Leadership Principles

My goals

I possess certain competencies, skills and interests. Being a vociferous reader, I have varied and wide reading preferences. Bibliographies of individuals who have made a contribution to humankind interest me. This is due to the fact that I find these books insightful in terms of varying leadership styles that these people adopted. Additionally, bibliographies are inspirational. One can also learn management tricks from these books and use them in making a mark on the collective global consciousness. This can only be possible when one has leadership skills.

In addition to this, I read books about emerging issues which concern all the people. Literature on various topics including labor movement and global warming addresses issues that a manager should be knowledgeable about. I dance whenever I fee stressed and in need of an unwinding experience. There are two reasons why I take salsa lessons. First, this dancing style enables me to maintain physical fitness. Second, salsa is a beautiful dancing style and it teaches discipline. I run in the morning three times per week to maintain physical fitness. I am also a table tennis player and I practice during my free afternoons. I am also a traveler who enjoys seeing new people and places. I also go shopping with my friends when I have resources and time.

Making serious money is my major inspiration. My desire is to achieve economic independence and wealth within the soonest time possible. To me, success is being able to cater for the family as well as to make the life of my family better. I will see myself as a successful person when I get respect from other people for what I will achieve. I am ambitious and I aspire to lead a national company. My hope is that I will enter the upper echelons in companies’ management. After securing an entry, my intention will be to work smart and hard so that I can rise up to the top rank.

My expectation is that I will be a management employee trainee within the year that will follow my graduation. I also expect that I will be in charge of at least a major department of the company that I will join after five years. I aspire to be a member of the management team of the company that I join and preferably a CEO after five years.

Assessing my leadership qualities

In the self-assessment of the Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC), I had a score of 106. This is beyond the threshold which is 64. Being a leader, relationships motivate me. Additionally, I do not have qualms that I use to assign leadership responsibilities and tasks to my colleagues. I usually consult widely in complex circumstances in order to get new ideas and more insights on how to solve a problem. I like providing direction and coordination to colleagues or followers while tackling issues. My preference is working with dependable individuals because they make me feel secure.

Where trust exists, meaningful relationships are established. Trust is enhanced by reliability in relationships. I prefer monitoring unreliable followers. By doing this, I avoid mistakes that arise when a leader trusts a person who can break the existing trust. I usually go an extra mile to support followers. This ensures that they are able to perform even the most stressful tasks. I coach followers whenever there is a need to do so. This ensures that they do not make mistakes because of their inexperience. My belief is that when an employee feels supported by the leader he/she can be committed and hardworking.

I like establishing relationships with followers since my belief is that they help me in identifying crisis’ warning signs early before the situation escalates. Using these relationships, I am able to inform followers about the current happenings. Actually, this is important in preventing communication breakdown whose impacts can be devastating.

My score for self-assessment in Influence Tactics is 6.3. Being a leader, I employ rational persuasion in influencing my followers. I use certain processes of management to influence followers. First, I concern myself with the procedure of ownership influence. Because I prefer establishing relationships with followers, I encourage the feeling of being part of a process that entails starting and implementing ideas. My desire is that followers feel like they are my partners throughout the process. I do not want followers to feel like they are just automatons that follow orders. I also employ internalization in influencing followers.

By establishing relationships with followers, I am able to explain the reasons for proposing a certain action to them. My belief is that once followers are convinced that a particular action is the correct one, they can take or execute it without being supervised. This is a useful approach because it requires a leader to establish consensus and the followers continue performing the required task. Being a leader, I prefer leading by an example. I allow followers to relate with me personally. Additionally, I like inspiring followers so that they can improve their work in all aspects.

My belief is that when followers identify personally with me, they can model actions after mine. Thus, they are likely to copy my approved attitudes and behaviors. Once they do this, it implies that I will have had a positive influence on them. My belief is that soft influential methods are better than hard approaches that include punishment threats and sanctions.

In self-assessment for Emotional Intelligence, my average score is 6.6. My emotional intelligence is very high. I express myself articulately and clearly. I am able to present my ideas coherently. I am also able to identify critical issues in regard to problems. I am able to regulate issues that affect my interests. I have been through a system of education and this makes me knowledgeable about my specialty. I have acquired theoretical and practical knowledge. I also know global trends of my industry and emerging issues all over the world.

My score for self-assessment in Leader-Member Exchange was 5.4. In this parameter, my score is not of a higher quality. This assessment served as a revelation to me. My leadership perception changed following this assessment. I firmly believed in the top-down management style. My feeling was that it was not proper to have my decisions influenced by followers or to let them suggest alternative actions as a way of challenging mine. After this assessment, I understand how and why dyadic relationships emerge between me and my followers.

I now know that the relationship between a leader and a follower is a two-way street. To develop a beneficial and healthy relationship, there must be traffic that is passing either way. Being a leader, I ought to be ready to listen to what followers say and to allow them to challenge my proposed actions. I am now aware that I ought to accept their criticism as well as to change whenever there is a need to do so. I also know that I should be conscious about the way I treat both out- and in-groups. I should always be aware that it is possible for me to be biased when relating with them. Being a leader, I am responsible for reducing out-groups while increasing in-groups.

In the self-assessment for Motivation to Lead, my score is 6.7. Social power is my motivation. For effective management, I do not employ calculative methods. Being the person in charge does not drive me emotionally. Instead, my feeling is that I am responsible for providing appropriate services to followers. Additionally, my conviction is that leadership is a chance that I have to serve others and it is not the end. My belief is that leadership should be dynamic instead of conforming to the current or prevailing standards. My endeavor as a leader is to surpass what people expect of me. My belief is that a dynamic leadership style is necessary. This is a leadership that foresees problems as well as solves them in advance. A good leadership should not manipulate the followers. Instead, it should lead them firmly and fairly.

My score for self-assessment in Individualism-Collectivism is 5.25. I am an open-minded leader. I fully understand that today, the world is a village where varying cultures meet at the workplace. Being a leader, managing this diversity is a must and I should avail equal opportunities to every follower. My feeling is that “one size fits all” is a wrong management approach. This is due to the fact that different cultures are motivated by different things. Being a leader, my belief is that I should find out what the de-motivators and motivators of my followers are. I believe that there can be serious differences in cultures that can impact on the perception of a leader negatively. As such, the golden mean rule is necessary. When such a case arises, I will look for a compromise that will ensure that all followers are less aggrieved.

Improving as a leader

This course has taught me a lot of things and enhanced my leadership abilities. Initially, my thought was that effective leaders should not allow followers to challenge or question them. This course has taught me that this idea is erroneous. A debate is enriched by dissident opinions. To understand my improvement, here is a case that should be considered. In the history class, I was the leader of a team in a project. This implies that I had very group member’s phone number. My laxity led to the convening of our first meeting just a few days before the deadline elapsed. During the meeting, everybody presented their ideas which confused us all. Eventually, we completed our project haphazardly in order to submit it on time. This means that I provided ineffective and weak leadership.

After this course, my approach for such projects will be different. I will start by ensuring that every group member has the contacts of all the other members. This will keep communication lines open. I will also call the first meeting early so that we can brainstorm on our project. Upon reaching an agreement on the requirements of the project, I will assign every group member a research area. This way, duplication will be reduced and thorough research encouraged because every member will cover a narrower scope. After this, I will call another meeting on time before the set deadline. I will allow members a chance to investigate the findings of the other members after which we will compile the final report.