Leadership Essay Research Paper
Leadership Essay Research Paper
For this assignment, you are required to write a Leadership Research Essay.
Requirement: Using the terms, concepts, and theories learned in this course, write a 5 to 7 page (Times New Roman 12 font with double-spaced lines) leadership essay defining your leadership philosophy with one or more of the leadership theories we have studied. Each page should be approximately 350 words, so the total word count (not counting the reference page and the title page) should be at least 1750 words. Papers with fewer than 1750 words will have deductions for lack of content. Quotes should be limited and if necessary, cited appropriately. For this assignment, the use of first person is allowed. Leadership Essay Research Paper
No abstract is necessary. Include a clear and concise introductory and concluding paragraph.Research: Additionally, using the APUS Online Library, conduct research and incorporate at least two (2) additional sources other than your textbook and course articles to support your essay. Use the APA Style to cite your \”in-text\” references and to list your references on a reference page.Your essay will address these questions:A. What leadership model, style, or theory best describes you as a leader? Why? Give examples using the terms and concepts in your textbook.1) Skills Approach
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2) Situational Approach
3) Behavioral Approach
4) Trait Approach
5) Path-Goal Approach
B. What are your most distinguishing leadership traits? What traits do you strive to learn to develop?C. As a follower, what leadership approach do you prefer from your leader?D. What leadership model or theory best describes how you influence others? Give examples.
E. Based on your self-assessments, your current leadership and motivational skills, and the knowledge you have gained from the course materials, what goals will you set and what plan of action will you implement to improve your (1) leadership and (2) motivation? Include the type of leadership theory or model you intend to implement to achieve your goals.F. Explain the steps you need to take to complete each of these self-improvement goals?Save your essay as Last Name_Leadership Research Essay_MGMT312.doc (e.g. Smith_Leadership Research Essay_MGMT312.doc).When you are ready, upload your essay for grading.Paper Format:A. Title Page – Include a title page with your name, student number, title of your paper, course number, course name, and date.B. Introductory Paragraph – Include an introductory paragraph that ends.C. Font and Spacing – Use Times New Roman 12 font with double spaced lines.D. Length – Write a 5 to 7 page essay not including the title page and citation page.E. Reference Page – Include all sources including your textbook on a Reference page1. Utilize the APA Style for documenting sources. Remember to include at least 2 sources other than your textbooks. Finally, remember Wikipedia is NOT a scholarly source. Quotes must be properly cited. Limit quotes to less than 10% of your paper if you must have any.2. Punctuation, essay format (thesis, supporting paragraphs with transition and topic sentences, and summary) grammar and documentation count toward your grade. Leadership Essay Research Paper
Leadership entails having command over a group of people. The ability of an individual becoming a leader is dictated by several factors among them being the leadership style, personal traits, as well as attributes. Therefore, an individual character is a great influence and a determinant of the leadership capability that one holds. With leadership, it comes with responsibility and one is expected to motivate the followers to achieve certain set goals. Due to the ever-changing leadership environment, it is advisable that an individual strives to develop leadership skills in order to keep up with the changes and adopt the right approach that best fits the group they are leading (Jiménez, 2018). This essay will discuss different leadership elements such as approaches, traits, skills, models and theories.
- The Leadership Model That Best Describes Me as A Leader
There are different leadership styles that define whom a leader is. As such, individual character, situational analysis, as well as the diversity of the followers largely dictates the kind of approach that a leader adopts. For me, I always prefer to be flexible. This best fit the situational leadership theory approach which states that there exists no specific leadership approach and as such, the approach is dictated by the situation at hand (Jiménez, 2018). Being able to adapt depending on the needs of the followers creates trust and comfort which drive motivation to achieve the set goals. The reason for adopting this approach is that it makes the leadership work easier, especially in group management or introduction of changes. Therefore, with the situational approach, there is no worry in facing diverse situations as one is flexible to accommodate the expected changes (Negro & Mesia, 2020).
With a flexible leadership approach, am placed in a better position where am able to switch with the comfort of the subordinates and as such, elements such as guiding, directing, coaching and delegating are made possible therefore bringing out quality and success in my leadership. To manage people effectively as a leader, I first identify their preference and capabilities through different levels of competence that they exhibit. With the results at hand, I am better placed to identify the best leadership strategy to apply that will be fit for everyone and the one that will work for the best interest of the concerned organization. What’s more, situational leadership involves the leader providing direction and at the same time, providing a room for open suggestion by the team members (Negro & Mesia, 2020). This creates trust and makes the members feel valued through their contribution promoting effectiveness and fast decision making. On the other hand, sharing of ideas is promoted within the team and this improves knowledge and equality through the promotion of skills that best works towards better management of the team, as well as improvement of productivity.
