Having worked in a leadership position for fifteen years, I have a strong feeling that I still have a long journey to go. Currently, I am working as a branch manager at Sydney Airport, the position I have been holding for the past six months. The experience I have had working alongside people of different backgrounds has made me appreciate being a leader.
Who Do I Want To Be As A Leader In The Workplace?
A good leader is born and not made. According to Fransen (152), it takes a person passion and dedication to make it in the field of leadership. Most leaders fail to be successful because they fail to understand that for one to be a good leader, they must have something that drives them from the within. The aura that one needs to deliver the best and have a positive reputation lacks within most of the leaders. However, according to me, I feel that I have everything to prosper as a leader.
Working in different leadership roles I have realized that leadership is not a position, it is a process. According to Han (87), a good leader must be dynamic within the organization. I want to be a leader who interacts with new things on a daily basis yearning to learn more and gain as much experience in my field as possible. Leadership role gives me an opportunity to meet new people every day. I want to use this opportunity to learn other things from other people more so how they handle conflict resolution.
Moreover, I believe that a good leader should be that who impact the lives of other people positively. According to Keohane (20), positivity in a leader is measured through how they uphold democracy and equity. One of my strengths as a leader is that I am understood why democracy must be upheld within the workplace. As a leader, therefore, I am looking forward to promoting democracy and equity in every aspect I will get involved with. Additionally, I believe that I need to be a leader who understands that people do not have the same abilities and that weaknesses are unavoidable in some circumstances. I want to be a leader who accommodates people with different challenges, be supportive to everyone and always be available for consultation in case one has a challenge within the workplace.
Where Am I now?
Before setting foot into the management field, I used to work in a mining company for seventeen years. During this time, I was privileged to lead a group of workers ranging from fifteen to sixty people. At the moment I am working with Sydney Airport as a branch manager. I already have enough experience to work within a complex environment full of challenges.
As a leader, I have learned a lot of things that will be important for me in the future. First, I have noted that education is an important tool for every leader. According to Steiner (210), a good leader must be able to update their skills with the current trends in the market. Steiner asserts that leadership position is very dynamic and flexible. Amar (258), concludes that without getting in touch with the current trends in the field such as conflict decision models and decision-making matrixes, a leader may fail to make an impact within the organizations they work. This revelation has made me realize that I am not doing things in the right manner. I have a diploma in management, which I believe is not the highest qualification for a leader in the current generation. Therefore, I have decided to further my knowledge and expand my leadership skills through taking an MBA. I am positive that my MBA assists to get along with some of the challenges I face as a leader. I am looking forward to learning on how to be a good conflict manager.
Apart from my qualifications, I am not on the same foot with the new technology. According to Szolnoki (104), technology is a factor that must never be ignored by any leader. Good leadership skills are weighed on how properly a leader can change with the change in technology. I am sure that the technological awareness I have at the moment needs to be sharpened in accordance to what changes has been made in the field of leadership as far as technological advancements are concerned.
Apart from the few challenges I am facing at the moment, I still have a stronger feeling that I am in a better place at the moment to be the best leader in the future. One thing that makes me feel this way is the fact that I portray some of the 21st-century leadership skills. I get my things done at the right time in the right way. However, sometimes I suffer from the last minute rush but still provide the best I can offer. I have a positive feeling that my ability to complete most of the tasks within the required timeline gives me an upper hand to progress a leader. According to Amar (257), punctuality and the ability to perform tasks and make decisions within the required timelines opens doors of prosperity for a leader. My organization will be able to benefit from this ability since I will be able to analyze the market faster and come up with a decision that will help in winning the market hence a better competitive position.
Besides getting my reports and other things done on time, I have good communication skills that most of my seniors and juniors in the workplace recommend highly. According to Nita (300), a good leader is defined by how well they communicate with fellow workmates and followers. Though at one point or the other I have faced communication barriers and conflicts, I managed to handle them with a lot of professionalism.
As a leader, I always make sure that I am aware of what is happening around me and in the global spectrum. I get highly motivated to compare and contrast how I make decisions with how other people in another environment or culture solve the same task. Through this, I get to understand that there is a great diversity and that people need to come up with their own ways of solving their problems. According to Ahuja (108), the decision-making strategies of a leader are impacted by their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a product of our culture and the environment we are raised. Therefore, I can conclude that my leadership position at the moment is at its peak and will do even better in the future after completing my MBA course.
What’s the gap?
