My Development as a Future Leader

What is Leadership?

Leadership is the art of inspiring a group of people to act to achieve a common goal. Leaders who can effectively achieve some good results or achievements will gain the trust and admiration from their team member (Notar, 2009). Therefore, an effective leaders is to provide them a clear direction to their members, and lead them to work as a group to achieve the team’s goals and objectives set by the group. A good leader can motivates his team instead of criticizing them, and strives to motivate team members to reach their full potential. A good leaders will always set a clear goal and vision for the team to achieve and bring the team towards the aims of the organization (Alshammari, Almutairi & Thuwaini, 2015).

Figure 1: A model illustrating the relevance of ethics to leadership and organizational performance (Alshammari, Almutairi, & Thuwaini, 2015)

Leaders have the qualities of determination, unselfishness, and motivation. They also have the ability to let “people pay attention to them.” (Alshammari, Almutairi, & Thuwaini, 2015). Moreover, leaders inspire subordinates to achieve their potential and show them that the whole can be far greater than the sum of the parts. In addition, leaders possess good judgment, an uncanny ability to spot talent that fits the needs of the organization and situation (Alshammari, Almutairi, & Thuwaini, 2015). To that end, leaders seek people with character as well as courage and develop them into “on-field leaders,” to use a football metaphor. A leader’s organization must provide an atmosphere of mutual admiration, a suppression of egos, and a team concept to allow the leader to overcome adversity (Moo & Dr. Yazdanifard, 2015).

Figure 2: Five Leadership Levels (Caredda, 2020).

Leadership Model made up of five layers. This model is not particularly innovative, as it builds up a hierarchical view of leadership. Level 5 leaders is –“an individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will.” Thus, the list becomes also aspirational, and although the level descriptions seem to highlight a positioning in the hierarchy, it also shows that there is a development opportunity in the building of greatness for an organisation (Caredda, 2020).

My Leadership Version

Action Centered Leadership has developed by John Adair in 1973. The model highlights the key actions that leaders should take when managing the team by dividing the team into three areas. The model states that if leaders want their team to succeed, they must balance their actions in all three key areas. These areas are interdependent; if the leader focuses too much on one area while ignoring the other two, then the entire team will encounter problems (Caredda, 2020).

Figure 3: Action Centered Leadership (Caredda, 2020).

•    Task: Achieving the team’s goal.
 •    Team: Developing and building your team, so that it’s even more effective.
 •    Individual: Helping individuals develop their full potential in the workplace (Caredda, 2020).

According to Dike & Madubueze (2019) investigated that democratic leadership plays efficiently in decision making process. In most leadership situations, democratic leadership style maintain the highest morale. This is because democratic leader always give trust and confident to their team members and also strongly encourage participation in decision making.

Figure 4: The score on the leader’s table provide information about how the leaders see themselves and the score of the followers (Dr. Sharma, & Dr. Singh, 2013).

Decision making is one of the most important functions of leadership. It is true that every leader takes decisions but the ways of making decisions vary from one leader to another (Dr. Sharma, & Dr. Singh, 2013). The variation makes a difference in style of leadership. Their way of decision making is an important input for identifying the leadership style. However, leaders who do not have clear direction in making decision may lose the trust of their team members. This may in turn have a negative impact on employee performance (Dr. Sharma, & Dr. Singh, 2013). Besides, democratic leaders provide coaching and guiding in gathering all the information and finalise the inputs from team members for future developments and guide them to the right and long term direction.

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

Figure 5: The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (Wiley & Sons, 2021)

The Five Leadership Practices model has developed by Kouzes and Posner’s Trait Theory leadership model to understand people’s personal experience of excellent leadership. According to Kouzes & Barry (2013) quoted that “Good leadership is an understandable and universal process which involving five practices and within each of those, two key behaviour”.

Figure 6: Team Member’s Feedback

The above five practices of exemplary leadership was done with my classmates. From the above figure shows that I should improve my “Inspire” and “Challenge” more frequently. One way to deal with potential risks and trial failures is to respond to changes through incremental steps and small victories (Caredda, 2020). Therefore, an effective leader will foster collaboration and build trust. Leaders enable others to do a good job. They know that those who are expected to produce results must feel personal power and ownership (Caredda, 2020). Model leaders work hard to make people feel strong, capable, and loyal. Leaders do not hoard the power they have, but by giving it to enable others to take action. Model leaders enhance everyone’s ability to deliver on promises.

16 Personalities Test

Figure 7: Results on 16 Personalities Test (16 Personalities, 2021)

A defender (ISFJ) is a person with personality traits of introversion, observation, feeling, and judgment (16 Personalities, 2021).These people tend to be enthusiastic and unassuming in their own stable way. They are responsive to change and detail-oriented in paying attention to little mistake. The personality type of defenders is very unique, because many of their qualities violate the definition of their personal characteristics (16 Personalities, 2021). Besides that, defenders are observant to the environment change and with excellent analytical skills often capable quickly analysis a situation. Same to defender are introverted but they have good interpersonal skills and sound social relationships. The defenders are usually receptive to changes and new ideas even they are usually conservative types(16 Personalities, 2021).

“Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.” (16 Personalities, 2021)

As a defensive colleague, people with this personality type seek a frictionless environment, a spirit of friends helping friends to complete their work (16 Personalities, 2021).Defenders are mutually supportive teams, which allows them to express their selfless spirit among people who rely on their dedication and enthusiasm (16 Personalities, 2021).

