Leadership in Business: A Reflection on Learning and Development

This essay examines the multifaceted concept of leadership in business, tracing the student's evolving understanding from foundational theories to practical applications. It delves into various leadership styles, including great man, trait, contingency, situational, behavioral, participative, management, and relationship theories, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. The essay explores the interplay of inherent traits and learned behaviors in leadership, emphasizing the importance of ethical codes, organizational culture, and cultural dimensions. It also discusses the impact of leadership on employee engagement, productivity, and decision-making. The student reflects on the course's impact, including class readings, activities, and observations, and outlines areas for future leadership development. The essay concludes by analyzing the influence of Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the importance of continuous learning for effective leadership.

RUNNING HEAD: Leadership in business 0
Leadership in Business

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The activity of leadership is the activity of leading in a group or organisation. Leadership
involves establishing and sharing a clear vision with others so that they can follow freely. It is
also the ability to influence others to seek objectives. This essay is all about the leadership in
business. This essay discusses what I learned from leadership and how my definition of
leadership changed from week one to week nine. It includes what I learnt from the subject
and how the subject will be beneficial to me in my future work as a leader. The essay also
includes the additional aspects of leadership which I require to develop. Further it also
explains how class readings, class activities and observations help me to understand and
implement leader concepts to life and work experiences. Finally the access to leadership
development opportunities in the future have been critically analysed to improve leadership
skills (Renko, El Tarabishy, Carsrud & Brännback, 2015).
Leadership is the ability to influence behaviour of subordinates for a particular course of
action. In the past leaders used to be authoritarian, demanding and dominating. It was
believed that few people were not capable of being great leaders. The definition of leadership
keeps on changing time to time. According to Winston & Patterson, 2006, in the week one of
X year I learnt that leadership is just about the ability to influence and guide one or more
followers and members to achieve mission and objectives of the organisation (Winston &
Patterson, 2006). But leadership is not just limited to influence members. As I learned in the
second and third week that leadership influences people with the aim of to direct activities of
group. The leadership is authenticated by various theories. These theories of leadership are
possessed by leaders such as great man, trait, contingency, situational, behavioural,
participative, management and relationship theories (Banks, McCauley, Gardner & Guler,
2016). The great man theory argues that capacity for leadership is inherent which assumes
that great leaders are born not made. This theory portrays that leaders are born with
characteristics such as confidence, charisma, intelligence and social skills. The trait theory
considers great man theory and assumes that people inherent certain qualities which make
them better suit to leadership. This theory recognises a particular personality shared by
leaders. For instance courage, self-confidence and extroversion are key features of leadership
and are potentially linked to great leaders. The contingency theory determines which type of
leadership is best suitable as per the situation. This theory argues that no leadership style is
best in all situations. It strikes the balance between behaviour, need and context. Effective
leaders can assess the need of followers and adjust behaviour accordingly. The situational
theory assumes that leaders use the best course of action based on the situation variable (Shin,

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Sung, Choi & Kim, 2015). There are various styles which are appropriate for the definitive
decision making. For instance, authoritative leadership can be appropriate for the most
knowledgeable and experienced member of group. The democratic style is opted where group
members are experienced and skilled. The behavioural theory believes that leaders are not
born, they are made. It focuses on the action of leaders not on their internal state (Chang,
Chen & Chiou, 2015). People can attain leadership through teaching and observation. The
participative theory takes input of others into account. The leaders encourage participation
and contribution from group members. Such group members are more relevant and
committed to the decision making process. As per management theory, focus is given on
supervision, organisation and group performance. This theory is based on system of reward
and punishments. This theory is often used in businesses where the employees are rewarded
when they are successful and punished when they are failed or unsuccessful (Blakeley, 2015).
The relationship theory is focused on the relationships between leaders and followers. Such
leaders motivate and encourage people by helping group members. For instance,
transformational leaders focus on the performance of group members and have high ethical
and moral standards. An effective leader possesses all the qualities and use type of leadership
wisely according to the situation. In the 4-6 week I got to learn that leadership is a trait which
shows that leaders are born with various personality traits. When the two events occur in a
way that one is the result of another event than they have cause and effect relationship (Choi
& Kim, 2014). The action of leaders influences followers. Influencing followers makes a
person leader. It reflects the cause and effect relationship. The inherent characteristics of
leaders cause them to inspire. It is estimated that 30-60% of leadership is genetic. Their
thinking skills make them leader. This thought is supported by the Great man and Trait
theory. There are some qualities which are inherent by born leaders and make them different
from others. However the lack of leadership can be corrected via training and motivation
(Dinh, Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden & Hu, 2014). It is seen that leadership is combination
of both nature and nurture. The born leaders rise through proper ranks and plotting
themselves in leadership positions. The nurtured leaders are developed through development
and training programs so that they can obtain skills required to grow leadership roles. Even
the born leaders need to nurture time on time. They need to learn changes happening in
environment to update them. The various traits should be developed such as behaviour,
creativity, vision and risk tolerance. So it can be concluded that leaders are both born and
nurtured. The born and nurtured leaders share the common interests like creating a learning
culture. The leaders encourage being curious and learning (Kurucz, Colbert, Luedeke-Freund,

