My personal leadership can be formulated as follows: “An inventor of the new game-changing approach to organization and community leadership”. To my mind, one of the most important cornerstones of leadership is an ability to innovate and change the approaches to problem-solving at different levels. Innovation is crucial for all the modern organizations, as well as communities (especially, with regard to the development of local response to global issues, such as environment protection and climate change). Therefore, I aim to reconsider existing approaches to both organizational and community leadership in order to improve problem-orientation and approach global issues from the local standpoint.
My leadership goals include inspiration, motivation, honesty and straightforwardness. Inspiration and motivation are essential elements that help individuals to develop creative approaches to solving problems at different levels, as well as not be afraid to introduce non-traditional solutions. Honesty, as well as straightforwardness constitutes the basis for mutual trust within a team. In turn, trust helps tem members in a number of ways, such as
Supporting quality deliberation of idea, when all the points are out on the table, and critique is fully acceptable
Reaching high level of team members’ engagement into the functioning of the team, their loyalty and dedication
Promoting constructive conflict that facilitates innovative ideas, rather than mutual dissatisfaction and a team’s underperformance
The goals, highlighted above can be realized with the help of a number of strategies.
Inspiration
Being able to inspire individuals in a team is an important asset of a leader, because only genuine interest and inspiration can help him/her to facilitate the development of highly non-traditional and innovative ideas.
As personal example tends to play a crucial role in the formation of mutually rewarding relationships between a leader and followers, the first action strategy can be formulated as follows.
Action strategy 1. To emphasize professional and personal development through continuous expansion of knowledge (especially, in the field related to a company’s performance) and the development of leadership and related skills
Another important aspect of inspiration deals with clearly formulated goals of an organization. As I envisage to combine organizational and community leadership (most possibly, with the help of promoting corporate social responsibility of an organization, my second inspiration-related strategy is:
The actions, needed to realize the strategy include:
Reading at least five a month, dedicated to solving community issues at community and organizational levels
Acquiring and improving job-related skills (e.g, strategic planning, strategic audit, intercultural communication
Reading at least three books a month to broaden mental outlook (e.g., about modern culture, arts, popular philosophy)
Sharing the knowledge and experiences with employees during brainstorming sessions and informal communication; conducting in-house training sessions, aimed to get employees acquainted with useful instruments to develop their leadership skills.
Action strategy 2. To formulate clear goals of an organization based on the strong organizational culture
Shaping explicit values together with employees to promote high-performance and responsive organizational culture (Daft, 2015, pp.433-435)
Developing self as a cultural leader, who promotes employees’ believing in a vision, developed by the company and the reinforcement of cultural leadership via the everyday activities (Daft, 2015, p.458)
Using problem-oriented approach, when formulating organizational goals
Promote corporate social responsibility and employees’ voluntary engagement into actions, aimed to combat community issues
b) Motivation
Employee motivation can be promoted in several ways.
Action strategy 1. To facilitate employees’ involvement into the company’s growth and innovation
Developing the ways to allow the followers staying up-to-date about the events. shaping the industry and organization itself (e.g., via the Intranet, social media and special training sessions) (Daft, 2015, p.198)
Conducting regular meetings with employees to revisit existing goals and operations within the company
Promoting the idea of employee ownership (so that employees become personally interested in the company’s growth and development)
Realizing the above goal requires creating a specific discussion- and innovation-friendly atmosphere.
Action strategy 2. To learn to create atmosphere, favourable for the discussion of ideas and facilitation of innovation.
Developing “a-make-it-happen” attitude by rewarding employees, who are self-motivated and propose creative ideas for innovation and a company’s growth
Constructing flat organizational structure to get rid of stereotypes, characterizing the relations of bosses and “human resources”
Creating “open space”, so that employees can continuously communicate
c) Honesty and straightforwardness
As honesty and straightforwardness are closely interrelated concepts, their development can be facilitated with the help of mutually reinforcing strategies.
Action strategy 1. To be transparent and show emotions
A real leader shall not be afraid of revealing his/her emotions and attitudes. Therefore, transparency is essential to promote integrity and a leader’s trustworthiness.
Undergoing specific trainings, aimed to develop self’s emotional intelligence and learn how to express emotions openly
Explicitly share concerns with employees and openly discuss them
Create small weekly newsletters and/or personalized letters for employees (dependent on their quantity) to praise successes and discuss challenges
Use Internet-space and Intranet as forums to discuss ongoing issues and changes in an organization
Action strategy 2. To dedicate significant attention to team-building activities
Trust serves as a founding basis for successful leader-follower relations. Therefore, informal team-building is essential for facilitating friendly atmosphere in a group.
Conduct ice-breaking sessions several times a week
Develop an open space culture, so that employees work together and are able to share ideas and conduct discussions
Hold informal events together (e.g., celebrations of employee birthdays, short weekend trips, excursions)
Do volunteer work together
Action strategy 3. To hold brainstorming sessions, whereby all the employees participate (e.g., via Skype).