Figure 8: Strengths and weakness of Defender (16 Personalities, 2021)

Johari Window Model

Figure 9: The Johari Window Model (Communication Theory,2021)

The Johari window model is based on two ideas-trust by receiving information about myself and others who know me to improve and learning from their feedback. This model is used to improve the blind spot of yourself from others people perspective on you. The Johari Window designed into 4 different viewpoints from yourself or others. Each of viewpoints represents a people perspective on you, information about yourself, feelings of others and self-motivations (Osmanoğlu, 2019). The results of the Johari Window allows us to understand what others perceive of us, how we present ourselves to others and also how well we know ourselves (Self-Awareness, 2013). The results may influence what happens in our life as a result of our self- awareness, and the awareness others have of us.

Figure 10: Johari Window Result from Team Members

The above Johari Windows done with my classmates looks to be accurate, something which I find to be very true as I had also put down that trait for myself. In the open area or arena shows that my teammates would think I’m friendly is because I tend to supportive and sharing notes with the people around me and need help.

For blind self or blind spot, it is surprising that my team members thinks of me as confident and mature because I always find myself lack of confident. It is also happy to realise my personal strength such as my team members think I am organised, sensible, dependable and intelligent. However, they describe me as a quite person in the team. Therefore, I should be confident in sharing my idea and opinion on discussion. After knowing what my friends think of me, I can understand what my friends think of me, and I can see that for my unfamiliar friends, my hidden area is longer than my closer friends. This made me realize that I have a dull personality and people need time to get to know me and let me reveal more information about myself.

Belbin’s Team Model

Belbin’s Team Model has developed by Meredith Belbin in 1981, to study the 9 team roles which designed to build an efficient and strong team (IFM, 2016). The purpose of team roles is to define and predict the potential success of the management team, recognizing that the strongest team has diverse personalities and personality types. Belbin’s Team model helps to improve the team’s performance by assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of a team (Simek, 2021).

Figure 11: Source: Belbin Team Roles (IFM, 2016)

An ideal team should involved action oriented role, people oriented role and cerebral role, all 9 team roles in a team. A strong teams should have at least one or more different implementer such as co-coordinator, completer finishers, team worker, resource investigators, plant or monitor evaluator to build up a efficient team (Simek, 2021). From my previous work experience, I play the role as plant and specialist in providing new ideas to support decision making in my previous experience. I often self-start and dedicate to spend time to do research on my own before gathering other team member on a discussion (Simek, 2021). Besides that, I also need to perform some simulation to ensure that the assessment meets the expected criteria such as final check on the work to reduce human error and mistake. It it benefit to the team who understand their representative team roles in a team.

Personal Development Plan

Figure 12: Constructed by Author for Personal Development Plan

Figure 13: “Jack Welch Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Business Leader” (Welch, 2007)

To jump out from my comfortable zone, as a leader we don’t want happy and comfortable people in a team. We want passionate, energetic people who are keen for the journey and ready to take on a challenge (Muteswa, 2016). 

REFERENCES

Alshammari, A., Almutairi, N. N. & Thuwaini, S. F. (2015). Ethical Leadership: The Effect on Employees. International Journal of Business and Management, 10(3), 108-116. DOI: 10.5539/ijbm.v10n3p108.

Communication Theory. (2021). The Johari Window Model. Retrieved from https://www.communicationtheory.org/the-johari-window-model/.

Caredda, S. (2020). Leadership Models: The Theory and the Practice. Retrieved from https://sergiocaredda.eu/organisation/leadership-models-the-theory-and-the-pract ice/#Action_Centered_Leadership.

Dr. Sharma, L. J. K. & Dr. Singh, S. K. (2013). A Study on the Democratic Style of Leadership. International journal of management & information technology, 3(2), 54-57. DOI:10.24297/ijmit.v3i2.1367.

Dike, E. E. and Madubueze, M. H. C (2019). Democratic Leadership Style and  Organizational Performance: An Appraisal. International Journal of Development  Strategies in Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, 9(3), 129-138. http://www.internationalpolicybrief.org/images/2019/APRIL/IJDSHMSS/ARTICLE 8.pdf.

IFM (2016). Belbin’s team roles. Retrieved from https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/dmg/tools-and-techniques/belbins-team- roles/.

Kouzes, J. M., and Barry Z. P. (2013). “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Things Happen”. Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/mgmt/30/.

Notar, C. E. (2009) What Makes An “Effective” Leader: The Application of Leadership. International Educational Studies, 1(3), 25-29. DOI:10.5539/ies.v1n3p25

Moo J. H. & Dr. Yazdanifard, R. (2015). How Effective Leadership can Facilitate Change in Organizations through Improvement and Innovation. Global Journal of Management and Business Research: A Administration and Management, 15(9). https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume15/1-How-Effective-Leadership.pdf

Muteswa, R. P. T. (2016). Qualities of a Good Leader and the Benefits of Good Leadership to an Organization: A Conceptual Study. European Journal of Business and Management, 8(24). https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Qualities-of-a-Good-Leader-and-the-Ben efits-of-Good-Muteswa/49d74090f8a854e9a17a58beb6e1e14e963222f4

Osmanoğlu, D. E. (2019) Expansion of the Open Area (Johari Window) and Group Work Directed to Enhancing the Level of Subjective Well-being. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 7(5), 76-85. DOI:10.11114/jets.v7i5.4128

Simek, P (2021). Team Roles Definition. Retrieved from https://developerexperience.io/practices/team-roles-definition.

Self-Awareness (2013). Understanding the Johari Window model. Retrieved from   https://www.selfawareness.org.uk/news/understanding-the-johari-window-model.

Wiley, J. and Sons, I. (2021). The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership Model.  Retrieved from https://www.leadershipchallenge.com/Research/Five-Practices.aspx.

Welch, J. (2007) “Jack Welch Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Business Leader” Retrieved from   https://www.azquotes.com/author/15462-Jack_Welch

16 Personalities (2021). 16 Personalities. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/profiles/65ff972d420ba