Leadership Journal: Final Entries and Summary
- Reflection on Leadership
Over the last eight weeks, my view of leadership has improved drastically. The amount of information I have learned about leadership theories and models has opened my eyes up to understanding how I fair as both a leader and a follower. From various self-assessments, I have realized that great leaders develop stronger employees, improve customer satisfaction, create higher levels of worker engagement, reduce employee turnover, and increase profits. Before the course began, I was not aware that leadership is entrenched in what one does rather than what they say.
I have also learned that effective leaders use every encounter as an opportunity to re-invent their teams through constant appraisals, coaching, and developing higher levels of self-actualization in workers. For me to become a better leader, I need to instill a vision in my followers by guiding such vision to align with the vision of the organization. Further, reading the course book had me understand that as a leader, I should have the courage to make decisions based on what is right rather than what is popular (Northouse, 2021). I was not aware that leadership is a process, an internal motivation to assist others to attain greatness.
- Reflection on Self-Assessments
- Lessons from self-assessments
From the assessments, I learned my strengths and weaknesses as a leader and how I should deal with them efficiently. I sought to reinforce my strengths and overcome the deficiencies. I got more self-aware, which has helped me monitor my progress and areas that need improvement in both my personal and professional lives (Northouse, 2021).
I think the self-assessments served as a motivation for me to become a better leader and follower. Some of the issues that stood out to me during the self-assessment processes included my leadership strengths and effectiveness, as well as, traits, behaviors, and interests’ assessments that showed me the behaviors that I needed to motivate my teams and people around me to become more effective and reach goals.
As such, the self-assessments have improved my leadership practices in the mental health clinic where I work as I have gotten better at leveraging my strong traits, such as openness and people-oriented behaviors. I now use an open-door policy for my teams to easily approach me which has helped build confidence and trust in me as their leader.
- Leveraging my leadership strengths
Some of the strengths I noticed about myself during the eight weeks include decisiveness, relationship building, and dependability (Gandolfi, & Stone, 2018). I have applied these strengths in my practice as a mental health specialist while leading different teams. I have been assigned tasks that require quick decision making with the available information. I am leveraging this area to improve my problem-solving abilities, as well as, research and evaluation capabilities.
With relationship building, I am better at collaborating with other professionals in my workplace, handling conflicts, and communicating with my teams. I am more focused on understanding both my followers and clients, which is helping me delegate tasks and complete my goals flawlessly. Being dependable has made more people to trust and rely on me. As such, I have been able to create resilient teams that work through difficulties that arise in our workplace. These strengths have been crucial in helping me set realistic goals and become more people- and detail-oriented.
- Gaps and leadership weaknesses
Over the eight weeks I have come to realize that to become a good leader, one requires constant self-evaluation and reflection. I have noticed some gaps in my current leadership efficiencies which need addressing. These include my failure to set clear expectations and emphasis on micromanagement (Gandolfi, & Stone, 2018). I noticed that I tend to I do not leave my followers with questions and uncertainty when I give them instructions.
I fail to set expectations because I believe my teams are motivated to meet goals. however, I have noticed that their direct reports lack clear direction. They find it difficult to connect to tasks since they do not know what is expected of them. Further, I constantly check up on my teams to make sure they doing what they should be doing, which I have realized affects their confidence negatively.
- Leadership style areas to improve
Continued growth is a crucial element of leadership since it impacts team and company’s effectiveness. As such, it is important for me to self-reflect and pinpoint the areas that I need to improve my strengths. The areas I will like to improve include strategic delegation and building relationships. I tend to micromanage my teams, which I believe, strategically delegating tasks will help me work more effectively (Gandolfi, & Stone, 2018). I need to leverage my teams’ strengths in meaningful ways.
Additionally, I think it will be crucial to build more positive working relationship with my co-workers and teams to improve productivity in the mental health facility where I work. I believe improvement will help me achieve my organizational goals, get better at motivating others, communicate effectively, and improve my teams’ effectiveness. By building positive relationships, I will help my teams work more productively and allow for open communication.
- Summary and Reflection on Commitments to Action
- Lessons from commitment to action
One of the actions I committed to during the eight weeks was practicing leader behavior by motivating my teams and persons around me to become more effective at attaining their goals. I have learned a lot from committing to such an action (Czuchry, 2019). I have learned to behave like a leader with a strong sense of self-awareness. I got more approachable to everyone around me, especially my teams when handling clients’ mental problems.
I have become more attentive to the needs of my team members, listening more to provide objective feedback privately to avert embarrassing anyone. As such, I have created more positive and trusting relationships with everyone in the workplace and at home. This has also had me leveraging strong traits through an open-door policy, which I have seen become more inspirational to the people around me. I am also working on making value-based decisions to motivate my team members.
- Reflection on the impact my actions
My actions have had a positive impact on both my growth as a leader and follower, but also on the people around me. I have learned that it is important to teach others to honor their word, accept responsibility for their actions, and commit to their intentions. I will, therefore, continue to teach and motivate my teams through action. I will continue to communicate, trust, and inspire through my motives and actions (Choi et al., 2015). I will place every member of my team above myself with a sense of what is right at the core.
I will modify my empathic nature to accommodate everyone and become a better transformational leader and understand people’s development levels. This will help me get more aware of what my team members are capable of and to assign them tasks that match their skills and abilities. I will alter my leadership style to fit each employee without favoring anyone. However, a behavior I need to stop is to keep my ego in check by putting the best interests of my teams and the organization before personal gains (Aravena, 2019).
- Commitment to Action – Beyond the Course
- Actions to continue my leadership journey
Since leadership is not about one’s job title, but their influence, I will entrench high-quality exchanges between me and my followers to gain more positive outcomes for my organization. I will also take the initiative to develop critical thinking skills, as well as, empower my team members to constantly challenge themselves to improve their capabilities (Choi et al., 2015). It is by showing that I have what it takes to be a leader that I can fast-track my career in the mental health practice.
I will strive to promote JEDI in my workplace to ensure more inclusion and that marginalized individuals get equitable opportunities to lead and learn more about leadership. I will attend webinars and seminars to improve my leadership skills in addition to reading psychology and leadership books, for example, “Start with Why” and “Leaders Eat Last” by Simon Sinek. I think it will be crucial to modify my attitudes and motives to positively influencing and encouraging others, as well as being their support system.
- Things I want to stop doing
One of the challenges I have met as a leader is how to engage my teams in their jobs to help them deliver their full potential. This has taught me that I need to stop some behavior that are holding me back from achieving my leadership goals. These behaviors include engaging in office politics, setting unclear expectations for my teams, lack of follow-up, and micromanaging.
I need to stop engaging in office politics to create an environment that is free of competition for power, resources and promotions to avoid demotivating my team members. I want to set more clear expectations for everyone to avoid confusions and contradictory goals that may lead to staff turnover. I think if I stop micromanaging my teams, I will have empowered them to become more creative and effective (Aravena, 2019).
References
Aravena, F. (2019). Destructive leadership behavior: An exploratory study in Chile. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 18(1), 83-96.
Choi, S. B., Tran, T. B., & Park, B. I. (2015). Inclusive leadership and work engagement: Mediating roles of affective organizational commitment and creativity. Social Behavior and Personality, 43(6), 931–944.
Czuchry, A. J. (2019). Adaptive leadership diagnostics: A conceptual framework drawing upon three generations of business leaders. Journal of Global Business Management, 15(2). 15-26.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice, (9th Ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
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