Definition of leadership

Leadership is described as providing guidance to a group of individuals in order for them to achieve their major goals. Leadership in business refers to an organization’s management’s capacity to create and achieve hard goals, exceed the competitors, and drive employees to do effectively. A leader is someone who creates an exciting vision of goal achievement that encourages and inspires his or her subordinates to participate in that vision. An effective leader is one who has higher hopes for an organization’s future success than it presently has (DeMatthews, 2014). A leader should have the various features which will enable them to become an excellent leader. These features include; honesty, creativity, he or she should have confidence, positive attitude, should be able to delegate and communicate. Honesty is that act of being transparent in whatever a leader does regarding decision making, problem-solving, and recruitment of new employees for instance.

For a prosperous and a competitive organization, a leader should be highly creative. This is in the manner of developing new strategies for handling issues such as any problem affecting the organization negatively, or improved methods of data collection, and ways to reduce human efforts, for instance, a good leader should be confident in whatever he or she does. With confidence a leader can communicate to his or her juniors thus, passing the intended message. A leader who has a positive attitude can be able to handle any arising matter in the organization as he or she sees nothing impossible and believes that every problem has a solution. Finally, the leader should be in a situation to delegate his employees to ensure they work as expected.

Being a leader too gives an individual a privilege to offer education and training to the employees on leadership skills such as self-drive. This will enable the employees to apply their skills to shift the organization to its needed situation with the achievement of its set goals. Also, a leader has a chance to motivate employees by encouraging them to put more effort into their operations and the benefits to both the organization and to individual workers on achieving the goals.

Key Values and expectations of a leader

Leadership key values are those values which a leader should have for the well- being of the organization regarding competition in its field and also the delivery of quality product. The key values are service, wisdom making a difference, integrity, courage, humility, authenticity and respect. Leaders should first respect themselves regarding behavior and also treat others with respect. With respect, every individual can work to their capabilities.

Humbleness and honest too leads to a peaceful working organization. Managers should not treat their colleagues in a manner that is not right such as harassing them or violating their rights just because they are the managers as this may lead to low productivity. A leader should be a man of service to the people. A manager should work not for his or her gains but to the benefit of the organization, employees and the community thus, positive making a difference. A leader expects the employees to follow set rules and policies in the achievement of their objectives. Employees should also work together with the help of the manager in solving any problem affecting them in their operations thus, encouraging teamwork. As a manager, one should be rewarding those workers who perform better in their various tasks to motivate them through recognition of their efforts.

Part two

Reflection

One of the assignments is reflections. This is where I start developing the effective leadership skills and qualities I have acquired for being a leader. It is also where I use my present roles and reflect on what conspicuous assets in leadership are. Reflections help me develop leadership skills for it enables me to know my weaknesses and strengths. By understanding my strengths, I can focus on what I am good at and improve on my weaknesses. It enables me to also plan my work by creating a record of what I need to achieve within a given period. Through reflections, I can prepare my work in advance hence realizing the shortcomings involved and getting rid of them and by doing this mistakes that could occur in future are curbed.

Personality profile

The other assignment is personality profile; this is a tool I use to manage my knowledge as a leader to help me evaluate my followers’ attributes, values, and skills. It enables me to develop leadership skills for it provides me with an understanding of my personality type. To get the different types of personality profile, I undertake a test to know what inspires me and the people around me and making a point of providing such motivations in our environment. The test helps me to understand my values and those of the people I am leading. I am also able to realize what makes me a great leader; such characters could be being authentic, ethical, considerate and flexible to the changes in the environment. As a leader, knowing my personality profile type I can tell who amongst my delegates can achieve what I can’t achieve.

Gap analysis

The third assignment is GAP analysis that is a way of assessing differences in business information systems performances on software applications to tell if business goals are being achieved or in case they have not achieved it states the steps to be taken so that they can be achieved effectively. GAP analysis helps me to develop leadership skills by enabling me to identify the goals (Lester, 2015). This helps me to lay out an effective plan on how to achieve those goals. Using the GAP analysis, I can undertake research that helps me understand the tactics I can use to achieve the goals. By using research, I am also able to detect the risks that are involved in meeting the goals set and ways on how to avoid them.

Leadership maxims

The last assignment is leadership maxims. This is a code of conduct of a leader such as respecting my people by not taking them for granted, setting the expectations by updating the people on what’s happening around them and maintaining self-control even when offended. Leadership maxims help me develop leadership skills by guiding me on decision making while handling critical issues that arise in the business, hence being able to achieve company’s goals. It also helps me to improve my relationship with my delegates by being able to give them a platform to offer their ideas and listen to them. Leadership maxims also help me to be organized by being disciplined at work, and this motivates my employees to be disciplined in return. It also helps me to resolve conflicts within the company hence maintaining peace.

References

DeMatthews, D. E. (2014). How to Improve Curriculum Leadership: Integrating Leadership Theory and Management Strategies.

Lester, S. W. (2015). Melding Service Learning and Leadership Skills Development. Journal of Experiential Education.