Torrence University: Dynamic Leadership Self-Reflection Report, MGT601

This report presents a comprehensive self-reflection on the author's leadership journey, incorporating insights from a Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment, feedback from peers and family, and experiences in various leadership roles. The author details their current leadership position in the retail industry, adopting an autocratic style to guide a new team, and recounts formative leadership experiences from school projects and sports. The report highlights the author's strengths, including harmony, competition, consistency, empathy, and individualization, as revealed by the Gallup assessment. Furthermore, it explores feedback from partners, family members, and seniors, providing a balanced view of communication skills, discipline, and areas for improvement, such as fostering team participation and adapting leadership styles to different situations. The author concludes by emphasizing the importance of flexibility, open communication, and a motivated team for future leadership endeavors.

Dynamic leadership
Self-reflection assessment

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Executive Summary
Leadership is the ability of an individual to lead a team of people towards a defined goal. The
role of a leader encompasses several responsibilities and is a source of immense learning and
growth for any individual. I have had the opportunity to take up a few leadership roles in my life
which have been highly enriching. This report highlights upon my leadership journey as well as
my learnings from the same.
The process of self-reflection has helped me in gaining a deeper insight about my own strengths
and weaknesses. I have also received feedback from my team members, seniors, partner and
family members that has shed better light on my abilities as a leader. I am sure that this reflection
is certain to help me improve upon my skills as a leader and will augment my leadership journey
further.

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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Current leadership role....................................................................................................................3
Leadership journey so far................................................................................................................3
Gallup’s strength finder...................................................................................................................5
Feedback from others......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Leadership plays a significant role in my life. It is the ability that one possesses to lead a team.
Leadership is an essential pillar that supports business organizations. A leader has several
responsibilities like guiding team members, motivating them, setting goals for the team,
managing team’s performance, addressing issues and ensuring a positive workplace environment
(Chen & Rybak, 2017). Through this course, I have been able to reflect upon my leadership
skills. This has helped me in identifying my strengths and weaknesses by seeking feedback from
those around me. This report throws light upon my current leadership role, my leadership
experiences as well as my learnings from them, results of my self-reflection tool and the
feedback that I have received from others regarding my strengths and weaknesses.
Current leadership role
I work in the retail industry. At present I am leading a team of four people. I have been in my
current role since the last fifteen months. I work in the business development department and my
essential job is to generate revenue for my organization. My present role has been full of
challenges and has therefore been an incredible learning opportunity for myself. I have adopted
an autocratic leadership style. This style of leadership is centralized in nature and the decision
making authority rests solely with the leader (Iqbal, Anwar & Haider, 2015). This style works
well for my team because my team members are very new to the organization and have no
selling experience from the past. As a leader of the sales team, I also need to associate with a
different kinds of people. This role has widened my horizons and has helped me understand the
roles and responsibilities of a leader.
Leadership journey so far
My first leadership role was when I became a project head in my school. It was a summer term
project and we received credit in that project. Even though, it was a small project, the leadership
role played a significant part in my life because that was my first ever experience of working
with a team. Working with team members requires effective coordination. As a leader, I tried to
ensure that all team members were participative and contributed to the project. My second and
most important leadership role of my life was when I was elected as the captain of the volleyball

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team for two years. This role significantly contributed to my learning and growth as an
individual.
Through this role, I learnt punctuality, honesty, dedication, passion and team work. This was the
first time, I was responsible for a large group. Therefore I became responsible and tried my best
to ensure coordination within team members. As a team, I ensured that we were extremely
transparent and honest with each other. This helped in building trust and helped us in improving
our game.
One of my most important learnings through this role was the ability to lead by example. A
leader must be able to lead by example in order to garner trust and respect of team members.
When I first took responsibility of the team as a captain, we were lagging in our game and has a
difficult time competing with other teams. I realized that our practices were always delayed and
we could not adhere to a fix schedule. This is when I sat with my team members, tried to
motivate them and instil a sense of discipline in the entire team. I started reaching practice before
time and slowly everyone followed suit. I also ensured that we ate right, worked out well, did our
stretching regularly and most importantly I ensured that all the team members build and
maintained positive relationships among each other. This helped in ensuring coordination within
the entire team. We decided fixed days for our practice and ensured that we followed the
schedule strictly. Our game improved and our numbers improved but most importantly, the
passion towards the game and the team building spirit amongst all team members significantly
improved. Through this leadership role, I was able to enhance my skill and improve my
personality.
After I completed this course, I started working at a retail shop. Within a span of fifteen months,
I was promoted as a leader and given the responsibility of new members of the team. This was an
entirely different experience because all of my team members were very new and knew little
about the business. Therefore I had to start from the scratch and train them on the basics of the
business.
Communication is the key to a successful team (Bonnacio et. al., 2016). Therefore, as a leader, I
try to ensure transparent communication among all team members. Team members perform to
the best of their abilities when they are motivated. An important responsibility of any team leader

