Self-Development as a Leader: Reflection on Personal Leadership Development Strategy

This reflective paper has shed light on my self-development as a leader. It has made some critical reflection on the key theories and models of leadership, in order to develop my personal leadership development strategy and at the same time, has analysed and developed my capacity of influencing, motivating and inspiring others in my place of work or community organisations.

Running head: DYNAMIC LEADERSHIP
Dynamic Leadership
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Body...........................................................................................................................................3
Leadership in my opinion.......................................................................................................3
Current role or position..........................................................................................................4
Current level of self-awareness and self-confidence to lead others in the organisation........5
Personal leadership development...........................................................................................5
Leadership theories and models.............................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References:.................................................................................................................................9

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Executive Summary
The very first part of being an effective leader is becoming aware of the personal
strengths and weaknesses. Identifying the strengths help in applying those in benefitting the
situation or an institution. On the other hand, identifying the weaknesses help in better equip
people for challenging themselves in order to apply the new skills and improve themselves by
means of practising. Leadership is something that has become a focus for many in the
contemporary world. Both personal and professional leadership is important for the success
and development of oneself in his personal and professional career. This reflective paper has
shed light on my self-development as a leader. It has made some critical reflection on the key
theories and models of leadership, in order to develop my personal leadership development
strategy and at the same time, has analysed and developed my capacity of influencing,
motivating and inspiring others in my place of work or community organisations. I have
found out my strengths and weaknesses in terms of my leadership style and characteristics
and at the same time, have recognised my skills and attributes that I need to focus more on
growing and attaining for become an effective leader in my future workplace as well as to
become a successful change agent in my workplace.

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Introduction
Leadership is on a the focus in this modern era and each and every day I hear about
different aspects of leadership like different training and development programs taking place
here and there, and in many different organisations (Glatthorn et al. 2018). However, before I
started writing this paper, I put many thoughts into leadership and what it actually means. In
this paper I shall elaborate on presenting a reflective piece where I shall explore and reflect
on my self-development as a leader for building self-awareness. With the use of critical
reflection on the key theories of leadership, I shall develop my personal leadership
development strategy and at the same time, shall analyse and develop my capacity of
influencing, motivating and inspiring others in my place of work or community organisations.
Body
Leadership in my opinion
If I have to define leadership in my way, I would define it to be an art that not many
possess. It is the capacity of ours to make others motivated, inspired and influenced to work
and cooperate with us. A leader is the one who can inspire others to dream more, to learn
more, to do more and finally, to become more. Hence, at the end of the day, it is all about the
action of holding the torch of wisdom and guiding other to reach a common goal. I also took
a graduate level session for my personal as well as professional development and gradually, I
realised that the premise of the course was the fact that leaders are not always born leaders,
but they can also be developed. Earlier I used to believe that leaders are born and not made.
As I passed the different phases of life while growing in my career, I become more obvious
about the effectiveness of a leader and that, this effectiveness depends more on the
development of learned principles that one follow and less on any natural traits.

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Current role or position
I belong to the African’s Students Group where I am the vice-president of Honours
college student Association. This is why I have been using a delegative leadership approach
where I let others to show their creativity and spontaneous work (Ejimabo 2015). I practise
hands-off and allow my people and group members to make their own decisions. By letting
they make more decisions and supporting them, I encourage creativity. Even though they
make the decision that I do not stand for, I should support them if they are for the betterment
of the majority of the people or from the group itself. This is why, I always try to divide the
tasks among my people and assign them the tasks as per their expertise. In this way, I allow
my team members and followers to work with high motivation and high skills and expertise.
In order to influence others, I always try to gain the trust of my peers. Although I have some
trust issues, I find trouble in trusting people, I try not make it vibrant. Also, once I was a very
egoistic person but now I have realised that an unhealthy ego could be a liability on the
business performance. Hence, the leader with a healthy ego is the one who has mastered all
the paradoxical balance of the personal humility along with fierce resolve and confidence. I
also demonstrate competence in place. I believe that having a strong character in the service
to others is very important for getting people from the neck up. But trust goes out of the
proverbial window if one cannot demonstrate the expertise and knowledge in a specific field
that would carry the vision forward. This includes the potential of communicating that vision
and so the followers are actively engaged in the same and is also pursuing it. Also, in order to
make them adapt the cultural changes in place I ensure that the corporate cultures are centred
on giving the employees the complete ownership over the decisions (shared leadership), the
authentic (expression of ideas, thoughts and perspectives) and also for the building of the
community (inclusion, collaboration and diversity).

