Analysis of Ms Shabnam Bibi's Leadership Style

Leadership Summative Assignment 2
Analysis of Ms shabnam bibi's leadership style

Leadership Summative Assignment 2 Z0972114
Introduction:
“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others,
towards the achievement of a goal." (Kruse, 2013)
Much of the traditional literature on leadership ordinarily defines leaders as “...
individuals who significantly influence the thoughts, behaviors, and feelings of others.”
(Gardner, 1995, p. 6). The primary focus, then, is on an individual who will direct or
influence a group of followers. This definition, in turn, is extraordinarily influential in
affecting the mind-sets of the alleged “followers” all of which results, at least sometimes, in
an authority relationship that can be demeaning if not dangerous (Werhane and Painter-
Morland, 2011).
A 45 minute semi-structured interview was taken with somebody I believe is a leader,
Ms Shabnam Bibi who has been working for a solicitors company for over 12 years, starting
as an assistant to a solicitor and then moving on to a leadership position within her
department as the head solicitor of the department, from this assignment we will determine
her characteristics and influences and what motivated her to get into the position she is in and
what leadership styles she used.
Ms Bibi was approached due to her extensive experience and difficulties in becoming
a leader in her organisation also being the first female manager in her company "I have never
had a manager that's been female and they actually preferred and even indirectly mentioned
that they would have preferred a male who was head of department" (S Bibi, personal
interview, 2019) the interview will help determine and analyse her leadership style by way of
a semi-structured interview based on a set of broad questions to enable me to elaborate on
points or ask further questions that were relevant to responses I was getting from her.
We will first look at how her leadership was formed, what she took motivation from,
what led her into the position she is in and from this we will further analyse two of the most
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Leadership Summative Assignment 2 Z0972114
prevalent leadership styles she exhibits within the interview following a conclusion on her
leadership style.
Formation of Leadership style: Authentic/Pro-active
Shabnam cited her early life as a factor in her becoming a leader today in terms of her
back ground and culture "It wasn't the norm for Asian girls to go out there and get a career I
wanted to break that norm in our culture, that's what had an impact on me I was career
minded when I saw people around me I didn't want to live that lifestyle of being a housewife
I wanted to be independent, successful and not rely on anyone"(S Bibi, 2019). This would
ultimately be the premise for the type of leader she is today. She states her parents were
initially not happy with her transition to higher education however as she went ahead and
they became more supportive of her "my parents weren't at the beginning very keen in me
proceeding to get a higher education, but when I started they were very encouraging and
supportive" (S Bibi, 2019). She states this initial culture and background became a motivation
for her to succeed.
Although she showed signs of early leadership identity, Identity claiming refers to the
actions people take to assert their identity as either a leader or follower (DeRue & Ashford,
2010) She showed this by continuing to do what she wants even if her parents weren't
initially open to the idea of higher education.
Shabnam also displayed an emergent type of leadership to obtain the current position
she is in stating she had influences within her industry "I'm not going to lie there was 2 or 3
people around me that were successful that influenced me early on and that's what probably
made me keener" (S Bibi, 2019) that helped her become more vocal "I have become a lot
more outspoken I think it is an important tool that you are outspoken and vocal if you weren't
vocal I don't think you would be successful" (S Bibi, 2019). She also states that these
influencers themselves were in leadership positions and had attributes she uses in her own
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