- My Most Distinguishing Leadership Traits and The Traits I Strive to Learn to Develop
Traits are an integrated pattern of individual characteristics that enable an individual to act and behave in a consistent manner. When it comes to leadership traits, it comprises of the skills and knowledge that assists the leader to lead effectively and consistently over a period of time. In this regard, my most distinguishing leadership traits are integrity, vision, influence, decisiveness and courage. About integrity, I always advocate of always observing good ethics of doing the right thing at the right time (Jiménez, 2018). On vision, I always remind my team of the goals we have to achieve and always stay focused. On the other hand, good influence is vital in a team and this involves me being a leader and a mentor whom others can emulate. Furthermore, decisiveness requires a leader to come up with a way forward and provide direction on matters that arise and for this I always make sure I guide my team in the best way possible. Finally, on courage, I keep motivating my members not to give up easily. Sometimes things may not work as expected, but this does not mean you abandon everything. Adopting new strategies is also a way of overcoming barriers.
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Nevertheless, there are traits that I envy to develop in order to fully equip myself with the required skills and knowledge to face all the leadership challenges that emerge now and in future. These comprise of two major areas that are effective communication and empathy. In the course of my leadership, I find myself being weak in these two areas. On empathy, am too emotional to listen to members who have gone through difficult times. This sometimes fails me to fully concentrate on members’ needs which sometimes may jeopardize the whole efforts of a team. On the other hand, I find communication giving me a challenge due to my personality. I tend to listen more and talk less and sometimes this gets interpreted wrongly by members as a weakness of expression (Birknerová, et al., 2017). Therefore, these two areas need improvement for the future leadership success and strength. Leadership Essay Research Paper
- The Leadership Approach That I Prefer from My Leader
Leaders adopt different approaches when it comes to leading teams. This may depend on several factors, including the nature of the team, the situation at hand or the leader preference. Therefore, different teams are managed differently due to the influence of these factors. Nevertheless, as a follower, I prefer a leader who adopts a situational approach in their leadership strategy. Situational approach advocates for openness and flexibility in a team where everyone’s opinion counts. The teams that apply this approach tend to be easy to manage as members develop a free will and trust with the leadership of the day. I also prefer this leadership approach as it creates value both on the members individual level, and as a whole team (Kesting et al., 2015). By way of value creation, the competence is also improved thus making the set goals easier to reach on their targets.
Furthermore, I also prefer a leader who adopts a situational approach as it improves the leadership relationship with the team members. By being flexible, members feel free to air their views and it becomes easy for a leader to establish the underlying issues and find ways to resolve them on time. On the other hand, flexibility and openness gives room for easier adoption of changes. Change is inevitable and thus being flexible creates an opportunity to make the necessary changes without much of a challenge. On the members side, it also becomes easier for them to accept and facilitate the changes. With the overall acceptance of the changes, it becomes easier for the team to achieve the set goals, hence bringing in the needed success. What’s more, the situational approach brings in the best results per given situation as changes in strategy are best applied according to the situation at hand, thus resolve the issues in the best way possible as presented by the uniqueness of each situation.
- The Leadership Model or Theory That Best Describes How I Influence Others
The way a leader influences the team ultimately determines the failure or success of the concerned team. As such, a leader must adopt a model that will guide their leadership to bring the best out of the expected results. In this case, my influence of others as a leader can best be described as transformational leadership. Transformational leadership theory dictates that a leader should collaborate with the team members to establish the needed changes and together as a team, create a vision that will guide them in implementing the changes (Milhem et al., 2019). The leader main role here is to give inspiration through the creation of motivation to the team. With this regard, my leadership model can be termed as full range, where every team member comes on board and decisions emanate from the weighing of opinions contributed by each member (Jiménez, 2018). Leadership Essay Research Paper
Nevertheless, transformational leadership expects much more from the leader as they must be distinguished from the rest of the members in a team. For me, my leadership model incorporates giving inspiration to the members, solving any emerging conflict between them amicably, as well as intercepting where difficult decisions have to be made. Transformational leadership also goes beyond the team need and checks and also focuses on individual conduct (Milhem et al., 2019). By way of transforming the team to the next level, everyone must be on the same level and therefore, ensuring there is a check and balance in terms of contribution for each member is vital. This model also calls for self-sacrifice where the leader should place the interests of the group before their interest. Moreover, transformational leadership creates team enthusiasm, as well as brings along the intellectual stimulation within the team. I usually tend to encourage new ideas that brings along with it the innovation, which transforms to change and eventually new and better ways of doing things (Kesting et al., 2015).