Emotional intelligence theory pushes me along as a leader to understand other people’s feelings while listening to what my heart perceives as the right thing. According to Manz (98), emotional intelligence can be either a strength or weakness to a leader. It is without no doubt that as a leader I also face these challenges. In the pursuit of what I want to be, I have to fill various gaps. First, I have to be a positive thinker. Leadership involves a lot of decision-making. Sometimes one has to sacrifice what they believe to be right on the side for the general good of the organization. Being a positive thinker will help in many ways, among them, minimizing the time I will have to spend before deciding on what is right and wrong.
According to Ilyas (57), culture diversity challenges most of the leaders. Most of the workplaces are becoming expressing diversity at the highest level. With cultural diversity come cultural conflicts. As a leader, one has to be keen to identify the conflict and come up with a positive resolution. Ilyas (88) concludes that a good leader is that who is able not only to identify the conflict but also come up with an applicable solution that will help eradicate the problem temporarily or permanently. I want to gain knowledge on how to deal with people of different cultural backgrounds and come up with an applicable solution to the conflicts witnessed in such a diverse environment. One way to achieve this is through interacting with people from different backgrounds frequently and dropping any stereotype I have on any community, race or color.
Organization Culture and Its Impact on My Leadership
Each organization has something that makes its look unique from the competitors. The main goal of having an organization’s culture according to Ilyas (87) is to address diversity and changes among the employees. As a leader, I am bound by the organization’s culture to deliver the highest quality services to my followers and the customers Sydney Airport serves. Every time get into the office, I look around and feel that I should deliver the best. Apart from the cultures that demand that I provide the best services to the clients are respected fellow workmates, other organizations culture that demand punctuality makes me a better leader since I get my things done as early as possible.
Action Plan
Goals
As a leader, I have both the long and short term goals. My short term goals are to complete my MBA within the next two years and learn some of the technological advances required in management field. I have a weakness with my confliction resolution skills. My MBA will assist me in a great way as I will manage to learn the best approaches I can take in case tasked with the responsibility of solving a conflict.
Some of the people that will be helpful through this process will be my manager who will have to understand that I have to attend evening classes and hence the need to leave earlier. Apart from my manager, I will have to collaborate with my supervisor in my MBA so that he can be available on the weekends. My supervisor will also be able to assist with the relevant reading materials for my MBA. However, I will not rely entirely on what is provided by my supervisor. As through the use of new technology such as the internet and the library, I will be able to gather some information that will assist me in completing my MBA as soon as possible. I am looking forward to graduating with the best GPA from the course that will help advance my career.
Conclusion
I still have a long way to go as far as leadership and management are concerned. According to persona evaluation, I have the best opportunities and skills to advance and become the best leader. However, to make this dream come true, there are some of the challenges that I need to address as soon as possible. One of these challenges includes my conflict resolution methods. I noted that as a leader I face a lot of conflicts making it necessary to equip myself with the best tools to solve them. Finally, I have a long-term dream of advancing in my leadership career. I look forward, therefore, to completing my MBA and advancing further in the field of leadership.
Works cited
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Amar, A. D., and Vlatka Hlupic. "Leadership for knowledge organizations."European Journal of Innovation Management 19.2 (2016): 239-260.
Fransen, Katrien, et al. "When is a leader considered as a good leader? Perceived impact on teammates’ confidence and social acceptance as key ingredients." Athletic Insight: Online Journal of Sport Psychology (2016): In-press.
Han, Manoh. "Study on the Effective Leadership Strategies for Leader."Indian Journal of Science and Technology 9.26 (2016).
Ilyas, Muhammad. "The Effect of Leadeship, Organizational Culture, Emotional Intellegence, and Job Satisfaction on Performance." International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE) 5.2 (2016).
Keohane, Nannerl O. "Leadership, Equality & Democracy." Daedalus 145.3 (2016): 8-20.
Manz, Charles C., et al. "Whistle While You Work Toward a Model of Emotional Self-Leadership." Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies(2016): 1548051816655993.
Nita, Aurel Mircea, Ionela Gabriela Solomon, and Larisa Mihoreanu. "BUILDING COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS FOR LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM." The International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education. Vol. 2. " Carol I" National Defence University, 2016.
Steiner, Patricia Feig. The leadership self-awareness process: A narrative study exploring how experienced leaders use self-awareness and deception to align their behavior to their goals. Diss. NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, 2016.
Szolnoki, Attila, and Matjaž Perc. "Leaders should not be conformists in evolutionary social dilemmas." Scientific reports 6 (2016).
