People, Culture, and Contemporary Leadership

The essay brings about the discussion on the assignment ‘people, culture, and contemporary leadership’ and the other related aspects in context to business organisations. Leadership is an important function of management, influences the behaviour of the individuals in an organisational setting.

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People, culture and contemporary leadership
5/13/2019

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The essay brings about the discussion on the assignment ‘people, culture, and contemporary
leadership’ and the other related aspects in context to business organisations. Leadership is
an important function of management, influences the behaviour of the individuals in an
organisational setting. Therefore, in any organisation managers or leaders are significant to
the growth and long-term success of the organisation (Antonakis & Day, 2017). The
discussion is the reflective journal or essay, which will bring assessment of the six different
criteria given in the requirements leading to effective leadership. Reflective journal or essay
will bring the collective analysis of the thoughts, ideas, knowledge, skills, and other
experiences developed over a period. Moreover, the discussion will also determine my skills
and qualities determining the effectiveness to become a leader. This will further mention the
limitations, highlighting the areas of self-improvement or changes need to be incorporated to
lead towards the path of effective leadership. Thus, the learning about the concepts of people,
culture, and the role of leadership and applicability into my life will be determined through
certain ways.
Now, the discussion will follow the assessment of the theories, and management concepts
that we learned during our class lectures. From the given two theories, that was taught i.e.
recruitment, and talent management. I choose the theory of ‘talent acquisition’ as one of the
vital theory for effective management. The theory of talent acquisition refers to the process
of attracting and hiring qualified and competent workforce in an organisation. On the other
hand, the process of talent management is defined as the development and retention of the
skilled individuals or people hired in an organisation (Hu & Judge, 2017). In this discussion,
I learned about the concept of talent acquisition, that is forms the base and a vital part of the
process of talent management. For hiring young and competent talent in the organisation,
managers focus on strengthening the strong employer brand image to attract right candidates
for required job positions. Thus, it can be stated that talent acquisition is an on-going strategy
that focuses upon the long-term human resource planning and searching for suitable
candidates within organisation (Karagianni & Jude Montgomery, 2018).
In addition, we were taught during our class lectures, that there are some of the methods of
acquiring and hiring the best talent for the organisation, i.e. using external factors i.e.
recruitment agencies, educational institutions, employee referrals, advertisements, leasing and
contracting, and internal methods of talent acquisition.

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Furthermore, to enhance the effectiveness of the process of talent acquisition, the managers
emphasize developing a healthy relationship with their past candidates or employees. This
helps employees to bring referrals to the organisation, i.e. new prospective candidates for the
required job positions and roles. it is the core management function of the efficient managers
to hire or recruit individuals from the diverse cultural backgrounds to ensure unity in the
workforce. Thus, I have understood that effective talent management requires building
healthy workplace with the skilled employees to lead attainment of organisational goals and
objectives, and this further leads to development of qualities of leadership (Grint, Smolovic
Jones & Holt, 2016).
Furthermore, we were taught about the use and enhancement of independent learning
strategy through using online resources, which consists of the videos, podcasts, and textbook
chapters along with the journal articles. In the given online sources for understanding the
concept of human resource planning, attracting and retaining workforce in organisation, I
have chosen videos. It has been mentioned in the Week 4 page no. 8, which d provides the
link of a video. From the video, I have understood the recruitment strategy of a Bronze a
newly opened restaurant with around 150 seats, situated in the financial district of the
metropolitan city (Northouse, 2017). From the analysis of a market study on restaurant, I
assessed the strategy of the manager, i.e. to attain full capacity at the end of the year, 900
patrons per day. Furthermore, we were taught from the video that with the help of these
market insights the manager of restaurant created a staff augmentation plan. Through this
plan, he analysed the actual required workers in their restaurant, and this facilitated them in
proper allocation of their funds, as per the requirement, and invest the remaining in other core
activities. Therefore, with the help of this video I have acquired an understanding of the
concepts of human resource planning which is essential to ensure effectiveness of process of
recruitment and talent management in the organisation (Tafti, Mahmoudsalehi & Amiri,
2017).
The above discussion has stated the talent acquisition and use of online resources to support
developing an understanding of concepts of leadership. Now, the third criteria includes the
industry speaker or the view-points of the guest lecture we attended, as a part of our course
lectures. the given link of the industry speaker represents the discussion or conversation of
two persons, i.e. one Wendy Teasdale-Smith with another lady (Krishnan & Scullion,
2017).

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Wendy Teasdale-Smith is a well-known and executive leader known for her work with some
of the prominent leaders discussed on some important topics. The speaker in this video
describes the scenario of their organisation or industry and mentions about the key areas of
improvement (Tafti, Mahmoudsalehi & Amiri, 2017).
From the given video of the leader with the industry speaker, I have understood that an
individual, regardless of their age can develop, refine, and hone their leadership skills and
abilities. It describes the attainment of effective leadership skills and qualities, which will
lead them towards positively presenting the best version of them.
The industry speaker highlights about various operations, and procedures in an organisation,
and the role of different managers in completion of their goals and tasks. Moreover, I have
analysed that the impact of any change in the organisation, i.e. work procedures or processes
is observed on the whole organisation, rather on an individual. Therefore, it is essential to
plan and organise the roles and duties of different work managers to obtain positive results or
outcomes (Hezlett, 2016).
Moreover, from the video, I have analysed that as a effective manager or leader it is essential
to conduct an evaluation of the performance of employees and organisation. The
measurement and evaluation of performance are carried out through meetings each month. In
addition, the meeting includes the discussion of everything that starts from the established
organisational strategies, values, procedures and other aspects of organisational performance
(Antonakis & Day, 2017).
Moving on to the discussion of other essential areas or topics of management, we need to
participate in the in-class activities to make a valuable contribution to the learning process.
The in-class activity included a debate on a topic, in which we were focused to mention
points for promoting an insider. We were asked to speak on the favour or positive side of the
topic, in context to business organisations. The topic, delivered an understanding that
managers must hire or focus on the recruitment of individuals from within the organisation,
i.e. internal methods of recruitment and internal talent attraction (Dong et al., 2017). And
during the activity or discussion, I speak and raised most of the positive points about the
topic, i.e. employee hired within the organisation contribute to organisational efficiency.
Development of internal talent is the key to effective staff management positions and often a

