Reflective Essay on Leadership Qualities and Development Plan

This reflective essay discusses the author's three leadership qualities and the need to develop three more for effective leadership. It also highlights the importance of sustainability and social responsibility. A development plan is suggested to enhance leadership qualities.

Reflective essay
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The primary motive of the paper is to reflect upon the three leadership qualities of mine. The
paper will also highlight the other three leadership qualities that I need to develop in order to be
an effective and successful leader. For improving my leadership qualities, a development plan
needs to be made which will be discussed throughout the paper. Moreover, the importance of
various aspects of sustainability and social responsibility will be reflected throughout the paper.
The three leadership qualities of mine are decision-making capabilities, inspiring others and a
good communicator. These three leadership qualities helped me a lot to gain deeper
understanding about the various concepts of leadership and by using this quality I will be a good
leader in future. It is noted that decision-making abilities is considered to be one of the most
essential leadership qualities as it helps a person to take the right decision at the right time
(Brewster, 2017). In other words, the decision-making ability of a leader determines its thinking
ability (Krause, 2015). It is important for a leader to think deeply before taking any decision in
any critical situation and the decision made as it will help in evaluating the desired effectiveness
and success of the concerned work procedures (Graham, Daniel and Doore, 2015).
Different leaders have different ways to take decisions based on the particular situation within an
organization. Moreover, the stakeholders of an organization plays vital role in evaluating the
effectiveness of the deductions taken (Nia, and Nia, 2016). It is important for any of the leader to
identify the situation and the business requirements as it helps in facilitating the overall growth
of the firm to a larger extent. The gathering of knowledge regarding the various aspects of
managing work processes and employees will help in executing my future jobs. Being a leader in
a team provides immense knowledge regarding managing of the work and controlling the tasks
executed by different members of the group. It becomes vital to, investigate the exact issues if
any type of conflict takes place as it helps in resolving the concerned issues with proper type of
the solutions. As a leader, in like to have few of the crucial qualities in me like honesty, loyalty,
intelligent and ability to manage work processes along with the team members.
In other words, it also helped me to gain knowledge practically for taking any harsh as well as
the hard decision in any situation. In order to complete the tasks with utmost quality, each of the
members of the group were divided work separately as per their interest and ability. For taking
this decision I took some time to think about the ability of each member of the team. After
thinking properly about the strengths and weakness of each member the work was allocated to
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the members as per their capability. In the beginning, I was very much scared about my decision,
but after completing the task, I understood that I am capable of taking the correct decision in any
situation. By this way, I have understood that the quality of decision-making will help me a lot in
my future jobs (DeBenedectis et al., 2017). Moreover, I have superior communicational skills
and can communicate with my team members in a proper manner (Yildiz, 2017).
Good communicator is also considered as one of the leadership quality and it depends on
communication between two people (Barkema et al., 2015). The good communicator is one who
can express their thoughts as well as feelings without any hesitation and by interacting with other
people (Martins, Rindova and Greenbaum, 2015). If a leader is unable to share its message
effectively to its team member, then he is not a good communicator (Ali et al., 2015). I have
learned all these qualities while working in a team for the assessment task. In the team, each
member was having a different working schedule for the concerned task, so it was necessary that
each member should report to their captain about their work.
While doing the task, I have noticed that one of my team members hesitated to speak in front of
other members. I have noticed this more than three times, and then I decided that I should help
him so that he can communicate easily with the other members. In order to develop confidence
in that team member, I asked several questions to him regarding work processes and this helped
him in gaining confidence and speaking frankly in front of other people. The use of good
communication skills helps a person to express his feelings as well as thoughts in front of other
people (Mudler et al., 2018). Therefore, the use of excellent communicational skills helps in
reducing conflicts and miscommunications between the team members and maintains efficiency
throughout the work processes (Engert, Rauter and Baumgartner, 2016). Many people get
inspired by few of my abilities like confidence and the way of handling critical tasks and these
qualities will help me in future jobs for making effective decisions.
Hence, it is clear that the most difficult job of a leader is to inspire others and it can only be
possible by setting a good example for the people (Kamatkar et al., 2018). I have also followed
this strategy to inspire my classmates so that they can complete their work on time. In order to
inspire the group members, I motivated them with effective communication method which will
help them in providing their best effort to their respective tasks. They have to make a plan and
follow this until they reach their goal and by this way, they can easily complete their task as per
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the stipulated time. Thus, my three of vital leadership qualities are effective decision-making,
providing inspiration to other people and excellent communicational skills.
There are few of the other leadership qualities required by me, these are strong confidence level,
commitment as well as innovation in the work procedures. These leadership abilities will help
me a lot in future to be a good leader. For being an effective leader, it is necessary that the person
should retain their ability and confidence so that they can follow the instructions within the
workplace (Kolk, 2016). Moreover, it is seen that people those have superior confidence level
are able to make effective decisions at any point of time (Overall, 2015). If a leader has enough
confident regarding his working procedure, then he can easily achieve respect from his fellow
team members as well as from other employees working in the firm (Qamar et al., 2017).
