Leadership Development Opportunities in the Future - Essay

RUNNING HEAD: Leadership
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Leadership

Leadership
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This essay helps to understand role of leaders. The essay discusses the role of leader
advanced from week one to week nine. The essay elaborates how leadership is beneficial. It
defines the upcoming work as a leader and further steps of leadership required developing.
The essay also discusses the role of class readings, activities, discussions and observations
can help to understand and apply leader concept to personal life and work. Finally the essay
critically discusses the access to leadership development opportunities in the future and it can
improve the leadership skills throughout the working life.
Initially in the week one of X year, I used to think that leadership just motivates people to act
towards achieving common goal. In the second and third week, I realised that leadership is
not all about motivating but it convinces people to follow. A leader fills confidence in people
and makes them to take action. There are various key theories which are possessed by leaders
such as trait theory, behavioural theories, contingency theories and power and influence
theories. The trait theory claims that effective leaders possess various traits of common
personality (Banks, McCauley, Gardner & Guler, 2016). According to this theory leadership
is a distinctive and inherent quality that a person can have and cannot have. The leadership
qualities can be developed within our self and others. This theory is supportive in detecting
traits and qualities like integrity, compassion, decisiveness, decision making skills and
geniality. However any of these traits do not assure success as a leader. The traits are external
actions which develop from the on-going things. The behavioural theory concentrates on the
behaviour of leaders. The leaders argue what is needed to be done and expect cooperation.
According to behaviour there can be three types of behavioural theories. The autocratic
leaders make decisions without any discussion with their teams. This style is suitable when
the decisions are required to make fast and the team settlement is not essential for the
successful outcomes. The democratic leaders provide input to team before making a decision.
It is to be observed that the degree of input can differ. This kind of leadership is problematic
to accomplish when there are various outlooks and ideas. The laissez-faire leaders do not
hamper and allows team members to involve in decision process. It is suitable when the team
is highly proficient, motivated and do not require close supervision. This theory argues that
behaviour affects performance of employees (Breevaart, Bakker, Demerouti & Derks, 2016).
These three leadership behaviours are applicable but at different time. A leader is best when
he can practice various behavioural styles and can choose the best one for every situation.
The third theory is contingency theory. According to this theory the best leadership style
depends on the circumstances. This theory predicts which style is best in which circumstance.

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For instance, at the time of making quick decisions, the support of team is an effective way to
deal. The fourth theory is power and influence theories (Dinh, Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden
& Hu, 2014). It is a completely different approach. It depends on the different ways that a
leader can use power and effect to get things done. It highlights three positional powers such
as legitimate, reward and forcible. This model suggests that expert power should be worked
on then the referent power. The personal power is a better alternative and work should be
done ion building expert power. The transaction leadership uses power and influence. This
approach argues that people do work to earn rewards and for no other reason. The leaders use
this strategy on daily basis to get things done (Day, Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm & McKee,
2014).
In the 4-6 week of A year I learnt that leaders are either born or nurtured. The great man
theory and trait theories believe that people inherent assured qualities and traits which makes
them better suit to leadership. It should also be noticed that leaders do not enter the world
with astonishing talent. People enter in the world with equal capabilities and talents. There
are certain inherited qualities which influence people to become leaders. There is substantial
variance between learning skills and inheriting skills. While the behavioural theory believes
that people can become leaders by learning, teaching and observation. The leadership is a set
of skills that can be attained by training, practice, observation and being experienced over
time. It is a not onetime but lifetime learning activity. The leaders search out the development
opportunities which help them to acquire new skills. The leadership can be learnt by
everyone. Whether leaders are born or nurtured both require learning leadership skills
(Furtner, Rauthmann & Sachse, 2015). There can be small percentage of leaders who are
born with individual traits whereas leadership can also be learnt by committed individuals.
The experience of cause and effect are identification, authoritative and accountability. The
empathy leaders know what their team is undergoing and help them to be better. The empathy
affects the decision taken by team. The authoritative is used when people talk about
leadership. It means to be clear on what is trying to be achieved and the guidance given. The
team is informed what is anticipated from them and what success looks like. The
authoritative do not have any role when there is non-accountability. A leader losses faith if he
is not accountable. It increases effectiveness when a leader is held accountable to achieve
goals. The determination of cause and effect is helpful to leaders in improving a plan (Struve,
2015).