leadership journey up until now, your current role or position, how you influence others, how you lead, contribute to or react to organisational and cultural changes and your current level of self-awareness and selfconfidence to lead others in your organisation and/or community.
Executive Summary
The reflection is about my leadership experience. Current roles, responsibilities, and leadership challenges have played a critical role in setting the stage for this reflection. Results of the Gallup Strengths Finder and their appropriate attributes for my personality also provide useful insight into my character. Results show that my leadership attributes are being commanding, restorative, self-assured, achiever, and developer. In light of these attributes, my suitable leadership style is participative. I met with a friend as part of this reflection, and his feedback has assisted me a lot. It has been a useful learning activity when I have reflected on my personality through leadership theories. In the end, I noted that my leadership attributes and personality have a link with behavioral, participative, and relationship or transformational theories of leadership. This assessment has helped to develop my personality and leadership attributes.
Introduction:
I am a student, and it may not be a leadership position. However, it seems that a person may assume a leadership role in any place. In my current situation, I have had results of Gallup Strengths Finder and feedback from my class fellows and friends. It has realized the importance of leadership roles and the importance of my current position. Some attributes have emerged to be related to my personality, as I am commanding, restorative, self-assures, achiever, and developer. These roles put me in a leadership position as a student. It also allows me to lead in certain situations, especially situations where I have strengths. This assessment looks at the leadership journey, which has helped me to look into my personality. I have included feedback from one of my class fellow and friends as well, followed by theory and conceptual framework. Everyone has to perform a role as a leader, and this role is linked to his area of strength.
Current Role, Responsibilities, and Leadership Challenges:
Being a student, I would describe my role in a community. Classroom, family, neighborhood, friends, and other people make the community and offer me to perform a current position. Under the present status, I have to show some responsibilities too. These responsibilities are similar to those who have to be completed by an employee. Some activities are exclusively my responsibility. Like studying, studying together with friends and class fellows, making plans and going to play any game or for recreation, planning for a trip, sometimes assisting my father at home, and abiding by any task assigned by my teacher or parents. These responsibilities put me in the role of a leader, and I have to face plenty of challenges too. I am not a leader due to any designation, but I have to collaborate with others in fulfilling these responsibilities. Therefore, I face challenges. Friends and class fellows may contradict my view, and the teacher or parents may instruct me on how to get things right. So, I have to justify my actions with arguments.
Key Aspects of Leadership Journey:
Justifying my actions and fostering that I am making the right decisions under my current role and set of responsibilities is very important. This part of the leadership journey is the most important because it makes someone a true leader. I firmly believe that a leader is not an absolutely influential person, but he has to interact with others to carry out activities under his current role. Embracing this reality, I can recall that my parents, a teacher, and two of my friends have been very facilitating with me in the leadership journey. They have precisely performed the role of assisting me in decisions, and I find that their purpose of instructions has never been to criticize me only. They would believe in a positive discussion so that they could reach a viable solution to a problem. It is in line with my participative behavior of leadership. These discussions and counter opinions with these influential persons in my journey to leadership are critical events. As a result, I formed my self-image as a leader because I realized that I could perform better in some areas. People would expect me to assume responsibility in certain areas. It gave me the confidence to act as a leader. These aspects lead me to become a person in a leading role both in participation with others. This reflection is also helpful in action learn for leadership development (Volz-Peacock, Carson, & Marquardt, 2016).
Results of the Gallup Strengths Finder:
Results of the Gallup Strengths Finder have benefited me in the leadership journey and current role and responsibilities. The results helped me to find some attributes present in me, which can help me in leadership endeavors. Results have described me as being commanding, restorative, self-assurance, achiever, and developer. Commanding means that I like to inspire and lead people. Being restorative, I tend to solve problems and troubleshoot them. Self-assurance helps me in the management of life to be capable of effectively helping others. Being an achiever, I tend to achieve targeted goals by achieving milestones efficiently. It reflects my productive and hardworking nature, which is essential for a leader. The attribute of being a developer has been surprising to me initially, but friends and class fellow’s feedback helped me to understand its context. Developer turns out to very relevant leadership attributes as leadership has foundations of developing situations. Sometimes, it is not useful to get results from an existing condition or circumstances. In a situation, the desired results may need developing conditions and factors. These results relate to different theoretical and conceptual backgrounds of leadership, like behavioral, participative, and relationship-based theories of leadership.
Key Feedback Points:
I received feedback from my class fellow and friends regarding Gallup Strengths Finder results, and they have reflected in these results meaningfully. I want to add the input of one of my friends here. He is the one who has assisted me in the decision-making and leadership journey. He said that he did not think me authoritative and commanding. He said that I believed in participation and collaboration on various matters. He admitted that I am a restorative and developer because I am the one who usually helps my friends recall any schedule or program. Developing relationships with friends and class fellows and taking them along is the attribute admitted by my friend. He also praised my interpersonal and social skills. It is because I have never been irritated when he usually differs with me.
They praised my abilities associated with emotional intelligence that I empathize with effectively. I understand the psychological and emotional aspects of a person. It is a fundamental attribute of a leader because he has to consider the emotions of others. The personality assessment by my friend has helped me to understand my inner qualities and apparent attitude about the leadership journey. Being a developer and self-assurer, he praised attributes of mine. The feedback has helped me to have a third party or neutral view because I know my friend who speaks neutrally. I remain in disagreement with him usually because he has not had similar views on things. In the current context of responsibilities and roles, he provides me with good discussion opportunities. Therefore, I got a real contribution from him through this feedback. It was pleasant to know that he admitted that I had had these leadership attributes, as mentioned in the Gallup Strengths Finder results.
