MNGT2005 Leadership Experience: A Critical Self-Reflection

This report provides a critical analysis of the student's leadership experiences as an HR professional within a retail organization. The student reflects on challenges faced in managing a diverse workforce, including issues of employee dissatisfaction, cultural differences, bullying, and unethical practices. The report details the implementation of situational and cross-cultural leadership approaches to improve workplace culture, enhance communication, and foster employee engagement. The student links these experiences to leadership theories, such as transformational leadership, and provides recommendations for future situations, emphasizing the importance of employee morale and ethical guidelines. The report concludes with a discussion of the effectiveness of different leadership styles in addressing workplace challenges and promoting positive outcomes.

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

1LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Leaders play a significant role in terms of bringing great discipline in daily life (Sari,
Nasution & Wahyuni, 2019). A true leader brings the significant impact in case of ensuring the
future success as well as positive behavioral characteristics of individuals. It cannot be denied
that every leadership starts with the passion as well as mission. The purpose of the study is to
shed light on leadership experience faced by me and critically evaluate the experience. In the
evaluation process, I have linked up the leadership experience with different theories. Critically
analyzing my leadership experiences at the end of this study, I have provided recommendations
that can help to deal with the future situations effectively.
Discussion
Being a HR professional in a retail organization, I face several situations in which I got
the chance for using the leadership capabilities of mine. It is true that being the HR professional,
it is my responsibility to maintain a friendly environment in the workplace for ensuring
individuals engagement. As per my personal experience, I can say that due to diversified
working culture in the workplace, it has become challenging for me to motivate individuals for
maintaining the positive work environment. While performing as the HR manager, I face several
challenges while maintaining the proper interaction among the employees. I have noticed that the
migrated employees in the workplace are not satisfied with the work culture. Due to increasing
dissatisfaction among the employees higher rate of complaints and increasing employee turnover
rate have impacted on organizational productivity. Due to the language barrier, it has become
challenging for them to properly interact with the other employees, which sometimes made
difficulties for them to understand the task. I have also noticed that as the migrated employees
are from the developing countries, have faced bullying and negligence in the workplace, which

2LEADERSHIP
has disappointed me. I have also noticed that different kind of bulling practices have become
common on the junior employees in this organization. After joining in this organization as the
HR professional, it is my focused on improving the discriminative culture in the workplace. The
most shocking thing is the local employees who use the abusive language to the migrated
employees, are not aware of its consequences. In this case, the huge cultural differences among
the employees have made me so concerned. In order to avoid such situations, I have noticed the
necessity of developing the interactive working culture in the workplace. I have also seen that
due to aggressive leadership practices in the workplace, the junior employees are being
dominated by the senior employees, which also another reason for employee dissatisfaction in
my workplace. These unethical practices in my workplace have made me concerned about the
workplace culture that can impact negatively on the new employees.
In this situation, I have noticed the importance of effective leadership practices in case of
ensuring the individuals' engagement in the growth process. In this situation, rather than
punishing anyone, I have focused on adopting the situational leadership style. Critically
analyzing the needs of the employees, it has been identified by me that training and development
regarding the fundamental rights of the employees are needed. It has been analyzes by me that
enio6r employees are the vital resource of the company, in this situation adopting the punishable
attempt can also cause the senior employee turnover, which can negatively impact on the growth
of the company. Analyzing the importance of the situation I have changed my leadership style
based on the situational demand. In which, I have introduced different workshops for improving
the internal communication among the employees. Developing different groups, I have mixed up
both the senior and junior employees for achieving the targets. It has helped me to maintain the
competitive environment in the workplace. I have also identified that with these initiatives,

3LEADERSHIP
workplace bullying has got reduced and I have successfully introduced the friendly working
environment. Not only the situational leadership approach but even I have focused on improving
the team bonding. Selecting an appropriate team leader I have monitored the team performance.
After controlling the situation in the initial stage, I have introduced cross-cultural leadership
practices in the workplace. I have noticed that diversified working environment is the important
concern in my workplace, where employees are facing challenges in working comfortably. Not
only the workshops, but also I have started celebrating different cultural festivals in the
workplace so that none of the employees in the workplace will feel separated. Cross-cultural
leadership approach can play a significant role in understanding the psychological attempt of
individuals towards different culture (Tjosvold, 2017). In the newly globalized business
environment, cross-cultural leadership approach has helped me to ensure a certain behavioral
approach such as cultural sensitiveness, cognitive competence, openness towards others culture
and empathy. I believe, with this initiative, I have enhanced the cultural awareness among the
employees, which has indirectly impacted on the Job satisfaction in the workplace. Using my
leadership capabilities, I have focused on maintaining the motivational workplace environment
for ensuring the job satisfaction as well as lower turnover rate. After adopting these initiatives, I
have noticed that the numbers of complaints in the workplace have got reduced. On the other
hand, introducing the interactive culture in the workplace, the employees have got the chance to
share their needs and demands in from the company, which has helped me to introduce
betterment. By continuing this, I can also say that the cross-cultural leadership approach of
mine has helped me in case of identifying the creative and innovation skills of my employees,
which I can use in future for my organizational betterment.

4LEADERSHIP
Good leadership is being considered as the process that creates the vision for
achievement. On the other hand, in case of ethical leadership, the vision and objectives of the
organizations are critically observed for understanding its moral impact on society. Therefore, it
can be said that good leadership is about the causes of betterment and the ethical leadership is
about the outcomes of good leadership. Analyzing my leadership experience as the human
resource professional, I have learned about so many things. The cross-cultural, psychological
attempt has helped me to understand how I should react in diversified working culture.
Implementing the situational leadership aspects, it has become easier for me to understand the
assumptions of people that can help to extend view of my employees towards me as a good
leader. By continuing this, I can also say that this leadership approach has helped me to avoid the
uncertain situations in the workplace. Analyzing different workplace variables, situational
leadership approach has helped me to maintain the workplace balance. However, I also believe,
transformational leadership approach can also play a beneficial role in case of addressing such
situations in the workplace. I think, adopting the transformational leadership approach, it would
have been better for me to idealize the influences of the situation. This transformational
theoretical implication could have helped me to understand the philosophy of followers. I think,
with this initiative not only the good leadership practices can be implemented in the workplace,
but also it can play an impo6rtant role for developing the morale of individuals.
I believe, not only the effective training program but also I can focus on introducing the
effective knowledge sharing process for informing them regarding the ethical guidelines that
should be followed in an organization. By continuing this, based on my experience, different
meetings could have been arranged by me with the senior employees for avoiding the
discriminative situation in the workplace. Rather than creating team-based task targets, if the

5LEADERSHIP
senior employees would have been appointed as the mentor of junior employees, in that case, I
believe, bullying issues would have been solved in a better manner. For avoiding the
discriminative work culture, a common languages would have been selected for both the
informal and formal interaction. I believe, with this strategy, I could have dealt with the situation
in a better manner.
Conclusion
In this study, it can be concluded that introducing an effective leadership practice has
become necessary in terms of dealing with employee dissatisfaction as well as a high turnover
rate in the workplace. Being the HR professional, I have adopted situational and cross-cultural
leadership approach for dealing with the workplace culture-related issues. However, analyzing
my leadership experience, it has been suggested that adopting the transformational leadership
can be better for me to deal with the situation in proper manner. Being a good leader, I have
adopted the improvement initiatives, however, with the employee engagement initiative,
employee morale development initiative would have been better for me as a leader.

6LEADERSHIP
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