Personal and professional development

This reflection report discusses personal and professional development through the lens of leadership styles and theories. It explores the transformational leadership style adopted by Jeff Bezos and its impact on the success of Amazon. The report also highlights the importance of choosing the right leadership style for personal and professional growth.

Personal and professional
development
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Table of Contents
PART A ..........................................................................................................................................3
PART B............................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Reflection report..........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
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PART A
(Covered in Power Point Presentation)
PART B
INTRODUCTION
Reflective writing refers to attempt by writer to communicate about their own thought
process. It is introspection of writer into his own research report. Reflective writing consists of
explanation interpretation, experience and outcome of writing this report. This reflection report is
about the research done on leadership styles and theories and leadership style adopted by Jeff
Bezos in leading his followers. Following are some characteristic of reflective writing:
 Reflection: This report reflects about the content discussed in the research. This helps
the writer in developing a better learning about himself.
 Evidence: To write a reflection report, it is necessary to discuss about the evidences so
as to prove the report as authentic and original.
 Clarity: While writing reflective report, the writer should be clear about his opinions
and thoughts, so he do not get lost between different points of view and present readers
with a clear report of his thoughts (HusebøO, 'Regan and Nestel, 2015).
MAIN BODY
Reflection report
In this report, I am reflecting my thoughts and opinions that are formed on the basis on
my research report about personal and professional development. To prepare this reflection, I am
using Gibbs' reflective cycle. It offers a framework for examining experiences and given its
cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing us to learn and plan
from things that either went well or did not go well (Dean, 2014). There are three stages in this
model:
 Description: About the experience
 Feelings : of experiences
 Evaluation: of experience
 Analysis : to make sense of situation
 Conclusion: about what is learnt
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 Action plan: how to deal with situation in future
First of all I will discuss about my experience while doing this report. At the time, I was
conducting research on leadership style, I came to understanding of different styles of leadership
that can be adopted by a leader in order to successfully lead his team. Out of all policies, Jeff
Bezos has adopted transformational leadership style. He is continuously transforming followers
thought process in order to make them complement organisational goal. He never leaves any
chance in promoting their product or company. He is in direct contact with his employees and
working uninterrupted in giving them job satisfaction. In this way, he is obtaining maximum
productivity and Amazon is moving in direction of success.
I conducted this research in order to understand that what is the reason behind huge
success of Amazon. I came to know that, the effective leadership is the sole reason behind its
success. During this research, I had motivating feeling of following Bezos' footsteps in order to
move forward in direction of success in my career. I also felt that there I do not possess some of
the main qualities that are necessary for a successful leadership program. These qualities are
keeping continuous check on followers as I do not have essential quality of time management. I
felt that I need to work upon my personality in order to become a successful leader. Next step in
Gibbs reflective cycle is to evaluate my learnings during this research. One thing that was very
good during this experience, that I learned a lot about the situation demand and how to adopt
suitable leadership style. My perception before this study was that beyond huge success of
Amazon, there is autocratic leadership, but my view turn around completely, as leader is
following transformational style.
I learnt that to be at number one position, we cannot move alone. We have to work like
single unit and then we can succeed in obtaining desired objective. I have made search through
different literatures and journals in order to prepare this report and made a conclusion that there
are various styles of leadership and for the purpose of personal and professional growth, it is
very important to adopt for a right style. If the right style will not be chosen, it will lead to
decline in company's growth as well as employee's performance. We have discussed multiple
leadership theories such as trait theory, contingency theory, etc. From the above mentioned
report, I could conclude that leaders cannot follow one leadership theory universally. They have
to transform themselves according to the need of the hour. They focus on analysing situation and
then react accordingly. Sometimes, they have to act as mentor, and instructor and other times
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they have to act as motivator and guide. Thus, in my opinion, transformational leadership theory
is best to be practised. Leaders practising this theory believes in establishing a relationship with
their sub ordinates and team members. Their subordinates look up to them and follow their
words.
Transformational leaders inspires their subordinates to work more effectively and
efficiently. They believe in bringing out the best out of their team members. They inspire them
to innovate. They adopt various strategies to push the productivity level as well as creativity
level of their subordinates. As we have seen Zeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is also known to
practise transformational style of leadership. He himself believes in innovating the process to
better the business experience for everyone. His zeal pushes his team to make his vision a reality.
He believes in establishing clear communication channels with everyone and advises his team to
do same as well. He inspires his team to own up to their mistakes and make necessary corrective
actions so that they can grow personally as well as professionally. I believe that I possess some
of these skills and yet I need to learn a lot from him.
I admire his way of decision-making and the way he puts his team in front. His belief that
his work should speak for him resonates with me. I am inspired from him and aspire to develop
all positive traits of his personality in me so that I can grow like him in my professional career as
well. If I had be in the same position of management, I would also like to follow
transformational style of leadership. I would have treated all of my subordinates as my team. I
would have first of all clearly communicated company's vision and mission statements to my
team. Then, an action plan would be drawn to achieve those targets. All the team members
would be invited to share their ideas to innovate the process.
Maximum use of technology would be taken. Once the action plan would be decided,
we'll deliver it management processes to adopt and execute it. I believe in learning on job
method. We encounter problems, we discuss them and we deliver the solutions. Clear
communication channels from all levels of hierarchy would be established so that they can
suggest their ideas and put their grief in the direct notice of higher management so that they feel
safe in the business environment of the company. Competitive packages, lucrative rewards and
perquisites would be provided to the employees so that they feel monetarily attached to the
company as well. I believe a leadership process is a learning process and learning continues as
the business continues.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been elucidated that a person has to analyse skill and
knowledge that he possess in order to identify about the type of leader and follower he will
become in future. To be a successful leader, he should take proper learning so that required
qualities can be developed. Gibbs reflective cycle can help in reflecting about the related study.
Personal and professional growth can be considered as the overall development process of a
person and this is an essential element for the success of any business. It can be summarised
through this report that leadership style should complement personal and professional
development programs.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dean, E., 2014. Reflective practice.
Husebø, S.E., O'Regan, S. and Nestel, D., 2015. Reflective practice and its role in simulation.
Clinical Simulation in Nursing. 11(8). pp.368-375.
Potter, C., 2015. Leadership development: an applied comparison of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle and
Scharmer’s Theory U. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Smith, J. and Roberts, R., 2015. Reflective practice. Vital Signs for Nurses: An Introduction to
Clinical Observations. pp.222-230.
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