Brainstorming helps to both produce high-quality ideas and develop trust, so that the discussions are conducted in an open manner, constructive criticism is produced and accountability is distributed among team members.
Hold general brainstorming sessions at least once a week, apart from discussing specific projects
Develop special brainstorming culture to facilitate trust (e.g., using a roundtable, drinking tea etc.)
Action strategy 4. To be accessible
Employees shall know that they can always refer their ideas, suggestions and concerns to a leader. In this regard, trust and accessibility are crucial for successful leadership.
Working in a open space, along with employees or using half-transparent door
Determining a special time each day for employees to come and share information and ideas
Outcomes and benefits
The above action plan is going to benefit multiple stakeholders, such as followers, an organization in general, as well as community, in a number of ways, highlighted below.
Followers will get a chance to improve their job satisfaction and performance at the workplace
An organization will benefit from the fact that employees work harder and become more loyal vis-à-vis an organization
The community benefits, because an organization will be able to effectively tackle community issues, as well as global problems at community level.
References
Daft, R.D. (2015). The leadership experience. Mason: Cengage Learning
Executive summary
The personal leadership vision, addressed in the Storyboard, is formulated as “An inventor of the new game-changing approach to organization and community leadership”. This formulation is substantiated by the fact that I am highly interested in innovation and solving global issues at the levels of an organization and community.
My leadership goals are inspiration, motivation, honesty and straightforwardness. These goals can help the company develop quality innovative ideas through open and active deliberation; reach high level of team members’ engagement, as well as promote constructive conflicts that facilitate discussions and deliberations, rather than lead to quarrels and overall misunderstanding.
Achieving the above goals requires formulating a range of action strategies and specific steps to implement the strategies. The action strategies, elaborated to achieve inspiration are as follows. The first one is “To emphasize professional and personal development through continuous expansion of knowledge and (especially, in the field related to a company’s performance) and the development of leadership and related skills. Its implementation requires reading a specific amount of books, dedicated to solving community issues at community and organizational levels; acquiring and improving job-related skills; reading books, not related to work, to broaden mental outlook, as well as sharing knowledge and experiences with employees during brainstorming and training sessions, and in terms of informal communication.
The second action strategy, aimed to promote inspiration is: “to formulate clear goals of an organization based on the strong organizational culture”. Its implementation is secured with the help of sharing explicit values together with employees to promote high-performance and responsive organizational culture; the development of self as a cultural leader; the application of problem-oriented approach, as well as promoting corporate social responsibility and employees’ voluntary engagement into actions, aimed to combat community issues.
The key action strategy strategy to promote the followers’ motivation is to facilitate their involvement into the growth and innovation within the company. The action plan includes developing the ways to allow the followers staying up-to-date about the events within an industry and organization itself; revisiting existing goals and operations together with employees, as well as promoting the idea of employee ownership.
The second motivation-related action strategy focuses on learning learning to create atmosphere, favourable for the discussion of ideas and facilitation of innovation. The action plan includes developing “a-make-it-happen” attitude by rewarding employees, who express significant motivation and propose creative innovation and growth ideas; constructing flat organizational structure to get rid of stereotypes about hierarchies and creating “open space” to ensure employees’ communication and flowing discussions.
As honesty and straightforwardness are closely interrelated leadership goals, it is suggested that their development is facilitated with the help of four mutually reinforcing action strategies. The first action strategy is to be transparent and show emotions. The actions to implement this strategy include undergoing specific trainings, aimed to develop self’s emotional intelligence and learn how to express emotions openly; explicitly sharing concerns with employees and openly discuss them; creating small weekly newsletters and use Internet and Intranet space as forums to discuss ongoing issues and changes.
The second action strategy is to dedicate significant attention to team-building activities. The actions to realize the strategy include conducting ice-breaking sessions several times a week; developing open space culture; holding informational events together and doing volunteer work.
The scope of the third action strategy deals with holding brainstorming sessions. The actions to achieve the goal include holding general brainstorming sessions at least once a week, apart from discussing specific projects, as well as developing special brainstorming culture to facilitate trust (e.g., using a roundtable, drinking tea etc.).
The fourth action strategy concentrates one ensuring an accessibility of a leader. The action plan includes working in an open space together with employees (or at least having semi-transparent doors) and determining a special time each day, when employees have a chance to communicate with a leader and share information with him/her.
The action plan, developed to facilitate the achievement of the leadership goals, discussed above, is going to benefit a range of stakeholders, such as followers, an organization and community. The followers get a chance to get actively engaged into what is going on at the workplace and improve their work satisfaction. In turn, an organization benefits from the fact that the employees have higher job satisfaction rates, work harder and do not demonstrates significant turnover rates. Finally, the community also benefits, because an organization becomes able to take an active stance vis-à-vis community issues and the manifestations of global problems at the level of the community as a whole.