- The Goals I Will Set and The Plan of Action I Will Implement to Improve My Leadership and Motivational Skills
Leadership and motivational skills are vital in ensuring that the type of leadership that one exhibits is of quality and one that results in success for the teams set goals. Periodically, a leader must perform checks on these skills in order to make sure that they are enhanced and they also match with the team needs and also the set standards both at the organizational level, as well as the industrial level. Setting a plan of action and implementing it towards the improvement of the leadership and the motivational skills is crucial in ensuring that the leader’s competence is kept in check at all times. About my plan of action and the implementation to improve leadership and motivational skills, I have first identified my weak areas which need development to reach the required level in order to raise my level of competency. These areas are the communication effectiveness, as well as empathy. Empathy mostly touches on the motivational skills while communication effectiveness touches on the leadership (Jiménez, 2018).
Therefore, my action plan is to improve both areas while still maintaining the other skills that I regard as my strength in order to accomplish a journey towards becoming a successful leader, now and heading into the future. Before developing an action plan, one must identify the weak areas that may require improvement. After that, there should be a set timeline that defines which action should be taken and at what time within the timeline period. Care should be observed at this stage to ensure that there exists a balance of observing the leadership and motivational skills across the board to avoid abandoning the already strong areas that may also lead to creation of weak points. With goals, I plan to be a distinguished leader in this region, with an exemplary record of success emanating from the handwork and improvement of leadership and motivational skills.
- The Steps I Need to Take to Complete Each of These Self-Improvement Goals
Self-improvement goals are those that a leader makes the necessary assessment and identifies the weak points that may need improvement. There is also an established timeline for the implementation of the goals in order to make a track on the progress made through the action plan. The steps for implementation must consider a few elements so that they can be viable and effective. Time, resources, urgency, nature of the team and the number of goals will determine the overall implementation process.Leadership Essay Research Paper
For my self-improvement goals, I require to improve on two major areas; on effective communication and empathy. On effective communication, my weak point is that I tend to listen too much. As such, I will try and rectify these by intervening where necessary. Sometimes asserting authority too is a way of controlling contributions within the team and by doing so, there is established borderline that eliminates the sense of weakness that the members can wrongly mistake the leader with (Birknerová, et al., 2017). On the other hand, about the self-improvement goal of empathy, I will be taking courage first on listening to the members challenges which will eliminate the emotional element and bring understanding of the situations at hand. This will create an opportunity to asses the needs of the members and the action I am supposed to take in order to resolve the issues. These two remarkable steps of self-improvement goals will not only assist me in improving my future leadership and motivational skills, but will as well assist greatly in enhancing my relationship with team members thus improving group effectiveness and competency. It is therefore important that I strive to improve on these weak areas so that they can enhance my overall leadership skills to be a leader that I envy and as well, who is a choice for others.
References
Birknerová, Z., Birkner, M., & Zbihlejová, L. (2017). Analysis of links between communication
skills, motivational orientations, and awareness of coaching. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 6(4), 505-510. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.19236/IJOL.2017.04.07
Jiménez, M. (2018). Leadership style, organizational performance, and change through the lens
of emotional intelligence. Foundations of Management, 10(1), 237-250. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/fman-2018-0018
Kesting, P., Ulhøi, J. P., Song, L. J., & Niu, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on
innovation – a review. Journal of Innovation Management, 3(4), 22-41.
Milhem, M., Muda, H., & Khalil, A. (2019). The effect of perceived transformational leadership
style on employee engagement: The mediating effect of Leader’s emotional intelligence. Foundations of Management, 11(1), 33-42. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/fman-2019-0003
Negro, A. R., & Mesia, R. (2020). Situational leadership and leader versatility. Journal of
Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 17(3), 109-121.Leadership Essay Research Paper
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