Defining Leadership Direction Essays Example

There are various goals and priorities that can assist a leader to facilitate their leadership. According to Daft (2008), an effective leadership involves six fundamental elements that enable a leader to be ready and open to change. These elements include intention, personal integrity and responsibility, influence, shared purpose, change, and followers. These elements are essential in building an effective relationship between the leader and their followers. For this reason, this paper analyzes some of the goals that can help me to improve my leadership skills in order to fit well in the contemporary professional leadership.
The first goal and priority is to enhance my interpersonal skills so that I can be in a better position to improve the relationship with the followers as a leader. The rationale behind this goal is to make my colleagues and followers to feel comfortable to work and corporate with me rather than feeling afraid and intimidated by my reactions. From the Daft’s work, I have learned that the major theme of leadership involves appreciating and respecting all the individuals and the ideas. For this reason, enhancing interpersonal skills is essential to define how I deal with the other people in a position of a leader. The interpersonal skills will help me in the leadership position to break the traditions of intimidating and feared leader into a leader who understands the various dynamics of his followers. This is because the rational theory defines the leadership as a scenario where followers and leaders interact and influence each other. For this reason, the skills will help me to time to request for the opinions from the other people, improve communication skills and also listen to other people’s viewpoints. Today, enhanced communication skills are considered as vital tools for enhancing leadership. Therefore, developing interpersonal skills will help me to develop great communication and consequently improve my way of dealing with the people around me.
In the contemporary world, various organizations are hiring leaders who are in a better position to get along with other people. Therefore, enhanced interpersonal skills are essential in building an effective leader in terms of their traits, relationships, and behaviors. According to Daft, trait is the most essential because distinguished the leader’s personal characteristics, which are presented in patterns of behaviors. Therefore, this provides a rationale under which the interpersonal skills are important in building effective leadership skills. In addition, these skills will build my ability to handle ambiguity and questions, analyze others, and improve the interaction with the colleagues and the followers. These skills are also important in improving the five general personality dimensions such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, openness to experience, and extraversion (Daft, 2008). As a result, the learning about leadership will transform me from a boss into a leader who coaches people instead of driving them and work on good will rather than authority.
A leader can achieve the goal through various ways. For instance, it’s important to focus on relationships because of creating cohesion and improved understanding. As a leader, I am expected to leave the ego behind. My role is to ensure that my actions set the required pace in the line of duty. It’s impossible to inspire others if your actions don’t match the expected behaviors from the team members. Another way to inspire others is to pinpoint the best winning strategy.
A leader who understands the resemblance of victory toil and moil to achieve the utmost potential and abates wasted efforts. When he identifies the right thing to perform to stay winning, he will influence others to act on his behalf. As a leader, I am determined to team members free through inspiring their acts. It is crucial to give the members the right direction for the achievement of the set goals and objectives. Moreover, a good leader develops a timeline that highlights each process and the best time to perform the assigned tasks. As I leader, I will authorize my team members to act, and this will motivate them. From the course readings, Influence theories are of great help towards effective leadership. The theory will help me to share my vision as it will improve the mindset of my followers. As a result, my followers will be inspired by my thoughts and opinions and hence plan and action for change.
The final goal in the field of leadership involves increasing my knowledge in order to cope with the changing dynamics of the followers and the organization at large. Improving my knowledge is important because it will enable me to enhance my existing abilities and hence to become a valuable and well-rounded leader. A career can be built, and success can be only derived from persistently increasing the skills and knowledge. Therefore in order to reveal my full potential and career growth, the goal of increasing knowledge will play an essential role. This will build not only the followers and colleague relationships but also market knowledge, customer knowledge, organization memory, and business environment among others. There are numerous platforms that can boost my knowledge and awareness. The urge to seek advice from leaders of multiple organizations is a very important aspect towards increased knowledge. I will also take part in performing extensive research so that I can learn more about effective leadership and management.
Learning about leadership will not only change me to a democratic leader but also a leader who owns his truth. In other words, acquiring the qualities of an effective leader will help me to avoid making assumptions and stories about other people. I often make the wrong conclusion about people and sometimes calling them lazy because they are unable to complete an assigned task. This is a wrong judgment because there are impeding factors that make people unable to complete tasks rather than being lazy. In addition, the teachings from the leadership learning are anticipated me to exercise democracy by allowing people to decide the best way to complete the objectives and aims effectively. This is because leadership is defined as a “process that meaningfully engages all participants and enables each person to contribute to achieving the vision” (Daft, 2008).
In conclusion, the leadership experience by Daft provides the right platform that guides learners on how to apply leadership concepts in real life. Reflections on the course boosted my awareness regarding encountered and effective leadership. I was exposed on how best to utilize self- assessment instruments towards shaping skills. The textbook can be very helpful to co-curricular leadership development programs since its entails numerous engaging activities. As a matter of fact, the course readings increased my knowledge and awareness, and I was placed in the best position to improve me leadership abilities.

References

Daft, R. L. (2008). The leadership experience (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.
White, J. (2011). Excellence in leadership: Reaching goals with prayer, courage & determination. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.