Bus211G : Leadership Journal : Assessment Answers

The journal and goal-setting worksheet is weighted at 40% of the course. The format is totally up to you. Some general guidelines . Feel free to use pictures, mind maps, freehand or any other tool you like that helps you communicate your message.

Introducation:

Leadership refers to the practical skills present within the individual or organization for leading or guiding the other people, team members or the entire company. Leadership skill consists of the various theories including traits, function, behavior, vision, values, power and many more. There are three different types of leadership skills available which help in recognizing the ability of a leader. Self-analysis is a technique which helps in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a person and leads to enhance their core competencies and abilities (Hazy and Uhl-Bien, 2015). The present file consists of the self-analysis on the leadership skill. With respect to this, the study includes methods for assessing leadership, approaches for enhancing leadership skills and many more.

Tasks

I am working as an assistant manager at an IT company. My role is to help the manager in his or her tasks such as the development of the team, scheduling meetings, analyzing teamwork and many more. I am a beginner and due to this, needs to develop various skills and core competencies for enhancing the quality of my work and developing my professional career. With respect to this, it is also important to me to self-analyze my skills and knowledge for getting aware of my actual competencies and area of improvement. I pay attention to my daily activities for analyzing my working skills and knowledge for evaluating my strengths and weaknesses effectively.

Use of different tools for reflection of leadership qualities: 

The different tools which are used by me for analyzing my self-leadership qualities are as follows:

Morning Pages:

I daily use morning pages tool for writing my views and thoughts without any thinking, analysis, and stress. The practice of Morning pages includes writing of three pages, long-hand and upon waking for recovering the creativity (Jacobsen and Bøgh Andersen, 2015). This daily habit of mine helps me in evaluating my both strengths and weaknesses with respect to the managerial and leadership role. After analysis, I found that I am good at documentation as I keep all the necessary information noting on the register. Along with this, complete all the documents on time which are given by the manager. Along with this, I am a detail oriented person who pays much attention to the details instead of anything else. I like to read carefully all the instructions, guidelines, etc with respect to the task of avoiding any mistake later. My time management skills are also good as I use checklist method for completing all my daily work in office properly without any mismanagement or error. In context to this, I used to make a list of all the tasks as per their priority and importance for finishing them properly without any delay.

Apart from this, I also possess some weaknesses which need to improve for enhancing my skills for better professional career and development. In context to this, I have poor leadership skills and due to this, I am unable to guide and motivate other individuals for improving their performance and accomplishing the objectives of the firm. For becoming a good leader or manager, it is necessary to have good leadership abilities. Along with this, I am also poor at team management as I like to work alone. But for the better managerial role, it is important to have good leadership abilities so that manager or leader can manage the entire team, delegate work to them as per the expertise.

Survey Checklist Method

In order to assess my leadership skills further, I used survey checklist method. This technique helped me in assessing my areas of strengths and improvements. I used this method periodically for knowing how I have used my skills and knowledge over a period at the workplace. This method helped me in enhancing and improving self-awareness with respect to the emotional competencies, relationship management skills, other areas of enthusiasm, communication skills and many more which results to enhance my leadership qualities effectively and efficiently.

With respect to the method I used, I compiled all the checklists developed of leadership competencies and assess my personal strengths and weaknesses by analyzing the core competencies personally filled within the survey against the various parameters. With respect to this, I get to know that in my ability of leadership I need to improve my team management skills, relationship management skills and communication skills. All the three skills play an essential role in the development of a leader who helps team members in doing their task effectively. Survey Checklist is one of the effective methods as it is useful in identification, sorting and recording of the primary skills which are essential for controlling and doing the particular type of jobs. Along with this, the method offers valuable information with respect to the leader and for planning the future (Chreim, 2015.).

