Leadership and Cultural Challenges

This assignment discusses the complexities of leadership in multicultural environments, highlighting the need for leaders to navigate language and cultural barriers. It emphasizes the importance of developing effective leadership skills, such as conflict resolution and communication, to succeed in global settings. The assignment draws on research findings from academic sources, providing practical insights for professionals seeking to improve their leadership abilities.

Running head: LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO
Leadership Portfolio
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: The Nature and Importance of Leadership...............................................................2
CHAPTER 2: Traits, Motives, and Characteristics of Leaders.......................................................4
CHAPTER 3: Charismatic and Transformational Leadership........................................................8
CHAPTER 4: Leadership Behaviors, Attitudes, and Styles..........................................................10
CHAPTER 5: Contingency and Situational Leadership................................................................13
CHAPTER 6: Leadership Ethics and Social Responsibility.........................................................15
CHAPTER 12: Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills...................................................18
CHAPTER 14: International and Culturally Diverse Aspects of Leadership...............................20
References:....................................................................................................................................24

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CHAPTER 1: The Nature and Importance of Leadership
Personal mission statement:
"I want to develop the critical leadership skills for me to help me get the best of organizations"
The Nature and Importance of Leadership
Leadership experiences Leadership is about implementing academic
thoughts at the most appropriate time at both the
institutional and the professional level (Bolman &
Deal, 2017). It is important for academic students
as well as to the professionals that they possess an
utmost level of leadership skills to help them justify
their candidature at the various levels of life. This
is like ways important to me as well for being a
skilled professional.
I have realized the necessity of developing the
leadership skills in me after being through the
several journal and book articles on the leadership
skills. This section is related to the first chapter of
the text which is ‘The Nature and Importance of
Leadership’. The chapter discusses the nature and
importance of leadership which has also helped me
to reflect on my personal experience regarding the
same matter.
I had a lot of experiences regarding the leadership
shortfalls in me while being into my first

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organization, the company where I worked for
nearly a year. I will discuss one of the experiences
that I had there. I had been assigned a task to find
out the error in stock details. The manual entries
had differed to the data captured in the tally
software. The task was not that difficult and could
have been done without much of a worry.
However, it was not a good experience to me
indeed. I not only failed in providing the details but
also had clashed with labors in the stock area.
Labors have had fewer concerns for matter which
was being highlighted by the company's manager.
Despite being absorbed in nature, I shouted at them
for their careless approach. Hence, they decided not
to cooperate in my task. I ended up finding the
errors in stock details.
The above experience that I have shared does
reflect on a few very important points like I should
have the relevant leadership traits in me. One of the
leadership traits is “prioritizing the
communication” (Antonakis & Day, 2017). Instead
of prioritizing the communication with labors, I had
a clash with them. I just jumped on to my point of
view. However, it could have been better if I had
relied on communicating with the labors. This may
have taken them in confidence which could have

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helped in establishing a bond between me and
labors. The picture could have been quite different
then. The single ignorance in terms of leadership
traits has influenced my performance as a stock
manager.
The incident has helped me to think on my
credibility as a professional stock manager. This is
the reason why I am looking to improve my
professionalism in regards to effective
communication. This is necessary for my career
ahead in the accounting firm as this will only open
up ways to get to the higher positions like the
senior supervisor.
CHAPTER 2: Traits, Motives, and Characteristics of Leaders
Traits, Motives, and Characteristics of Leaders
Personal leadership traits There is an ample number of leadership traits;
however, I possess only a few of them. The
leadership traits that I have are tough-mindedness,
enthusiasm, dominance, self-assurance and
compulsiveness.

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I am tough-mindedness as I can feel relaxed even
in challenging situations. I do not feel lost under
any circumstances. However, I have struggled in
my last organization but I have never found me
blaming the surrounding circumstances. I have
rather focused on identifying the loopholes in me.
I have enthusiasm which is also evident in my
work attitude. I want to complete my task within its
assigned deadline.
I am dominant; however, it sometimes happens for
wrong causes as I have found me in one of the
experiences that I have shared my communication
skills. I was dominating the labors in the
experience that I have shared. However, the
situation had needed a rather different approach to
effective communication skills.
I am good at self-assurance which is also evident
in the experience that I have with my previous
employer. I had then tried to find the errors in stock
on my own. It just reflects I have confidence on
self-assurance which is the one that has encouraged
me to improve my professional career to develop
the leadership traits in me.
I am also compulsive which is evident in the
example of my experience of working in my
previous organization. I had literally lost my

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control while interacting with the labors. It had cost
me then as I was not able to find the error in stock.
Leadership traits that I need to develop I need to work on few leadership traits that I am not
expertise with. Those few traits are leading with
passion, prioritizing the communication and
commitment to team building (Fairhurst &
Connaughton, 2014).
I need these traits, so that, I could groom my
professional career to become competitive in my
zone of the industry. Leading with passion is
something that never lets one down at every level
of life. It is the same way beneficial also at the
professional level. Passion to accomplish my roles
& responsibilities will make things easier and
provide a different set of perspectives like
challenging tasks will become easier and enjoyable
as well. Nevertheless, patience level is being tested
at the private levels.
Commitment to team building is another trait that
I need to develop. I have realized on several
occasions in past that I lack in team-building
capability. The very fact has influenced the
outcome of inspection that I had conducted in the
stock area to find the area of errors in the stocks.
Prioritizing communication is one of the traits
that I need desperately. If I had the element of

