Leadership Skills Report: Personal Experiences and Future Career Goals

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership skills, encompassing personal experiences and future career aspirations. The first part of the report details the student's experience as a leader, highlighting the challenges faced and the lessons learned. The student reflects on an initial autocratic leadership style and identifies the need for transformational leadership, emphasizing the importance of feedback, social skills, and empathy. The second part outlines the student's future career goals in healthcare, specifically in a pharmacy setting. The report then explores cross-cultural leadership as the most suitable leadership style for this context, focusing on the ability to work effectively with diverse teams, manage cultural differences, and ensure respectful communication. The report also provides an overview of key leadership theories and their practical application, supported by relevant academic references.

Running head: LEADERSHIP SKILLS
LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Report 1:
My experience:
While I was placed in an organization in my internship years, I was given the position of
a leader of eight member team. Previously I had never demonstrated any leadership skills and
therefore I was quite concerned about my leadership skills. While working in the team, I decided
on a strategy in order to complete a task. When I conveyed the strategy of time management, two
of the members suggested that the strategy would not bring out positive effect as this would
require more time. However, I became quite disappointed and stated that since I am the leader
they are bound to follow my decisions. Though they expressed dissatisfaction initially, they
acted as per my guidance eventually. Moreover, I also noticed that I was not being able to
socialize with them and only communicated with them when I needed to talk about work. This
was making the working environment very strenuous and was creating pressure as I was not
supporting an informal environment to be developed in workplace. There was no question of
showing empathy towards the team members as they could not be trusted with the work. I had
little confidence that they would work successfully towards fulfillment of the goal. The
productivity of the team members was very poor under my leadership and they felt highly
stressed.
Leadership skill that I will follow:
The leadership theory which I select is my transformational leadership. Transformational
leadership is a form of leadership where the leaders inspire their team members in every possible
way so that they are able to fulfill the company’s goals and missions. This style mainly shows a
model of integrity and fairness along with having a set of goals (Avolio and Yammarino 2013).

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Here the leaders encourage others and at the same time provide support and recognition of the
performance of the team members. A transformational leader mainly provides importance to the
development of trust and relationship among the team members helping each of them to look
beyond their self interest and inspiring them to reach beyond expectations (Dumdum, Lowe and
Avolio 2013). They create an inspiring vision for the future by allowing everyone to contribute
their precious suggestions while decision making so that innovative and creative ideas can be
implemented. All these help the leaders to ensure that the capability for the team member’s is
maximized (McClesky et al., 2014). Researchers have stated that leaders following this style of
leadership need to be well organized and expect their members to be creative allowing effective
feedback giving and receiving skills. Their main goal should be team oriented where members
should be influenced to work together by developing strong bonds (Kark and Shamir 2013).
Moreover researchers have also stated that such leaders become successful in building strong
coalitions and can establish mutual trust. In addition, they have high integrity as well as high
emotional intelligence showing empathy with others (Antonakis and House 2014).
Lessons learnt from this theory:
After going thoroughly through this theory, I learnt that I had actually made a number of
mistakes while leading my team. The first weakness I noted is that I did not have proper
feedback giving and receiving skills. Therefore, I got very disappointed when my team members
wanted to give me feedback on my decisions. I was more of autocratic leader than the
transformational leader. As I did not allow them to express their feelings, they feel disrespected
and their self esteem got hurt. This affected their productivity and they developed a negative
feeling. Secondly, due to my poor socializing skills, I failed to develop an informal relationship
with them. Researchers say that informal environment helps employees in releasing their stress

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and reduces work pressure. They feel comfortable in the working environment and as a result can
dedicate more to the organization. I also showed less empathy to them which resulted in
developing negative feelings towards me and so we could not develop a stable working
environment. My internal complexes did not allow me to trust them completely which was a
weak point of my leadership skills. I should develop a trustworthy relationship with my fellow
teammates so that they feel themselves important in the organization. They should be given a
scope of expressing their views and suggestions. More, they feel involved in the team and better
the rapport developed between team members, the more stable is the workplace environment and
better the productivity of the organization. I would try to achieve all the traits of transformational
leadership so that in future, I can develop as an expert leader and help my team reach the zenith
of success in the organization.
Report 2:
Future aspirations:
I have always cultivated the desire to serve individuals in the context of healthcare, and
for fulfilling this aspiration I considered getting a degree healthcare science. I have a wish to
work in the pharmacy center in any healthcare center. My job is to provide advice to patients and
also work in association with medical and nursing staffs on the wards in order to ensure that best
quality treatment is delivered to patients. While working here, I have to communicate with a
multidisciplinary team where beside me as a pharmacist in-charge and care coordinator; there
will be doctors, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, dieticians,
podologists and many others. Often in a nation like Australia, there is a high chance that I may
have to face experts from different cultures and backgrounds. As an effective leader, I have to