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Upward, & Willard, 2017). They allow employees to discover new ideas. The learning
culture helps to cultivate leadership. Both leaders consider better understanding of goals. The
leaders require stretching beyond what employees can do with ease. It brings out the
creativity and innovation to attain goals. The leaders drive organisations especially and model
kind of behaviour which is expected from others. The leaders provide opportunity to team
members to improve low performance along with actions to be taken. It is challenging to
provide best work by employees. I also learnt from B (year) that the effective leaders have a
code of ethics which is followed by employees. The code of ethics incorporates values,
principles and standards. The code of ethics adopted by employees ensures sound
management control of an organisation. It reveals a commitment to integrity and ethical
values. The ethical code of conduct adopted by employees helps to settle tone at the top
(Tourish, 2014). The code of ethics focuses on setting tone at top, the board of directors and
management demonstrate through ethics and values to support functioning of system. The
code of ethics followed by employees helps to establish standards of conduct. The ethical
code defines the code of conduct and understands all levels of organisation. The codes help to
employees in evaluation of their performance against the expected standards of conduct. It
addresses deviations in a timely manner. The conducts of employees are identified and
remedied in a reliable manner. The ethics are helpful in acting with integrity at workplace and
perform work responsibly. It creates respect at workplace (Demirtas & Akdogan, 2015). The
ethics engages, educates and raises awareness among employees. It influences decision and
action of employees. In the week 7-9, I have learnt from C (year) that leader is the person
who creates positive or negative organisational culture. The leaders create organisational
culture by representing himself hero to others. He demonstrates some form of excellence.
They strive to improve themselves and lead themselves. As a hero leaders reflect work
culture of organisations. The leaders represent themselves as a role model which could be
followed by the employees to attain performance. The leaders endure corporate excellence
from one generation to another. The story telling by leaders can overcome defensive barriers.
It addresses the emotions of people. The story telling can be used by leaders to explain ideas,
implementation of change, built trust and improve communication (Wu, Kwan, Yim, Chiu &
He, 2015). It is also helpful in overcoming mental barriers and gaining new knowledge. The
most important concern of storytelling is sharing of tacit knowledge. The ceremonies can also
be created by employees to motivate and enhance performance so that they give their best to
organisation (Giolito & Van Dierendonck, 2015). I learnt from Hofstede’s five dimension of
national culture that there are various differences between east and west leadership styles. In

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the western leadership, the leaders are anticipated to have a visible role and expressing
intention in doing things as it is expected from employees. The western leadership aims to
develop trust among the members of organisation by ensuring trust and predicting response
of employees. The western leaders set vision for employees and directs organisation to
inspire staff to pursue predetermined goals. The western leaders appreciate teamwork,
authorisation and performance management. The east leaders depend on the internal and
external organisation structure arrangement than recognition of employees. The job of eastern
leaders is to maintain harmony of organisation. The hierarchical power has role in the east
social relations. The authority of east leadership is considered reasonable and proper (Raelin,
2016). The Hofstede cultural dimensions constitute a framework which revolves around cross
cultural communication. It defines the effect of culture on the value of employees and their
behaviour. The dimensions of Hofstede’s national culture dimensions are power distance,
individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus feminity, uncertainty avoidance and
long term orientation. The power distance expresses the degree at which the less powerful
members accept that power is distributed unequally (Klettner, Clarke & Boersma, 2014). The
issue here is that how society handles disparity among people. People in societies struggle to
equalise distribution of power and demand validation for inequalities of power. The
individualism versus collectivism defines that individuals are anticipated to take care of
themselves and their immediate families. Whereas the collectivism denotes that individuals
expect their relatives and particular members to take care of them in exchange. The
masculinity versus feminity dimension, masculinity expresses preference for achievement,
decisiveness and heroism for success. Feminity stands for the preference for cooperation are
caring for the weak and quality of life. The uncertainty avoidance index represents a degree
upon which members feel uncomfortable due to uncertainty and obscurity. The issue
identified here is that how society deals with the fact that future is unknown (Hazy & Uhl-
Bien, 2015). The future should be tried to control or let it just happen. The long term versus
short term normative orientation, society maintains some links to deal with present and future
challenges. The society can prioritise these goals differently.
I have learnt different perspective of leadership from my subject that will be beneficial to me
in future work. I can handle different aspects of business efficiently after learning these skills.
I learnt from X (year) how leadership can be used to increase productivity, retain people,
increase in employee engagement and taking better decisions. I can nurture future leaders and
focus on career development. In addition i can develop my leadership skills by implementing

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effective leadership style. I can develop leadership skills by excellent communication, vision
of commitment, better listening skills, delegation of responsibility and corporate social
responsibility. The class readings, activities, discussion on the better implementation of
leadership, learning videos and observations helped me to understand and apply leadership
into the daily experiences of life. The actions of leaders on employees created cause and
effect relationship. The video enabled innovative way of using leadership and the knowledge
resulted in working as an entrepreneur (Covin & Slevin, 2017). The class discussions and
participation polished my leadership skills which I learnt from the course. The leadership
opportunity helped me in the greater innovations which can be helpful in future and brings
continuous improvement in the working life. The leadership development program which I
learnt in week 7-9 is to lead in the organisation by breakthrough performance.

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