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appropriate communication skills in me, I could
have reacted differently to the incident which
occurred during the inspection conducted in the
stock area.
Analyzing the Traits, Motives, and
Characteristics of a Well-Known Leader
NFL coach, Bill Belichick is highly being known
as one of the greatest coaches of NFL (Rathwell,
Bloom & Loughead, 2014). There are several
points which distinguish Mr. Belichick from rest.
Such distinguished points are attitude &
personality, enabling everyone to thrive to success,
communication skills and team building capability
(Rathwell, Bloom & Loughead, 2014).
The leadership skills that Bill Belichick has
exhibited throughout his NFL career do indicate an
urgency to switch the various kinds of leadership
traits. Such leadership traits do not just separate
one from another but also produce a resonant
impact on his or her career as well as the associated
team.
CHAPTER 3: Charismatic and Transformational Leadership
Charismatic and Transformational Leadership
Charismatic leadership skills in me Charismatic leadership can be defined to have three
distinguishing characteristics like behaviors of

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presence, behaviors of power and behaviors of
warmth (Johnston & Marshall, 2016). I am good at
delivering charismatic leadership skills at the
workplace where I had worked in past. Whenever I
meet my colleagues, I have a very smiling
expression on my face. I do this to make them feel
that they are important to me. I am also confident
of fulfilling the expectations which my supervisors
have set for me. I can say that my body language is
very calm and composed. I usually appear
confident to others which is important also to
spread a positive message to the team.
Additionally, my colleagues had also liked me
though I had few flaws like it happened while I was
inspecting at the stock center.
Finding Inspirational Messages on a Social
Networking Site
This is really encouraging and helps to develop the
much-needed leadership traits which could be
important at the organizational level (Tourish,
2014). One of such examples is as below that has
impacted me as a person and as a professional:
The inspirational message was regarding the self-
development that had stated the importance of
collecting smaller things as they are doors to big
things. This means that in order to attain some
biggies in life, smaller things that may at times be
ignored should be collected to produce a much

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better impact. For an example, the communication
related laidback which I had executed while
conducting an inspection at the stock center in my
last organization. If at that time I had cared the
importance of effective communication, it could
have produced a rather different result.
This is sufficient to understand the importance of
being focused on big things while keeping a good
account of smaller aspects also. Building the blocks
of smaller attitudes will only help me to reach to
the bigger platforms where I will be able to deliver
the best of work from every perspective. In
addition to the fact, smaller things do also impact
the organizational outcome as this is quite evident
in my experience which I had while working with
labors in the stock zone.
CHAPTER 4: Leadership Behaviors, Attitudes, and Styles
Leadership Behaviors, Attitudes, and Styles
Four leadership task-oriented behaviors Task-oriented leadership skills are also very
important as it communicates the art of handling a
task (Collinson, 2014). The four task-oriented

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leadership skills that I have noticed are problem-
solving capability, identifying the appropriate
resources for every task, allocating the task
appropriately within the team and enquiring the
task progress (Daft, 2014).
1) Problem-solving skills:
This is very vital from the perspective of project
handling capability. The higher the one is capable
of solving the various kinds of problems, the
chances of projects being completed within the
time will also increase. For an example, in case of
an accounting work, if the stock executive is not
able to resolve the errors between the manual
entries and the system generated reports, the
executive will probably fail to identify the errors.
Consequently, this will hamper the company’s
revenue as it could not identify the errors in sales.
2) Identification of appropriate resources:
Identification of appropriate resources is another
very important task-oriented behavior which may
affect the entire project also. Suppose for an
example, the auditing of an accounting firm is
scheduled. It is an internal auditing which the
management will conduct to identify if there is any
error in stocks. The task indeed requires a good
knowledge of how to track the mismatch. This

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requires an effective accountant who can
deliberately work to find the errors in accounting
details. Additionally, this also requires an effective
involvement of labors at the stock side area as they
will supply the manual details of sales comparing
which with the system generated reports will only
make the actual errors identifiable. On a broader
aspect, if the firm does not have the idea of the
required resources, it will definitely end up getting
useless data on auditing.
3) Task allocation:
This is another very important skill which helps to
identify the best match for every single task.
Different tasks require distinguishing expertise
which means it is important to allocate the task to
the best deserving personnel. For an example, If an
accountant executive is new to job & has a very
less relative experience and if auditing is being
allocated to him or her, the project or the task will
probably collapse. The executive will face the
challenge to identify ways to tackle the situation.
This will not only affect the company's
performance but may also influence the
professional development of the newly joined
executive.