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make sure that I undertake proper initiatives and decisions which never harm the cultural
traditions and beliefs of the experts. Not only that, I also have to handle patients and their family
members from different backgrounds and therefore I have to train the experts under me in an
effective way by which they can maintain the cultural preferences and inhibitions of the patients
and their members. Therefore, I would be following the cross cultural leadership styles which
mainly help the leaders to understand how different individuals interact with each other. This
leadership style would help me maintain a working environment in my future healthcare center
so that no conflicts arise at workplace.
Leadership theory:
Cross cultural leadership is a new form of leadership which is often followed by leaders
of global organizations as well as organizations having a multicultural environment. In this type
of leadership styles, the leaders ensure that they can work with diverse team effectively and
efficiently (Eissenbeis and Broadbeck 2014). In this type of leadership style, the leaders need to
have not only knowledge about their work but also have to ensure that they are aware of the
cultural differences of the different countries. These leaders have to work with employees of
different culture and have to develop knowledge about their cultural traditions and preferences so
that they are not forced to perform any activities which are not supported by their cultures (Dinh
et al. 2014). Moreover different workers of different cultures can perform same task in different
ways according to their traditional beliefs which also needs to be monitored by the leaders
(Liden et al. 2014). Such leaders have to adapt strategies so that there arise no conflict among the
team members where every member do not respect each other’s cultural preferences an engage in
conflict. It becomes the duty of the leaders to establish strategies which help them to understand
how to respect each other’s traditions and establish strong bonds (Yoshida et al. 2014).

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Moreover, this kind of leaders should influence the team members to incorporate their own ideas
and suggestions so that the decision taken is highly creative and innovative which would assure
tremendous success in the workplace. This kind of leadership also ensures that with proper
innovation and creativity they can set new goals and keep the members motivated and making
them deliver the best (Thomas and Peterson 2017). Such leaders also ensure that they have
proper personal skills, empathy, socializing skills and self awareness skills which make them
develop bonds among all the members irrespective of their personal likings and cultural
traditions where they respect each other and care for each others.
Lesson learnt from theory:
I believe that in order to be an effective leader in pharmacy department, I have to first
overcome the language barriers so that I can effective communicate with the pharmacy assistants
and the pharmacy technicians and junior pharmacists. I have to develop a collaborative work
culture by establishing a common bond among the team members. As they would be coming
from the different backgrounds and cultures, there remains high chance that they will all have
stereotypes and biasness towards their cultures. I would first be trying to implement the concept
of cultural competency in them by making them develop knowledge about how to treat their
colleagues and respect them of their cultural traditions, preferences and inhibitions. I would
implement strategies which would help them in developing binds among themselves so that
communication remains uninterrupted and no conflict arises. I should ensure that all members
are respectful of each other’s choices and provide effective feedback harboring a positive
attitude. I will ensure that all the team members maintain three important features of emotional
intelligence, flexibility and cultural awareness so that smooth workflow is maintained in the
workplace. If I am being able to successfully incorporate these capabilities in my leadership

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skills, I will be able to ensure a culturally competent working environment which will help to
provide highest productivity and maintain safety at the same time.
References:
Antonakis, J. and House, R.J., 2014. Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of
transformational–transactional leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), pp.746-771.
Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Introduction to, and overview of, transformational
and charismatic leadership. In Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead
10th Anniversary Edition (pp. xxvii-xxxiii). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Dinh, J.E., Lord, R.G., Gardner, W.L., Meuser, J.D., Liden, R.C. and Hu, J., 2014. Leadership
theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing
perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), pp.36-62.
Dumdum, U.R., Lowe, K.B. and Avolio, B.J., 2013. A meta-analysis of transformational and
transactional leadership correlates of effectiveness and satisfaction: An update and extension.
In Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead 10th Anniversary
Edition (pp. 39-70). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Eisenbeiss, S.A. and Brodbeck, F., 2014. Ethical and unethical leadership: A cross-cultural and
cross-sectoral analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(2), pp.343-359.
Kark, R. and Shamir, B., 2013. The dual effect of transformational leadership: Priming relational
and collective selves and further effects on followers. In Transformational and Charismatic
Leadership: The Road Ahead 10th Anniversary Edition (pp. 77-101). Emerald Group Publishing
Limited.

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Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Liao, C. and Meuser, J.D., 2014. Servant leadership and serving
culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5),
pp.1434-1452.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership
development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.
Thomas, D.C. and Peterson, M.F., 2017. Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage
Publications.
Yoshida, D.T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G. and Cooper, B., 2014. Does servant leadership foster
creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and
prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), pp.1395-1404.