360 Degree Feedback Technique:

I also used 360-degree Feedback Technique for knowing my leadership skills effectively. In context to this, I developed various questions regarding my work, roles and responsibilities, strengths and many more. I distributed a questionnaire to the peers, superiors and other authorities for collecting the feedback about my work and performance. Members included in the method rate my skills, quality of work and performance. This technique provides an honest review about me and my abilities. The feedback of the senior authorities also reveals that I am poor at maintaining relationship skill and need to improve my communication skills as well. Leader posses a high sense of emotional stability, credibility, and integrity which influences other workers to work hard and perform well (Posner, Crawford and Denniston-Stewart, 2015).

Reflection of personal leadership strengths and weaknesses: 

Leadership is not only about the qualities but it is about the behavior and personality a person possesses in the form of an observable set of skills and abilities. For becoming a successful leader, it is important to have all the necessary core competencies for influencing the team members to work hard and perform high. By using the different tools, I found that I am weak at managing team, maintaining relations and communication skills. All the three core competencies play an essential role in becoming a successful and strong leader. However, there are other qualities as well which contributes in the development of a good leader but it is important to have fluent and strong communication skills for developing relations and maintaining team (Harris and et al., 2017). 

Along with this, relationship management skills lead to developing a strong bond between the team members and the leader which results to accomplish the organizational goals and objectives effectively. On the other hand, team management is a core part of the leadership practices as without it, it is not possible to do quality work with high performance. Thus, it is important for me to have relationship management, team management, and communication skills for developing effective leadership skills. All the three skills are related to the major areas of leadership which are a commitment, engagement, and satisfaction (Quin and et al., 2015). I found while working as an assistant manager that all the three factors of lead to developing positive environment among the team members.

According to the Leadership Challenge, there are five practices which help an individual to become an extraordinary leader. These five practices consist of the model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. As per the practices, some principles are formed by the leaders by considering their customers, team members or peers and then set examples for others to follow (Santamaría and et al., 2015). With respect to this, I have to make some principles so that I can develop skills properly for becoming a strong and influencing leader in the upcoming future.

Along with this, leaders are creative and able to make an appropriate difference and this is only possible through the communication and problem-solving skills. By maintaining effective interaction and managing the team members, I can inspire team members to have a shared vision for their development along with the firm. By maintaining relations and communicating the work, I can think innovative and generate unique ideas with the collaboration of the team. I also need to accept the challenges and risks which come across while handling the work and managing the team. Apart from all of these, the major role of the leader is to foster the collaboration and develop the spirited teams. Mutual respect is one of the necessary factors which need to have among the team members and develop by the leader (McGee, Haworth and MacIntyre, 2015).

An atmosphere of the trust and human dignity is also developed by the leader which helps in developing an effective team. It is not easy to achieve the extraordinary things as it requires lots of hard work and dedication. With respect to this, the contribution of the team members is recognized by the leaders which increase their level of motivation and confidence. By going through the entire leadership challenge, I found that leadership principles help in accomplishing the desired goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. I need to develop lots of qualities in me for gaining the effective leadership qualities. The leadership challenge inspired me to know my improvement areas and to take corrective actions for achieving them.

With respect to my weaknesses, I develop a vision of improving them within the next 6 months for developing leadership skills in me and preparing myself for the better future. I also need to keep myself motivated and confident to develop leadership skills all along the decided time period.  

SMART Goals and Objectives: 

Before starting any practice, it is necessary to develop proper goals (Brink and Costigan, 2015.). My goals with respect to the leadership qualities are as follows:

• To develop relationship management skills for influencing the staff members and making them work hard in next 2 months with the help of most appropriate strategies
• To increase communication by 10% with the peers, co-workers, seniors and other staff members for conveying the information properly to the team members of the firm
• To develop team management skills for developing an extraordinary and hard working team until March 2019 by implementing suitable methods
• To self-analyze in regular 15 days for evaluating the improvement and identifying the remaining weaknesses.
• To take feedbacks from the higher authorities and co-workers with respect to my work and performance every 1 month

Strategies for Accomplishing the Goals: