The Meaning Of Leadership To Me: Qualities That Create A Leader

For countless millennia, we had witnessed the birth of several societies and organizations that had flourished from successful leadership. Today, in modern businesses you could immediately tell how the leadership it had evolved into at present and the leadership it had decades earlier. Take for instance the leadership of the Samsung. Back in 1938, Samsung with only 40 employees, had only engaged in engaging in grocery store, trading and exporting goods. At this present, Samsung had diversified its business into mostly engaging in construction and electronics manufacturing. Thanks to its leadership, they really came a long way. Another inspirational leader we can relate in this subject would be Sir Richard Branson, the founder of The Virgin Group. The way he runs the business would be like rule-breaker but in a positive manner. Sir Richard Branson way is a best example of a transformational kind of leadership. As quoted from him, “Client do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” This matter especially in business because it could create a positive organisational culture. Here in MB 122, students are shown the key factors and concepts of various leadership style. Aside from that, students will also conduct assessed themselves to determine what qualities they lack in their preferred leadership styles.

In week 2 of the unit, I found out on my self-assessment that my leadership style is more of a delegator. A delegator in such a way that, prior to executing a task, I always give detailed instructions, give specific goals, checks frequently with members to keep them on track and demonstrate the steps involved in doing the task. According to Chaneski (2016), the delegating style is opposite of the directing style in such a way that is almost completely hands-off. Delegating style of leadership is one that every leader finds ideal, because at this point, employees have acquired the requisite skills to take control of all tasks (Chaneski, 2016). This style of leadership is also commonly known as laissez-faire leadership. Warren Buffett is the best example of this style of leadership that I could think of. The advantages in having a delegating style of leadership is that it increase satisfaction with work, meaning the employee has the initiative to complete task on his own that could lead to an increased level of satisfaction in his work. Another advantage for this style of leadership is that it encourages people who are self-motivated. Aside from that, it necessitates having leaders. Leaders are there to offer helpful advice. Talking about Warren Buffett as the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, he has hired highly skilled as well independent executives that does not need much of his supervision. Through Buffett style of leadership, the company has achieved great success in using it. This kind of has also some disadvantages such as that it will not work on people who are not self-motivated, risky in delegating to people who lack knowledge and lastly it can lead minimal cohesiveness. The result of this assessment was not I have in mind. Prior to that self-assessment, I was expecting that it would be a facilitator. As per the self-assessment in order for me to be in the context of a facilitating style leadership, one must first and foremost involve the staff in the decision making especially with things that could affect their work. As a facilitator, one must allow staff to make them comfortable by allowing them to ask questions and discuss important activities such as on staff meetings that must be held frequently. Aside from that, a leader must also support the staff’s development activities. Other self-assessment activities we had conducted was about our emotional intelligence and conflict management. With regards to my emotional intelligence (EI), it turned out that I have a high sense of empathy but low in managing emotions. But overall, all the areas in EI such as self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and social skill are still my strengths. And this meant that I need to enhance more with regards to managing my emotions. In terms of Conflict Management Style Assessment, I have found out that I am more of a collaborating type. This means that I value both my goals and my relationships. I view conflict as a problem to be solved and I mostly would seek solution that is beneficial to all which coincides with the description in the self-assessment.

Based on the self-assessment I have done, it is now clear the kind of leadership I had back then. It way back in when was still working in an aluminum foundry in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. We had various encounter of not being able to keep a record of the status of our mold used in aluminum casting and I was just recently employed that company. In aluminum die casting, it always a customary practice to make a mold number for each mold so that if similar requirement later on is need we can then just reuse again that mold for that same purpose. So we came up with a solution with my operations manager and had assigned me to organize a team to check and log all the molds being stacked in the stockyard. Immediately I went to the foundry, coordinated with the production supervisor and form a team to check all the molds visually one by one. I was spared with two operators to assist me in the yard. Before we head down to the yard, I have checked what they are capable of in the factory. One of them was familiar with all the mold number and the other one has license to operate a forklift. So what I did was that the one who was familiar with the mold, I have tasked him to start with looking, taking pictures and logging for the large mold. While the other one will assist in handling, arranging and sorting all the molds to make the stockyard more organize. After two days painstakingly working through that yard, we have completed logging and updating all the molds in that area. Once all were logged, I have uploaded all the photos along with it corresponding mold numbers and its details in our central database. With some assistance from our IT, we were able to create a system that would allow us to access a database where we can see our list of available molds along with its corresponding picture in the stockyard. All we have to do then was input in the search any of the parameters such as mold dimensions, weight of the cast aluminum or mold number and it will then automatically shows all the matches in our inventory. Our operations manager was quite impressed that we have finished this tasked in such a short time given the fact that most of the molds in the yard has been stored there for more than five years already. And if staff were unaware that such mold had already existed in our inventory, creating new mold would mean another cost in fabricating it. That is why it was very good call that we have already update all the database in our mold at that time.

Reflecting on these self-assessments and lectures, I can see now that though I have the capability to lead a team. Though, I still need to improve some of my qualities. Qualities such as that I should rely and trust more on the staff especially if they are really capable of executing special tasks handed over to them. The style of leadership that I am really aspiring of was to become a transformational leader. Take for instance Sir Richard Branson, he is a good example of a transformational leader. As for him taking care of the welfare of his employee first could lead to a more productive output in the company. Taking care of your employee principle is at the heart of changing a great place to work (Sotoohi, 2018). According to Sotoohi (2018), this matters because disengaged employees could cost billions of dollars in lost productivity annually. Another example of a transformational leader I can think of is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who led the civil rights movement in America from 1955 to until his assassination in 1968. His speech “I Have a Dream” had become one of the finest speeches in the American history in terms of oratory. In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded a Noble Prize for Peace. Through his leadership, it led successfully to the ending of legal segregation of the African Americans in the United States. What’s so amazing about being a transformational leadership is that aside from inspires others, it increases morale and the engagement that could increase in productivity.

Through transformational leadership, results can leave long lasting legacy on the long run. It is due to the fact that inspiration from this type of leaders can motivate others to engage in achieving goals set by the organization. The result of these actions can then spread to other society setting as a good example and thus a legacy is born. When aspiring to be transformational leader, as much as possible, favoritism should must not be practiced in any way. Because this could affect the morale and the motivation of other members. Several studies have been conducted already about favoritism and nepotism which showed mostly very bad results in terms of productivity of the organization. In one of the study conducted by Daskin, Arasli & Kasim (2015), research had shown that nepotism had a significant negative impact on job satisfaction and in increase the mentality of quite intention. To be transformational leader, unlike the laissez-faire leadership, one must be more immersed when it comes work and should be eager enough to be more proactive with the interaction of their members especially when it comes to brainstorming of new ideas. In dealing with conflicts, it is the best interest of everyone if it is in a win-win result. From result of my conflict management style, it showed that I am more of a collaborating style in which I find it okay. But in order to be a transformational leader, I realized now that I have to also to be a little bit of accommodating style in the context of conflict management. In doing so the accommodating style of doctrine in managing conflict, by trying to value relationships, motivation amongst the members are high then. Which then leads us back to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs motivational theory wherein if a leader had met the condition that the employee needed. That is why it also crucial to check the emotional intelligence also of a leader because it is a contributing factor on how a leader will interact and manage people sensibly.

To be a transformational leader, one must be able to have these 4 concepts: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation. In idealized influence, the leader must “walk the talk”. This is the key concept as well in creating an organizational culture. In inspirational motivation, transformational leaders should have the ability to motivate followers with his vision. The vision that transformational leader envisioned should must be easily be understandable to the followers. In individualized consideration, close relationship between a leader and the followers is a very crucial factor in this concept. Understanding the capabilities and needs of the followers, a leader can then gain their trust and confidence. And lastly in intellectual stimulation, the leaders must encourage the followers to improve by challenging them to be innovative in a way that it would develop new technique and skills. According to the study conducted by Jyoti and Dev (2015), transformational leaders can have a positive effect on the creativity of the followers. This might be because transformational leaders tend to enhance employees’ abilities to develop new ideas (Bass and Avolio, 1994).

After carefully trying to absorb all these principles, I have understood now that in order to be an effective leader one must first do a self-assessment first before trying to influence others in order to know what needs to be done and what needs to be improve. By carefully preparing oneself, a leader will then able to assess the risk and make contingency plans during the execution of his plans. Prior to that, a mission and vision must be laid out well to serve as his guidelines as well as for the organizations. As the saying goes “A soldier cannot go war on an empty stomach”, so is a leader as well must be armed with knowledge, expertise, principles and beliefs in stewarding to new challenges ahead for the organization to prevail and persevere.