The feedback points are useful, as they have identified different perspectives about my personality. Reflection has put me on center stage to be available for analysis. On the other hand, the feedback has allowed my friend to comment on me. It is pleasing to find that my friend has said that I am participative and collaborative in my decision-making. The feedback has strong and valid practical implications discussed below.
Implications of Feedback and Reflection:
The feedback has been a learning outcome for me because it has helped me to see inside of my personality. I have also realized that personality and leadership style inventories are directly helpful in reflecting on one’s personality and inner beliefs. My friend has given me feedback to equip me with another opinion, which is not mine. First, the feedback has helped me to know that I have strong points in some areas. I can excel in those areas to be further successful. In the beginning, I was not much aware of these leadership attributes possessed by me, but later the Gallup Strengths Finder and reflection on these results guided me expertly. For instance, I was not sure about the attribute of being a developer, as I did not know that I possessed this quality. Later, the feedback from friends and class fellows helped me realize what the real meaning of this attribute is. In this context, the importance of feedback is in terms of enhancing the learning experience. The feedback equips me with new insights and aspects of already known knowledge and expertise. It shows that the practice of leadership is possible (Raelin, 2017).
The significance of the reflection is considerable because it has helped me to look into learning skills with new perspectives and ways. For instance, my friend helped me with how I possess the attribute of self-assurance and restoration. He was of the view that I am confident, and I could guide someone about getting things right. It was useful to find this aspect from my friend. It is like a third-party perspective, or one may say that it has removed the chances of subjective analysis. He has given his opinion, and his insights into my leadership attributes are like an expert opinion for me. I want to extend this practice in the future as well so that I can have specialist opinions about leadership qualities. Another vital contribution of reflection is that it has helped me to realize different aspects and perspectives of one attribute. It is not the case that one attribute has one meaning, because it may contain various elements. Activities like reflection help cover all aspects of quality.
Theory and Conceptual Frameworks:
The reflection and experiences through this leadership journey may get help from leadership theories and conceptual frameworks. First, I want to point out the main features of reflection and experiences. On the leadership journey, I have used some techniques and leadership style inventories. I have also received feedback from my friends. Third, I have found that my attributes are in line with participative leadership styles. These experiences and feedback are also aligned with leadership theory and conceptual framework. Behavioral theories believe that leaders are not born, but they are made. The leadership exercises contributed to this when I felt a boost in my leadership capabilities. I realized that I could further enhance my leadership abilities through such activities (Rasool, Arfeen, Mothi, & Aslam, 2015). Moreover, participative theories and relationship theories may also relate to my leadership experiences.
I have taken feedback from my friends and class fellows. Their feedback has further enhanced my abilities regarding leadership (Lam, Huang, & Chan, 2015). I also noted that my leadership style is participative because I took comments and feedback from my peers. It is in line with the participative theories of leadership. I have been grateful to friends and class fellows to contribute to my capability of fulfilling responsibilities. Although I am commanding and believe in self-assurance, I also believe in taking input from my peers. I like friends who argue with me meaningfully, and reflective practice has helped me in this regard (Alvesson, Blom, & Sveningsson, 2017). Attributes of an achiever, developer, and restorative are in line with the relationship-based or transformational theories of leadership (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018). I believe in getting things done with relationships and collaboration. This aspect is helpful for my leadership style. These theories have broadened my view of leadership and related practices.
These theories are not necessarily to be the only ones related to my experiences and reflection on leadership. Rather, there may be other theories and frameworks. However, chosen theories and frameworks are chosen to be the most relevant to my experience.
Conclusion:
The reflection concludes that I can be a leader with my current role and set of responsibilities. My community offers me plenty of opportunities to lead because they expect from me. I also received influence from peers, friends, and family members who have led me to be a good and effective leader. I know about my leadership attributes after having the results of the Gallup Strengths Finder and feedback of my friend on it has helped me to look into my leadership style. I am participative in my leadership style and believe in relationship-based leadership activities. The attributes from the survey were commanding, restorative, self-assurance, achiever, and developer. In addition, they are in line with the participative leadership style. The feedback and leadership journey has helped me to be a good leader in the future because I got insight into my personality. Behavioral, participative, and relationship-based theories of leadership are compatible with my attributes. I believe that this leadership journey has been very beneficial to me.
References
Alvesson, M., Blom, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2017). Reflexive leadership: Organising in an imperfect world. SAGE Publications Inc.
Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2018). Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44 (2), 501-529.
Lam, C. K., Huang, X., & Chan, S. C. (2015). The threshold effect of participative leadership and the role of leader information sharing. Academy of Management Journal, 58 (3), 836-855.
Raelin, J. A. (2017). Leadership-as-practice: Theory and application—An editor’s reflection. Leadership, 13 (2), 215-221.
Rasool, H. F., Arfeen, I. U., Mothi, W., & Aslam, U. (2015). Leadership styles and its impact on employee’s performance in health sector of Pakistan. City University Research Journal, 5 (1), 97-109.
Volz-Peacock, M., Carson, B., & Marquardt, M. (2016). Action learning and leadership development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18 (3), 318-333.