Confidence helps in evaluating the effectiveness of any of the concerned work processes but over
confidence negatively affects work processes (Andersen et al., 2018). Therefore, it becomes vital
for any leader to be completely sure regarding the decisions that are going to be taken by him in
future. Besides this, it also helps the leader to make the right choice as well as the decision for
any difficult situation. Thus by achieving this leadership quality, I will also be able to develop
my decision-making ability which thereby helps me to take the correct decision with full
confidence so that everyone will respect me. In other words, with full confidence, I can easily
take my decision on any tuff situation and thereby it enhances me to be a good leader in the
future.
Another leadership quality that I have to develop is commitment and passion because this quality
helps a leader to achieve success as well as goals (Shakshi et al., 2016). Passion helps a person to
achieve their goals whereas commitment helps them to earn respect from the subordinate
(Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube, 2015). Gaining suitable amount of confidence by the
employees will help in facilitating the desired growth of the entire firm (Albrecht et al., 2015).
Moreover, higher confidence level within the employees helps in bringing more commitment
from the employees. If a person is not fully committed, then it became difficult for the leader to
manage the team and thus it is considered to be one of the most important leadership quality
(Schaubroeck, Lam and Peng, 2016). Hence I have to develop my skills on this leadership
quality because in future days it will help me to complete my task as per the stipulated time and
as being a committed person everyone will respect my decision. In other words, passion helps
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me to create as well as motivate other team members so that in future I can easily achieve my
goals without facing any difficulties. The third leadership quality that I have to develop is
creativity and innovation because this leadership quality only separates between leaders and
followers.
I have learned that innovation is the ability of leaders that help them to develop new things that is
not only helpful for the business but for the employees too. A leader must have the ability to
bring innovation and creativeness in order to create new operation procedures or strategies that
will give benefits to both the business and employees (Quarshie, Salmi and Leuschner, 2016).
Constant innovation and creative thinking helps a leader to make the team efficient and reliable
(Strand, Freeman and Hockerts 2015). Moreover, being innovative will help me in generating
new ideas for executing the concerned work processes for my team. Also, the development of
confidence and innovation will help me in getting success for all my future jobs.
A development plan helps to easily acquire these three leadership qualities such as confidence,
commitment and passion, and creativity and innovation because these qualities will help a person
to be a good leader in future (Amah, 2017). To achieve the success a plan is necessary for me so
that I can easily learn all these leadership qualities approach. To enhance my confidence level, I
have to take decision instantly, and this will help me to inspire and motivate from others. It is
important to note that motivation, as well as inspiration, are considered to be an important aspect
that enhances the confidence level of an individual (Grossman, and Hanlon, 2014). Hence both
motivation and inspiration from the fellow students and teachers will help an individual to
increase the confidence level (Shanafelt et al., 2015).
It is vital to understand that the formulation of work schedule as per concerned deadlines will
help in maintaining the quality of the project. Working as per the developed schedule helps in
achieving the desired goals for the entire group. It is important for me to follow the work
schedule and complete each of the task within the mentioned timeframe. In order to enhance the
quality of the team work, each of the work procedures should be completed by respective group
members to whom they are allocated. Moreover, I have to bring new and creative ideas for
improving the execution of the work procedures. Also, the communication skills needs to be
enhanced in order to reduce any type of confusion between the group members. In order to
measure my work ability, I have to note down my progress in a form of “progress report”. The
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development of the progress report will help me in identifying my weaknesses and strengths.
Furthermore, the identification of my weaknesses as revealed in the progress report will help me
in converting those weaknesses into strengths.
According to the author Le Fevre and Robinson, (2015), sustainability simply refers to the
process of maintaining change in a balanced manner, and it enhances both the future and current
needs as well as demands of an individual. Furthermore, I have also learned that sustainability
considers as the interconnected pillars or domains between social, environments and economic
attributes. On the other hand, social responsibility is an ethical framework that suggests an entity
of the organization, and it provides benefits to every individual of a firm to maintain the balance
between the ecosystems and economy (Ricard et al., 2017). A good and effective leader is
thereby capable of maintaining the sustainability and social responsibility of an organization.
Hence it is necessary for me to develop all these leadership qualities that can help me to promote
a sustainable environment.
The paper concluded that I need to develop and improve three leadership qualities that will help
me to become a good leader in the future. For enhancing my leadership qualities, a development
plan is made which will help me to learn about the effectiveness of leadership qualities so that I
can efficiently manage my staffs in the workplace. Also, both context of sustainability and social
responsibility helped me to develop my leadership qualities for the future.
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