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Current level of self-awareness and self-confidence to lead others in the
organisation
I believe that I am a good leader. I easily work with my people and collaborate with
tem for attaining a common goal. I always do my part in the best possible way and promote
inclusiveness in my workplace. With the same, I also encourage others to get the things done
in peace and harmony. Being a curious person, I get interested in almost everything. I also
read newspaper daily in order to know the current happenings in the world and to learn more
thing. Furthermore, I learn with people and I am never afraid to learn something new from
my followers. I know I do make mistake and there is always a room for improvement. I
believe that there are many important characteristics for one to excel being a leader but the
main principal is to become able for giving out without expecting anything in return. With the
same, I also believe that a leader should be a volunteer as well. I am very flexible and people
automatically tend to feel comfortable around me and consider me approachable. I am very
jolly and like to make new friends and this is why my colleagues find me personable although
I maintain my professional standpoint within my workplace. I am a leader with
transformational leadership style and I emphasis more on flexibility, adaptability and vision. I
operate at several different organisational levels and this reflects on my leadership style as
well as my organisational perspectives. With the same, I would also like to mention that
consideration and structure are the two approaches that I use to measure my strengths in my
leadership style. I am highly concerned about the requirements and needs of my employees
and I assist them with their issues and provide them guidance.
Personal leadership development
In my opinion, for improving myself, I need to be capable enough for giving people
first, while working in groups. This can be in the form of giving others more freedom of
choice, freedom of speech and letting them make more decisions and supporting them. Even

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though they make the decision that I do not stand for, I should support them if they are for the
betterment of the majority of the people or from the group itself. This is why, I have always
try to divide the tasks among my people and assign them the tasks as per their expertise.
Furthermore, in order to improve my own personal leadership development, I require to
challenge myself on a regular basis. By means of defeating the small challenges in my daily
life, I would continue growing and taking on a larger challenges in the near future. One of the
examples of small challenge that will be beneficial, will be in the practise of trusting the other
people. With the same, I would also like to mention that I find trouble in trusting people.
Hence, for overcoming this issue, I need to challenge myself to be become the one who trusts
first and in this way, I will be opening myself up to my group of friends and colleagues at my
workplace and in this way, I will also be building a sense of confidence and trust in others.
Moreover, it would be highly beneficial for me to get more involved in the communities. All
through my college career, I have become very less engaged in the college events and the
daily activities that were the part of the communities. Hence, I need to challenge myself for
stepping out of my comfort zone and involving myself more. This will help me in
establishing myself in my communities and preparing myself for a better leadership role in
the near future.
Leadership theories and models
Leadership is widely regarded as the most vital element for determining the success of
an organisation as it guides the employees towards reaching a common organisational goal
(Fernandez and Rainey 2017). There have been many models and theories that are developed
all through these years on the subject of leadership. However, the acceptance of a single
theory which helps in clarifying the performance and implementation of truly effective
leadership has not been adopted or accepted universally. Still, I believe that the leadership
theories are the contributing factors for every leaders in order to ensure effective leadership in

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place. Different early leadership models and theories were developed under the widely
known contingency model that regards how the different situational factors effectively
change the effectiveness of a specific leader- a style or behaviour of leadership (Anderson
and Sun 2017). One of the most recognised theory of leadership is the contingency theory
developed by Fiedler. This is the theory that contrasts the leadership traits and situational
influence by means of a scale called the LPC (Least Preferred Co-Worker Scale) (Howell
2018). The development of the contingency model has helped me in realising that
transformational leadership is related with the processes that transform and alter the
organisations and the individuals. The process of sharing in between the followers and the
leaders is determined by the ability of the leader of producing emotional intelligence and
stimulating the higher collection of needs of his employees (Xiaojun 2017). It is by his ability
that he attain the trust, loyalty, respect and admiration of his followers and in this way he
motivate them in accomplishing more than what is expected from them. It is also to mention
that “the fundamental nature of the transformational leadership is empowering the followers as
well as developing them in reaching their full potential.” Also, “both the transactional and
transformational leadership seems to co-exist instead of being mutually exclusive. Best
leaders combine both these leadership style for producing performance in the company to the
next level”.
Conclusion
Hence, I would like to conclude that the above reflective piece on my self-
development as a leader has helped me in gaining a good understanding about myself, the
skills that I possess as well as the skills that I need to work on for becoming a more effective
leader. Taking this time to develop my personal vision about leadership has helped me in
recognising the things that I value in the leadership as well as how I envision as a successful
and developed leader. I believe that this will help me in recognising my skills and attributes

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that I need to focus more on growing and attaining for become an effective leader in my
future workplace as well as to become a successful change agent. Throughout this course, I
have also learned about myself as compared to what I have ever before. Now, I am with an
intention to take all my newfound knowledge and apply them in my personal and professional
life to improve my future leadership journeys.

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References:
Anderson, M.H. and Sun, P.Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for
a new ‘full‐range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.76-96.
Ejimabo, N.O., 2015. The influence of decision making in organizational leadership and
management activities. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Organization Management, 4(2),
pp.1-13.
Fernandez, S. and Rainey, H.G., 2017. Managing successful organizational change in the
public sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). Routledge.
Glatthorn, A.A., Boschee, F., Whitehead, B.M. and Boschee, B.F., 2018. Curriculum
leadership: Strategies for development and implementation. SAGE publications.
Howell, K.R., 2018. Fiedler and Chemers Revisted; Understanding the Implications of the
Least Preferred Co-worker Scale. Journal of Business, 6(3), pp.82-85.
Xiaojun, Z., 2017. Knowledge Management System Use and Job Performance: A Multilevel
Contingency Model. MIS quarterly, 41(3).