MG629 Self-reflection on Personal Leadership Development Assessment Answer

Introduction

Several varied leadership and management philosophies exist and no sole approach can be regarded as the right one. Irrespective of the leadership philosophies, self-reflection has played and will constantly play a substantial role in shaping the manager's leadership philosophy (Burgess and Martin-Jones 2019). In my view, leadership is normally connected to the great leader that has dynamically impacted his or her followers. I have no existing leadership experience as of now, but throughout my sessions in leadership class, I will expand my knowledge in several ways. I will completely understand the purpose and procedure of leadership in society. To become a leader, one is required to maintain an image of being a role model (Cruess et al. 2019). A leader would be someone who has the capability to encourage, influence, listen and nurture. They are immensely able to stimulate, inspire, shape, persuade and have a positive impact on others (Lefebvre et al. 2020).

Assessment Tests

To assess my leadership traits, I conducted a personality test and situational judgment test in which I designed a questionnaire that include several aspects of traits and characteristics (Webster et al. 2020). Through these assessment tests, I was able to recognize that my style of leadership falls under the skills approach label. As the skills approach is categorized into three elements, I contemplate that it will be helpful in describing how they exactly apply to my style of leadership (Bardach et al. 2021). The first one is technical skills and which define the capability to carry out a specific form of activity. I found that I perform my assignments with the slight issue and I am a quick learner. The second one is human skills which describe the capability to work with people. I somewhere found it difficult to work with strangers and for that, I need to develop social skills. Third is conceptual skills which define the capability to communicate regarding concepts and ideas (Rahman 2019). This one is near to my approach as I know that robust vision is necessary for effective leadership. When I handled some school projects, I ensured to make a well-defined vision before starting to work on any project.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I believe that my greatest strengths and weakness lie in the following factors. I am a highly inspired person when it arrives to leadership. I learned to love working in an interconnected team. To ensure that it functions at optimum efficiency, I make efforts to do my best in interacting with team members, acquiring their feedback and addressing the same as soon as possible. In general, I found that feedback is one of the important parts of any teamwork (Mayo 2020). They must be shared freely among teammates without any hindrance of hierarchy positions. Another strength is my ability to evaluate the requirements of the team members. I always ensure that everybody involved in the work has the necessary information and material required for them. This helped in avoiding large delays and building confidence among the team members (Masood et al. 2020).

However, I have a few weaknesses as well and I hope to address them in future. Often, I find it extremely complex to balance my vision with suggestions from team members (Kolbe et al. 2020). I comprehend that it is one of the aspects of successful leadership, but at times, it becomes tough for me to agree with an opinion when it seems like it would compromise the part of the vision. Perhaps, I require to pay attention to combining suggestions with vision or evaluating suggestions to look if they could be executed for a better outcome than one expected in absence of them. I also realized that when discussing motivation with teammates, I used to get too involved in their personal lives even when I know, I should not and must behave professionally (Murnieks et al. 2020).

Range of Leadership Activities and their Effectiveness

The first activity will be named Survival Leadership where the team will get divided into two groups and presented with survival situations: shipwreck, or plane crash. A list of items will be offered that might act as useful in such situations. Groups will be challenged to select 5 items that will assist them in surviving. After that, the team will be asked to justify the selection and how they will use such items to overcome the problem (Bolden et al. 2023).

This activity is effective as it will stimulate creative, critical and strategic thinking along with problem-solving skills that can act as useful in future.

The other one is Leaders You Admire. This activity needs the participants to work together to arrive at past and present leadership figures in society. Each group must form a comprehensive list of characters that made such figures good leaders. This activity will enhance teamwork and engagement and reveals qualities and traits that everybody can admire (Daniels et al. 2019).

The third one is named What if. This activity recognizes how members of any team resolve problems differently. Participants will be offered workplace problems and every member will write how they will solve the same. Then, each member will read their response aloud. It will help in determining the forms of leadership styles that are there among participants (Stronge and Xu 2021).

E-portfolio Record of Leadership Development Journey

Leadership Plan

In future, I will make efforts to enhance my leadership skills. I have thought of acquiring an authentic leadership style as I found it both effective and respectable while working in any team (Alvesson and Einola 2019). To acquire this style, I will need to enhance my human or social skills set by reading adequate materials and indulging myself in leadership activities When I used to be a member of any team, I enjoy having a leader that works as an example for the followers. To acquire this style, I also require to learn how to balance personal vision with feedback from the team. It can be achieved by analyzing previous projects where the feedback is directed to better outcomes (Fremeaux and Pavageau 2022).

At this moment, I made use of a skills approach towards leadership. It assists me in improving my skills and assists in creating effective work culture. I enjoy leading but I have a few weaknesses to overcome to become a successful leader.

References

Alvesson, M. and Einola, K., 2019. Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership and other traps in leadership studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(4), pp.383-395.

Bardach, L., Rushby, J.V., Kim, L.E. and Klassen, R.M., 2021. Using video-and text-based situational judgement tests for teacher selection: a quasi-experiment exploring the relations between test format, subgroup differences, and applicant reactions. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 30(2), pp.251-264.

Bolden, R.H., Hawkins, B. and Gosling, J., 2023. Exploring leadership. Oxford University Press.

Burgess, S.W. and Martin-Jones, K., 2019. Spirituality as a reflection of value-centeredness. In The Routledge companion to management and workplace spirituality (pp. 293-303). Routledge.

Cruess, S.R., Cruess, R.L. and Steinert, Y., 2019. Supporting the development of professional identity: general principles. Medical teacher, 41(6), pp.641-649.

Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A. and Dochy, F., 2019. A review on leadership and leadership development in educational settings. The educational research review, 27, pp.110-125.

Frémeaux, S. and Pavageau, B., 2022. Meaningful leadership: how can leaders contribute to meaningful work? Journal of Management Inquiry, 31(1), pp.54-66.

Kolbe, M., Eppich, W., Rudolph, J., Meguerdichian, M., Catena, H., Cripps, A., Grant, V. and Cheng, A., 2020. Managing psychological safety in debriefings: a dynamic balancing act. BMJ simulation & technology enhanced learning, 6(3), p.164.

Lefebvre, J.I., Montani, F. and Courcy, F., 2020. Self-compassion and resilience at work: A practice-oriented review. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 22(4), pp.437-452.

Masood, Z., Hoda, R. and Blincoe, K., 2020. How agile teams make self-assignment work: a grounded theory study. Empirical Software Engineering, 25, pp.4962-5005.

Mayo, A.T., 2020. Teamwork in a pandemic: insights from management research. BMJ Leader, pp.leader-2020.

Murnieks, C.Y., Klotz, A.C. and Shepherd, D.A., 2020. Entrepreneurial motivation: A review of the literature and an agenda for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 41(2), pp.115-143.

Rahman, M., 2019. 21st-century skill problem solving': Defining the concept. Rahman, MM (2019). 21st Century Skill “Problem Solving”: Defining the Concept. Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2(1), pp.64-74.

Stronge, J.H. and Xu, X., 2021. Qualities of effective principals. ASCD.

Webster, E.S., Paton, L.W., Crampton, P.E. and Tiffin, P.A., 2020. Situational judgement test validity for selection: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Medical Education, 54(10), pp.888-902.

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