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is to ensure high levels of employee motivation (Ristic, Selakovik & Qureshi, 2017). Lastly, as a
leader, I also try to maintain a positive work culture wherein there is honesty, growth and dignity
of work.
Gallup’s strength finder
In order to understand my leadership skills better, I also took the Gallup’s strength finder tool.
This helped me in identifying my top five strengths. The first strength of mine was “Harmony”.
This means that I try to avoid conflict as much as possible and look for areas of agreement. As a
leader, I use this strategy to ensure less conflict among team members. The second theme for me
was “Competition”. This suggests that I always try to compare my performance with others and
make their performance a yardstick that I need to achieve. Sometimes it is motivating while on
other times it can be a very exhausting experience. A leader must be competitive in nature and
my work towards ensuring better performance than other (DuBois et. al., 2015). However, it is
important to ensure that the competition is healthy.
The third theme for my personality was “Consistency”. A leader must always be unbiased and
impartial (Antonakis & Day, 2017). The theme of consistency demonstrates that I tend to treat
people the same and aspire for balance in life. In my personal life too, I tend to get offended
when face or witness any kind of discrimination. The fourth strength identified by the test is
“Empathy”. A leader must be empathetic towards team members and not sympathetic (Chan,
2016). An empathetic leader can bring about a higher levels of understanding with the team.
Lastly, my “individualization” theme makes me believe that every individual has certain
attributes that are unique to the individual. This often makes me impatient with generalizations
of any kind. A leader must not form opinions on the basis of any stereotypes and ensure the same
culture within the team as well (Baker, 2014). My theme of individualization ensure that I do not
generalize people on any basis.
Feedback from others
I also received feedback from my partner as well as my family members regarding my leadership
skills. The feedback received was positive as well as negative. My partner mentioned that I
possess excellent communication skills that have the ability to motivate team members in an

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effective manner. I agreed with this feedback because I have always worked hard in building my
communication skills. I spend a lot of time in reading. Being an avid leader has helped my
communication skills. A leader must possess good communication skills because the leader is the
centre of communication for the entire team (Men, 2014).
My family members also mentioned that I am extremely disciplined and this inspires my team
members to stick their schedule and work in a disciplined manner. This ability also brings about
a culture of discipline in the entire team. As a leader of the sales team, it is important to be
motivated at all times. A sales person meets different kinds of people and often have to face a lot
of rejection. This may be demotivating for people. As a leader, I try to ensure that my team
members are motivated and take their performance by the day. This also creates a positive
working atmosphere.
One of the feedbacks that I received was that I sometimes lack the ability to bring about
participation within the team. I tend to do that because it is a new team. However, I have been
given a feedback that I should trust my team more and allow them to participate in the decision
making process of the team. This would enhance their sense of ownership towards the team and
help them in taking responsibility. A participative leadership style also fosters creativity and
innovation within the team leading to improved overall performance (Lam, Huang & Chan,
2015).
Every leader has a different style of working and no single leadership style can work for every
kind of situation (Saeed et. al., 2014). One of the most important feedbacks that I received from
my senior was that I must adopt different leadership styles for different situations. For example,
during month end when the sales pressure is very high, I could adopt an autocratic leadership
approach but on days when the entire team’s risk appetite is relatively higher, I could adopt a
democratic and more participative approach of leadership.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs defines five levels of needs that are essential for individual’s
motivation (Robertson, 2016). My reflection upon my leadership journey has helped me
understand that my leadership roles are helping me satisfy my need for self-esteem.

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Conclusion
Leadership has always been an important subject for me because the leadership roles that I have
been offered have had a significant contribution in my life. Through this course, I have been able
to reflect upon my own leadership journey as well as seek feedback from those around me. The
entire process has been overwhelming. I have learnt about several different facets of my
personality. In order to improve my leadership, I would work upon being more flexible with my
leadership style as well as be more assertive in nature. I would also ensure that I keep a culture of
openness in communication and utmost transparency in my team. I would work towards building
a motivated team of people who are working towards the same goal. This course and this self-
reflection is sure to help me in my future leadership endeavours.

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References
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications. United
States.
Baker, C. (2014). Stereotyping and women's roles in leadership positions. Industrial and
Commercial Training, 46(6), 332-337.
Bonaccio, S., O’Reilly, J., O’Sullivan, S. L., & Chiocchio, F. (2016). Nonverbal behavior and
communication in the workplace: A review and an agenda for research. Journal of
Management, 42(5), 1044-1074.
Chan, G. P. L. (2016). Differences in leadership traits between superintendents from traditional
and nontraditional career paths (Doctoral dissertation, Fordham University).
Chen, M. W., & Rybak, C. (2017). Group leadership skills: Interpersonal process in group
counseling and therapy. SAGE Publications. United States.
DuBois, M., Koch, J., Hanlon, J., Nyatuga, B., & Kerr, N. (2015). Leadership Styles of Effective
Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams. Journal of
Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, 7(1).
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S., & Haider, N. (2015). Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), 1-6.
Lam, C. K., Huang, X., & Chan, S. C. (2015). The threshold effect of participative leadership
and the role of leader information sharing. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3), 836-
855.
Men, L. R. (2014). Why leadership matters to internal communication: Linking transformational
leadership, symmetrical communication, and employee outcomes. Journal of Public
Relations Research, 26(3), 256-279.

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Ristic, M. R., Selakovic, M., & Qureshi, T. M. (2017). Employee motivation strategies and
creation of supportive work environment in societies of post-socialist
transformation. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 15.
Robertson, F. (2016). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In Gower Handbook of Internal
Communication (pp. 143-148). Routledge. United Kingdom.
Saeed, T., Almas, S., Anis-ul-Haq, M., & Niazi, G. S. K. (2014). Leadership styles: relationship
with conflict management styles. International Journal of Conflict Management, 25(3),
214-225.