Leadership and Values: Strengths and Weaknesses

This paper focuses on the importance of values in leadership and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the author's leadership style. The author highlights the importance of honesty and integrity in leadership and how they have helped boost their leadership. The author also discusses their weakness in patience and how they plan to overcome it. The paper concludes by emphasizing the significance of values in providing quality leadership.

Running head: LEADERSHIP 1
Leadership
Name of Student
Institutional Affiliation

LEADERSHIP 2
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE…………………………………………………………………………………. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………….2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………..3
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………4
STRENGHTS IN LEADERSHIP………………………………………………………………4
HONESTY……………………………………………………………………………...4
INTEGRITY…………………………………………………………………………....5
WEAKNESSES………………………………………………………………………………….5
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………..5
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………..7

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Executive Summary
At one point in life, we always fall into positions of leadership at various times in our lives, and
we are always expected to deliver quality leadership. What enables us do this is having the right
values that are needed to help us become the leaders we desire. This paper focuses on some of
the values I have upheld in life and have boosted my leadership endeavors. It focuses on two of
the major leadership qualities that personally have been of help in my leadership life. On the
contrary, it discusses one of my weaknesses as a leader and how these weaknesses have led to
the demeanor of my leadership. It also looks at the resolutions am to take to ensure a correction
in these weaknesses. It begins with an introduction where it describes the meaning of values and
their importance, then it proceeds to look at the weaknesses and the solution in the conclusion.

LEADERSHIP 4
Leadership
Introduction
According to Kraemer (2011), a true understanding for values is of utmost
importance for current and aspiring leaders. Values are the principles we personally hold in our
lives and are established in our early lives. Most of the time, we copy values from the people we
look up to in life, these are; our role models, teachers and parents then further shaped by our
personal life experiences. There is usually a possibility to change our values in life for the
betterment when we reach at a point of self realization. We usually have two broad categories of
values that we uphold in our lives, these are; terminal and instrumental values (Lewis et al 2007).
Terminal values are the values that are active and in consistent use in our daily lives such as,
honesty, responsibility, courage and so on. On the other hand, terminal values are values that
guide the lifelong decisions we make such as, contentedness, equality, peace among others. Two
of my foremost instrumental values in life are honesty and integrity. These two values have
helped improve my leadership by many ways. One of the ways that honesty has helped to boost
my leadership is that it has helped people build trust on me as a leader.
Strengths in Leadership
Honesty
Chapman (2018) argues that honesty is transparency or openness, that is, our
willingness to communicate freely what we think or feel whether it is uncomfortable or
unpopular. One of our greatest fears in life is the fear to communicate what we think because of
lack of self-esteem. In my leadership, one of the things that has boosted my level of openness is
the ability to speak the truth in every situation irrespective of the outcome. At one instance, I had
to witness the suspension of one of my best friends because I had to tell the truth on an incident
that he was a victim and I was the only witness. Being the only witness, I had an opportunity to
lie in order to protect my best friend, but I resolved to say the truth and let justice take its course.
Honesty has helped me be very fair in my leadership duties, despite working among many of my
friends.
Everything of worth is founded on trust, from financial systems to relationships
(Horsager 2012). Trust is earned by the things we do over time and allows people to be able to

LEADERSHIP 5
depend on us especially in positions of leadership. The more the people we lead trust us in our
positions, the easier it is to effectively provide good administration in the various fields that we
lead. Trust being the glue that holds the key leadership qualities together, trust has
complemented other values that have boosted my leadership. Being honest as a leader has
enabled people to trust me and this has made my leadership very influential.
Integrity
On the other hand, upholding integrity has been a key value in my leadership life.
Integrity is having strong moral principles, that is, the clear knowledge and a deep commitment
to uphold what is right. It is the action of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures,
principles, expectations and outcomes (Biju & Lochrie 2009). Most of us in life know what is
right at one point of life or the other, but only few uphold and always stand for what is right.
Integrity is one of the key leadership principles that has made exceptional leaders (Cohen 2010).
People often compromise their stands to fit into a group of people or to feel accepted in a setting
and that is where we lose it. One of the secrets to exceptionality is having a firm stand on what
you believe as right no matter the circumstance.
Weaknesses
In contrast, apart from the good values I have been able to uphold in leadership,
there are certain weaknesses I have too, one of them being patience. Patience simply means
waiting (Hamed 2015). I was brought up to believe that once I know my responsibility, it is my
duty to do it and see it into completion at the right time. This has made me put people under
pressure to ever complete their duties on time. A source from the University of Leeds Career
Centre argues that, pressure in a work context is the burden of physical or mental distress and the
constraints of circumstances; the urgency of issues requiring attention. One of the ways I am
going to apply to overcome this challenge is to reach at a level of understanding that people are
different and work under pressure leads to poor results (Menkes 2011). This will help me be able
to work with people more closely without putting unnecessary pressure on them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, values are very important in order for us to provide quality
leadership. Honesty is very key in every field of leadership. In fact, our level of honesty

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determines how effective our leadership can be. The ability of the people we lead or even the
people above us in our positions of leadership to trust us is very is of great significance. On the
other hand, integrity, not only in leadership but also in other aspects of our lives is of great value.
People will relate with us well if we are people of integrity.

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References
Biju, M., & Lochrie, R.J. (2009). Integrity: the core of leadership. United States of America.
Tate publishing and enterprises, LLC.
Cohen, W.A. (2010). Heroic Leadership: Leading with integrity and honor. San Francisco.
Jossey bass.
Chapman, K. (2013). What do honesty, integrity & trust mean in leadership.
Horsager, D. (2012). The trust edge: How top leaders gain faster results, deeper relationships and
a stronger bottom line. Simon and Schuster. 5-16.
Hamed, B.D. (2015). Patience: how to wait upon the world. Wipf and stock publishers.
Kraemer, M. H. (2011). From values to action. John wiley & sons. 1-13.
Lewis, P., Goodman, S., Fandt, P., & Michlitsch, J. (2006) Management: Challenges for
tomorrow’s leaders. (5th ed). Thompson learning. Inc.
Menkes, J. (2011). Better under pressure: how great leaders bring out the best in themselves and
others. Boston, Massachusetts. Harvard business review press.