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4) Enquiring the task progress:
This is very important as it may help to save the
image that a company has in the market. Auditing
is a big and a challenging task that requires a timely
update to check whether everything is on the track.
If this is not done, it may be the case that the task
has consumed a lot of time despite the fact it is a
failure. This is even more important in scenarios
like a project is being handled by the newly joined
executive. To make the executive feel confident
and positive, it is necessary to help him or her in
challenging circumstances. This will also help the
executive feel positive towards the attainment of
his or her professional goals.
CHAPTER 5: Contingency and Situational Leadership
Contingency and Situational Leadership
Example of leadership scenarios and possible
actions from me in the same context
There are two leadership scenarios which I had
recently observed. Follow are the details of such
situations and my possible answers to the scenarios
by being at the position where I have observed the
two different leaders:
1) Recently, I was passing through a confectionary

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shop. I had seen that the supervisor was shouting
on one of his staffs for delivering wrong items to
one of the customers. The customer had no issue
with that and had also mentioned it to the staff to
bring the actual item.
If I had been the supervisor at the confectionary
shop, I would rather have acted differently. I would
have rather tried a balanced approach. The
balanced approach according to me could have
been asking politely for sorry from the case
customer and helping the identified staff with
encouraging words. I could have consoled the staff
and have said that ‘not to worry, deliver the
customer the required item’. It really makes
difference to somebody who has just started his or
her career. Such person needs moral support from
his or her supervisor.
2) Another incident that I witnessed is a supervisor
who was leading an accounting team. The
supervisor was very angry on the team because
they were not being able to identify the errors in
manual entries and the tally generated data. If I had
been there in the supervisor shoes, I would have
rather shown them the way to deal with such task,
so that, mistakes are not repeated.
Crisis Leadership Example: “a pharmaceutical

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firm needing to recall an over-the-counter medicine
that has triggered illnesses in hundreds of
consumers”
List of suggestions to leaders:
1. Establishing a communications infrastructure
will be the first key for leaders for sorting the
mentioned crisis (Johnson, 2017). This will help to
draw the attention of every single stakeholder in the
issue. The CEO of the company should try
establishing a fair and effective communication
with the stakeholders and the crisis management
team.
2. Monitoring the social channels is next important
thing for the company’s CEO. This will help him or
her to understand the level of severity by observing
the comments of people on the escalated issue.
3. Involving members of the press will also do well
and provide an opportunity to CEO to act as a
spokesperson for the affected company. The CEO
will then publically be able to admit his or her takes
on the issue. Moreover, remedial steps could also
be ensured then (Northouse, 2017).
4. Quick response to affected persons will help the
CEO to establish an emotional attachment to them.
The affected people may feel the importance of

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gestures shown by the CEO itself. It is a big thing
that the CEO itself is confessing the problem and
ensuring a remedial action thereof.
CHAPTER 6: Leadership Ethics and Social Responsibility
Leadership Ethics and Social Responsibility
Reflection on a recent scenario Being ethical and socially responsible is another
important aspect of a leader. The fact can well be
understood from an example which is based on one
of my recent experiences. The example is related
with one of my experiences at the workplace. As I
mentioned, I had worked as a stock manager with
my previous employer. I had found some internal
errors like labors were intentionally hiding the
actual details of sales and purchase. They had the
intention to earn little good money by going an
ethical way. Even I could not have identified the
wrongdoing if I had not cross-verified the sales and
purchase at the tally platform. The inspection has
helped me to identify the errors which could have
been fatalistic if had been identified me. This will
be rated as unethical because actions had been

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performed intentionally without informing the
supervisors or others (Ciulla, 2014). If it had been
approved by the managerial personnel, this would
not have been an issue then. However, the way that
the labors had taken just suggests this was
unethical. It was my responsibility to report it to the
higher managerial personnel. I was ethical by being
faithful to the company and reporting the entire
case scenario to my respective managers.
Another example if of being social at the places
where human interactions are common. This could
be an institution or an organization. Social attitudes
do have an impact on a workplace environment.
For an example, the organization with better
exposure to social activities does also perform
better than others. It really encourages the
workforce, especially to the Millennials. The
contemporary workforce has several distinguish
expectations from their employers than their
parents had. They do better when they get their
requirements fulfilled at the workplace. Requiring a
social environment is one of such demands.
Nevertheless, such work can never be created if it
does not have leaders who have creative attitudes in
them. Creative attitudes encourage creative things
which could produce positive results. They do not

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hesitate in taking bold decisions if it looks
productive (DuBrin, 2016). Such creativeness does
also affect the workforce and their style of
working.
It is important to understand that being ethical and
social at the various levels in life does not only help
the individual but it also influences them who are
associated with the individual for their different
reasons. Effective leaders will give high attempts to
ethical things. This is due to a fact that ethical
practices prevent from being criticized in media
and in public. Leaders should also take care of their
social responsibilities which are to take care of the
workplace needs and the surrounding environment.
CHAPTER 12: Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills
Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills
Personal leadership as a communicator In this section, I would discuss my leadership skills
as a communicator. I have already mentioned one
of my experiences of working with the team when I
was in my last company. There was a mismatch
identified in between the manual entries of sales &