Reflective Essay - Leadership

This reflective essay discusses different aspects of leadership based on four articles. It explores the credibility factor, game-changing leadership, and the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership.

Reflective Essay - Leadership
Introduction
Reflective essay projects self-realization of any subject. This reflective essay will show self-
realization regarding different aspects of leadership as per articles provided. This essay will
consider four articles for discussion: the credibility factor of leadership with the question of what
the followers expect from their leader, the route of making a game-changing leader, skills behind
making a leader and leadership aspect regarding adaptation of emotional intelligent ambience in
any organization. After going through these articles, I will summarize these articles to give my
understanding on these issues. Leadership is very rare quality, which makes man different from
followers. There are different qualities prevailing in a leader, and those qualities make the leader
leading a team with followers. Leadership qualities and their identification is a significant issue
for centuries, and this is researched to identify the basic difference from general people and a
leader.
Literature 1- The credibility Factor: What followers expect from their leader by J. M. Kouzes
and B. J. Posner (January, 1990)
I have read this article and had found that this article is based on a research sponsored by
American Management Association with Warren Schmidt of University of Southern California
with an open-ended question to find out the basic characteristics of a leader from the follower
view-point. I have also known that this survey had gone for quite some time and with the sample
size of 1500 managers. The findings of this study, as revealed by me, were that the followers
look for four basic characteristics from their leaders. They are - honesty, competency, forward-
looking and inspiring. I have gone through these four characteristics featured in this article. I
have revealed that honesty is the basic trait for proving a person as leader. The followers look for
this trait to justify the stand of the leader from self-interest pampering view-point. I also feel this
should be the basic trait for a leader. The example cited in this article was Pat Carrigan of
General Motors. Under her leadership, General Motors had excelled in performance for the two
plants she had supervised. It was due to the reason of keeping the trust of the follower by
showing the quality of commitment and deliverance of her. The second trait was competence,
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which, in my belief, can prove the ability of the leader through concerned knowledge and
application gathered through experience. Forward looking is the third trait projected in the
article. I think this trait would make a leader able to find his destination and project the same to
the followers with achievable circumstances, clearly identified by the leader. The fourth
characteristic featured in this article was inspiration. This trait is reckoned by me as motivational
trait of a leader. I think the inspiring attitude of any leader can make his follower believe what
can be delivered with the given consideration. (Kuzoes & Posner, 1990)
Literature 2- How to become a game changing leader by Doug Ready and Allan Mulally (2017)
This is a management review paper published by MITSloan. In this paper, I came to know about
the special trait of a leader to prove him as game changer. The question arises in my mind that
what is game changing scenario and what special traits make a leader as game changer for any
enterprise. The article gives clear answers to these questions. In the ever-changing situation of
the world business, leader has to prove ability to change the game through change of strategy.
For this purpose, the leader has to align with three basic features of any business- purpose,
performances and principles-the three P’s. This is applicable for the top executive of any
enterprise to be driven by the concept of three P’s with further execution with stakeholders. This
article had reiterated the needs of different initial factors like fixation of purpose and principle of
the organization to set its performance benchmark. Although these three Ps are discussed in
theoretical mood, it is very difficult to execute their application in true sense by the company
executives. For this change, the leader has to make the team believe about the three P’s. Purpose
of any organization is to be defined with the broader aspect of serving the clients and
stakeholders, while performance should be assessed with the benchmark set by the management
and the principles of the enterprise should be driven by the honest and ethical qualities with
consideration of the core value of the business as the coveted platform. Due to the complex
challenges faced by the enterprise due to ever-changing scenario of global business, reality has to
be considered as the driving force to fix these three P’s with flexible attitude for the enterprise.