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prudent way to resolve the issues in an organisation. Moreover, from the points mentioned by
other participants in the discussion I understood that promoting an insider is often an
appropriate way to resolve the sudden or planned executive change within an organisation. I
mentioned another point stating that from the perspective of hiring or placing individuals
from the organisation help managers to fill their positions better at the top and bottom lines.
Other participants in the activity stated negative aspects or disadvantages of promoting an
insider in the organisation; that it is always not the best choice to promote people within the
organisation (Deery & Jago, 2015).
From this discussion, I have understood that I mentioned better points in the activity, which
determines the level of my understanding and confidence in the aspect of participation.
Therefore, I am confident, one who takes initiative in the participation in different class
activities that highlights communication and interpersonal skills. As the overall debate and
discussion on the topic was good, therefore I have acquired effective public speaking skills,
which helped me further in other activities. This also acts as major parameter determining
effective performance and skills to become skilled executive leader in the future years
(Glaister et al., 2018).
Progressing towards another important element or criteria of effective skills and abilities in
the path of becoming a successful leader is the study of assessment feedback. The feedbacks
were given to every student during the process of stage of learning to become a future leader.
I analysed my performance mentioned by my instructor or educator through the given
assessment feedback, that I lagged behind in answering some of the aspects or questions in
the outline of the assignment. This stated that I need to focus on understanding the
initiatives, and specifically on developing and refining my writing skills. It means a report in
any assignment must be written in a formal manner to avoid any issues (Noe et al., 2017).
Analysing the skills or qualities of an effective leader, I possess some of the skills, and
abilities such as team-building skills, confidence, communication, or interpersonal skills. On
the contrary, as a leader, a deficiency was observed in some of the skills. As I need to work
upon developing negotiation skills and analytical skills to ensure, providing statistical and
relevant information related to my work to develop my leadership skills. Thus, some of these
aspects were mentioned in the assessment feedback, which highlighted the skill gap in my
performance, and stated the need to make improvement in the skills (Ebrahimi Mehrabani &
Azmi Mohamad, 2015).

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Discussing the last criteria, in context to the assessment of concept of leadership in
organisations, it has been found that managers emphasize the use of psychometric tests for
measuring performance. Psychometric tests are used to analyse and evaluate specific
personality characteristics of an individual associated to the concept of successful leaders or
leadership. These are standard methods to measure the mental capabilities and style of
behaviour and attitude of an individual working in the organisation. Therefore, we were
asked to perform and complete a psychometric test as another vital part of our course items,
to identify and analyse traits of leadership (Cripps, 2017).
I completed the given psychometric tests, which used certain traits or characteristics as
parameters of high or low score, as I scored between the ranges 0-4. These traits used in the
psychometric tests included warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness,
social boldness, vigilance, sensitivity, privateness, openness to change, tension,
perfectionism, self-reliance and other.
I have scored certain aspects of traits in the following range, mentioned below:
Score 1-1.3: It included and determined my performance level in respect to following traits,
apprehension, privateness, tension, and vigilance. From this score, in respect to these traits, I
have understood that my score was low for the negative traits, or behaviour which may
develop fear or anxiety towards anything wrong. This was quite good leading towards higher
performance (Shamir & Eilam-Shamir, 2018).
Score 2.2-2.9: It defined the effectiveness of my performance with respect to the following
traits, abstractedness, warmth, openness to change, rule-consciousness, emotional stability.
Score 3-3.5: It included the measurement of effectiveness of performance and style of
behaviour in reference to certain traits and abilities such as liveliness, dominance, sensitivity,
reasoning, and social boldness (Mikkelson, York & Arritola, 2015).
From the above discussion, I scored quite enough or good ranging from 2.2 to 3.5, which
determined effectiveness of leadership traits and interpersonal communication. Therefore, it
can be stated that on an average my scores were quite appropriate to become a leader in the
future years. However, an individual always have the room for improvement or aspects of

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developing with a high potential, therefore changes must be incorporated to develop
personality (Hezlett, 2016).
To conclude the above discussion it has been analysed that the concept of leadership plays a
vital role in the growth and success of modern businesses. The reflection of my knowledge,
understanding, and concepts mentioned the significance of practising effective leadership and
refining skills, and traits to ensure development. Development and improvement of the skills,
and leadership abilities are understood and achieved in respect to the six different criteria
mentioned in the assignment. Hence, I have conducted an in-depth analysis of the theme of
leadership with the help of suitable examples, and theories of management essential to lead
to success and higher performance in the future.

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References
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