Leading Change: Analysis of Skill and Trait Approaches

This report details a student's experience in a shipping company where they stepped in to cover a coworker's absence in customer service. During this time, they identified inefficiencies in the manual process of tracking shipments, leading to difficulties in providing timely customer service. The report conducts a critical analysis using both skill and trait approaches to leadership, evaluating the student's abilities in technical, conceptual, and human skills, as well as their traits like intelligence, self-confidence, and action-oriented judgment. The student developed an Excel sheet to improve communication and tracking, and the report includes a DISC profiling assessment. The report concludes with a leadership development plan, identifying areas for improvement such as becoming more task-oriented and accepting responsibility. The student aims to develop a vision of excellence to achieve career goals and enhance their leadership capabilities. References to relevant literature on leadership are also included.

LEADING CHANGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION TO THE SITUATION......................................................................................1
CRITICAL ANALYSIS..................................................................................................................1
Skill Approach.............................................................................................................................1
Trait approach..............................................................................................................................2
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN.......................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION TO THE SITUATION
Leadership and management are two most important parts of an organization without
which it can become extremely difficult for an organization to manage their business operations
in order to archive success (Vélez, Lorenzo and Garrido, 2017). I was placed as a customer
service in a shipping company where my main role and responsibilities were to deal with
customers and their queries about their tickets, shipping containers or pallets. Due to some
personal work my co-worker was absent for 2 days. Due to this, I was asked to fill for him for
two days in customer service department. During those 2 days I was required to communicate
with shipper, exporters, importer for cargo movement as well simultaneously with my other
responsibilities of customer service. During this time, I realized that shipment and cargo
movement are updated manually for tracking from time to time. There was no automated process
though which this movement was updated. This was purely done on the basis of communication
with shipper, exporters, importer. Due to this, it was becoming extremely difficult for me to deal
with queries of customers related to shipping container movement and this time I realized that
there is a need and requirement of bringing changes within this process as due to this manual
process provision of excellent customer service becomes difficult.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Skill Approach
This approach focuses upon a belief that certain abilities, skills and knowledge can be
learned and developed that are important for effective leadership. (Harrison, Burnard and Paul,
2018) This approach evaluates success of a leader on the basis of things they can accomplish
(Gottfredson and Reina, 2020). As per this theory there are three main type of skills that are
needed within a leader that are: technical, conceptual and human. A leader’s personality,
cognitive abilities and attributes help them in acquitting skills ands knowledge. I was working in
this industry from past few months that helped me in developing technical skills. Working as a
customer service helped me in dealing with different types of people. I actually needed to work
on my conceptual skills. It was becoming a bit difficult for me to understand complexity of
scenario due development of creative solution. But I had great communication skills which
helped me in understanding and communicating with shipper, exporters, importer and other as
well that further helped in understanding that the main problem was completely manual process.
So, in order to resolve this problem, I used by technical skills and developed an excel sheet that
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was shared with everyone like shipper, exporters, importer so that when a milestone was
achieved, they can update it the document accordingly. This made it much easier for me and
other customer service providers to answer queries of customers in a much appropriate manner.
After communicating with shipper, exporters, importer I had identified that they found this
process much more easier rather than communicating and updating tracking and shipment
movement. However, adaptation of an advance system would have been much better, easier and
accurate but developing an online document and sharing it to others was an appropriate
alternative that can be used for updating shipment movement and tracking this process did not
only made tracking and gathering information of shipment but also helped in answering queries
of customers about their shipment in a much proper manner. This directly helped in reducing
requirement of urgently communicating with others and manually updating other details. I made
it much easier for me as well as for others as I was able to update required details easily and
answer queries of customers in a much better manner. there were various kinds of approaches
that can be used for evaluating one’s own skills and knowledge of leadership and other
leadership qualities. I used DISC profiling test for evaluating my own skills. This test helps in
understanding whether a leader is task oriented or person oriented. I found out that I was a
person oriented and active leader so as per this test I was an influence leader.
Trait approach
Trait approach is one of the most type of leadership approach which is found in leaders.
This approach focuses upon personal traits or attributes of leaders (Cote, 2017). This approach
completely focuses upon leadership from individual leaders perspective. As per this approach,
intelligence, self-confidence and action- oriented judgement is one of the most important kind of
skills that are required to be present within leaders (Leithwood and Azah, 2016). These skills
helped me in reducing complications within customer service. Updating customers abut current
location or movement of shipment is one of the main responsibility of customer service but
current process of updating shipment movement was a bit complex due to which sole
responsibility of customer service increases as they need to manually communicate with others
and update movement of shipment and then resolve queries of customers. But intelligence and
action- oriented skills helped me to understand and focus upon thinking of a solution though
which complexity of this process could be reduced. My solution not only helped in reducing
complexity of this process or operation but it further helped in increasing efficiency of customer
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service so that they can resolve queries of customers in a much better and appropriate manner. I
has self- confidence that I can handle both the responsibilities in an appropriate manner and can
think of a solution though which this problem can be minimized. So it can be said that
intelligence, action oriented, self- confidence were major capabilities that were present within me
that helped me in dealing with the current situation. This further helped me in understanding my
self- confidence and intelligence was one of my main strength that can help me in dealing with
any kind of situation. I had self- confidence that I can deal with this problem because I had
another quality of staying calm regardless of stress and pressure and my skill to mix up and
communicate with any kind of people also helped in boosting my current self- confidence. But
there were some skills that were still required to be improved by me like initially I hesitated to
accept this additional responsibility of my co-workers. So I need to become more flexible to
accept responsibility.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN
In order to become more effective leader an individual need to bring various kinds of
changes within my current qualities, skills and knowledge as well as need to learn different kinds
of skills that can help them in becoming an effective leaders (Sloof and von Siemens, 2019).
Development of action plan will help me in identifying ways in which my leadership skills,
qualities and knowledge can be improved. From the above analysis I have identified that I need
to become more task oriented and need to accept responsibility in an appropriate manner. next
time I will try to develop a plan in which my roles and responsibilities, task I need to complete
will be identified and set. I will also set timeline for each task so that I can identify short and
appropriate ways in which I can complete task in an appropriate manner. In order to become
more eager to accept responsibility I will develop vision of excellence in order to achive my
career goals. This vision of excellence will further motivate me to accept any kind of challenge
and additional responsibilities and fulfil them
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cote, R., 2017. Vision of effective leadership. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and
Ethics. 14(4).
Gottfredson, R.K. and Reina, C.S., 2020. Exploring why leaders do what they do: An integrative
review of the situation-trait approach and situation-encoding schemas. The Leadership
Quarterly. 31(1). p.101373.
Harrison, C., Burnard, K. and Paul, S., 2018. Entrepreneurial leadership in a developing
economy: a skill-based analysis. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise
Development.
Leithwood, K. and Azah, V.N., 2016. Characteristics of effective leadership networks. Journal of
Educational Administration.
Sloof, R. and von Siemens, F.A., 2019. Effective leadership and the allocation and exercise of
power in organizations. The Leadership Quarterly.
Vélez, S.C., Lorenzo, M.C.A. and Garrido, J.M.M., 2017. Leadership: its importance in the
management of school coexistence. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 237.
pp.169-174.
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