(Ready & Mulally, 2017)
Literature 3- What makes a leader by Daniel Goleman (Nov-Dec, 1998)
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While going through this article, I came to know that emotional intelligence is one of the main
driver to prove a leader successful. (Ackerman, 2019) There are different features to prove
emotional intelligence for a leader as depicted in this article. They are self awareness, self
regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill. Self awareness is the quality, through which
recognition and understanding of individual moods, emotions and drives are identified with their
impact on others. Self regulation is the quality, through which proactive decisions are restricted
with proper thinking and control of emotion and impulses through proper judgment. Motivation
is defined as the passion driving to get the job done for reason beyond monetary return. Empathy
is defined as the quality to understand the sentiment of others and treating people according to
self-observation. Social skills are for building networks to manage relationships and building of
personal rapport by finding of common objectives. Emotional intelligence is an inherent quality,
which originates from genetic feature. There may be different trainings conducted to the aspired
candidates to develop leadership skill and emotional intelligence, but emotional intelligence is
spontaneous and it grows with age and subsequent maturity. Still this leadership skill can be
enhanced by training. The origin of emotional intelligence is generated from neuro-transmitters
of the brain’s limbic system, which normally governs features like feelings, impulses and drives.
Research infers about the factors behind the learning of limbic system as motivation, extended
practice and respective feedback. I have come to know from this article also that emotional
intelligence can be learned with continuous practice and persistence. (Goleman, 1998)
Article 4- A leadership imperative: Building the emotionally intelligent organization by R. E
Boyatzis and E V Oosten (January-February, 2003)
While reading this article on creation of emotionally intelligent organization with leadership
aspect, I have found the example of leadership style of Frank Sims empowered by the concept of
emotional intelligence related to Roadway Dock’s operational management. The identified
problem was related to glassware business. Sims had initiated a workshop program for the team
to raise their emotional intelligence for excelling their feeling regarding the stakeholders. This
action had ignited the feeling of emotional intelligence among the team to deliver better service
for the stakeholders through innovative ideas introduced by Sims. From this article, I came to
know that emotional intelligence is defined as the set of competent qualities, which is derived
from a circuitry of neural function originating in the limbic system. Several studies have
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authenticated that successful leader insists more on emotional intelligence. The qualities of
emotional intelligence in the form of self awareness and self management increase the
competency level of leaders with emotional intelligence. I have observed self awareness in the
example of Frank Sims. He had shared his own feelings showing his worries with subsequent
reciprocal reaction by showing his flexible attitude towards resolving the problems of Roadway’s
Dock. His social awareness had directed him to make the workers understand the threats and
concerns of the customers. From this article, I came to know different personal and social
competencies regarding emotional intelligence to substantiate proven track of leadership. The
personal competencies are reckoned as the self awareness cluster consisting of self awareness,
proper self assessment and level of self confidence; and the self management cluster consisting
of ability of adaptation, control of self emotion, personal initiative, and orientation of
achievements, optimistic attitude and trustworthiness by showing respect to individual integrity
or consistency. The social competencies are identified as social awareness cluster consisting of
empathy, orientation of service and awareness of organization, and relationship management
cluster consisting of inspiring leadership, development of others, changing type of catalysts,
handling conflict management, influencing team members and creating better environment to
ensure team building and collaboration. (Boyatzis & Oosten, 2003)
Conclusion
By studying the above four articles, I came to know the factors to prove effective leadership by
understanding credibility and game changing factor of a successful leader. I also come to know
how emotional intelligence can motivate a successful leader by showing his personal feeling
towards different qualities of a successful leader. These articles can certainly contribute to my
approach towards leadership in my activities of professional as well as other sphere of activities.
A good leader can be a mixed impact of all these factors, which I have read in the above articles
with their true application.
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Bibliography
Ackerman, C., 2019. what is emotional intelligence?+ 18 ways to improve it. [Online] Available at:
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/emotional-intelligence-eq/ [Accessed 23 April 2019].
Boyatzis, R.E. & Oosten, E.V., 2003. A Leadership Imperative: Building th emotionally intelligent
organization. Ivey Business Journal, pp.1-4.
Goleman, D., 1998. What Makes a Leader. Review. Harvard: Harvard Busienss Review.
Kuzoes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z., 1990. The Credibility Factor: what followers expect from. Review.
Management Review.
Ready, D. & Mulally, A., 2017. How to Become a Game-Changing Leader. MIT Sloan Management
Review, 59(1), pp.63-71.
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