Leadership Reflection: Personal Evolution and Practice of Leadership

This essay offers a comprehensive reflection on the student's leadership journey, starting from childhood experiences within the family and school environments, highlighting the evolution of leadership perspectives. It explores the influence of various leadership styles, including authoritarian, democratic, and permissive approaches observed in different contexts. The essay delves into the impact of critical leadership studies, personal experiences in the workplace, and the inspiration drawn from the leadership of the 5th King of Bhutan, emphasizing transformational leadership principles. It also reflects on the importance of teamwork, communication, and the application of different leadership theories, such as participative and transformational leadership. The author concludes by outlining personal aspirations for future leadership practices, focusing on self-assessment, adapting leadership styles, and fostering effective communication to achieve common goals.

Introduction:
In this era where human resources management has become an essential strategy to the
success of any organisations, the emphasis on leadership strategies and skills has increased
tremendously all over the world. Leadership is defined as “ the process of guiding and
directing the behaviour of people in the work environment” (Sut, 2017). Apparently a firm
leadership is the backbone for the progression of businesses, groups and organisations to
realize their goals and targets. Leaders can potentially persuade others through their ability to
motivate, apprise, communicate effectively and empathise the employees. Depending on the
behaviour of the leader and the circumstances or culture in the organisation, a myriad of
leadership theories and leadership strategies came into existence. This essay will primarily
focus on the reflection on evolution of leadership as I grew up, influence of critical leadership
studies on my leadership approach and it also canters around the reflection on the practice of
leadership in various contexts.
Reflection on leadership
Now as a student undergoing leadership course and after understanding fundamentals and
numerous theories and strategies of leadership, when I reflect back in the days, leadership has
always existed ever since it is just that I failed to notice it. Charity indeed begins at home,
upon being able to gather all the tits and bits concerning leadership altogether, I realize that
leadership started from the four corners of my beautiful home. Brought up in a conservative
family, my parents never leaves a stone unturned guiding me how to lead a prosperous and
successful life. Parenting style is chiefly founded on two dimensions of responsiveness and
demandingness (Baumrind, 1991) where each dimension determines the parent child
relationship. Responsiveness include supportiveness and understanding of children’s needs
and wants while on the other hand demandingness refers to the desire that the parents make
on children to become, supervision and disciplinary efforts. Depending on the extent of
responsiveness and demandingness exerted parenting is classified into uninvolved,
authoritarian, permissive and authoritative (Dinham, 2007). I was raised in a authoritarian
parenting style characterised by low responsiveness and high demandingness. In family was
led by my father and perhaps he exhibited an autocratic leadership wherein he dominated
every decision of the family and it was further characterised by strong discipline and
controlling nature. However, on the other hand, my mother had some bits of a democratic
leader where she encourages active participation from all the members to arrive a conclusion
and she is substantially concerned about consolidating relationship between the members.
Besides home, school is essentially one of the most critical place where we mould ourselves
and it is the very place where we pick up or learn many new things regardless of good or bad.
Schooling has played a major role in my life and it has contributed tremendously to forging
me into who I am today. Those days in schools generally teachers are viewed as an example
of leader and in fact different teachers exhibited varying leadership qualities. To be precise,
during the primary schools, the most predominant leadership quality that I could recall is that
of authoritarian leaders wherein most of the teachers had that conventional conception of
leadership based on obedience, sincerity and respect for positional authority and status
(Dinham, 2007). They seldom negotiate or discuss with students on setting direction of the
group, but expect their novices to abide by their orders without failure. However, this trend
has changed as I pursued my undergraduate in business, in college the predominant trend of
leadership practiced across the premises was permissive leadership where the leaders valued
the participation of others in planning and decision making processes. This culture of

permissive leadership further helped to build intimate relationship between the lecturers and
students as permissive leaders employs reasoning and consensus building over authority and
order. Further, I have observed that while it works in bringing harmony and strengthening the
bonds amongst the members, permissive leadership is known to take too long to come to a
unanimous conclusion. Permissive leadership is indeed known to be deficient of direction and
accountability (Summers, 2018).
For most of my childhood, I was preoccupied with the notion that a leadership is implicit of
title, wealth and authority. Later, as I went through a book by Robin Sharma titled “ A leader
with no title”, I came to comprehend that leadership has nothing to do with title that you hold
or the size of the office or wealth you have accumulated rather it is a philosophy, a state of
mind and it’s a birth right of each one of us.
Until I got my first job as the head of finance section of the Bhutan Airlines Ltd., Bhutan,
most often than not, I have been working under others leadership, observing how other
function as a leader and in some cases criticising the leadership qualities of certain leaders.
But deep within there existed a small flame of leadership in me and in most cases I was the
leader of myself. Upon joining Bhutan Airlines, I had the privilege to lead a small group of
nine people and during those times, my experiences as a leader presented me with various
opportunities and challenges. Opportunities accelerated my moving forward while the
challenges made me tougher and this ultimately benefitted my colleagues and team at large. I
learnt that to be a leader, principle of one shoe fits all size does not apply at all and I realized
that it is impossible for one to be a cup of coffee for all. In the initial phase of my duties,
owing to me being new to the workplace, I always sought suggestions from my colleagues
when coming to planning and decision making activities and I made it a point that all my
subordinates are involved in the decision making processes. This helped foster better relation
and ambient culture at the workplace and it also played a significant role in fixing
accountability to the employees (Noure Elahi, 2012). But little did I know that time that I was
putting into application the participative leadership theories. And as stated in the theories,
inviting participation from all the members really delayed decisions, making it more time
intensive and as the circumstance demands sharing of most of the information regardless of
its sensitive nature, there existed a room for possible information leak and risk of cropping
conflict amongst the employees. Despite the innate drawbacks, this style of leadership has
helped me a lot in gaining trust of the employees, drastically decrease the employee turnover
and it was also attributive to better acceptance of decision. Furthermore, in my case it also
assisted in boosting employee morale whereby enhancing necessary coordination and
collaboration(Miao, Newman, Schwarz & Xu, 2013). During my tenure as the head of
finance section, I notably learnt that teamwork is an essential element of leadership. Apart
from the triumph, while seeking feedback from the employees, it was criticized that my style
of leveraging everyone with the opportunity to voice their opinion, at times leads to wastage
of time as all become busy substantiating their own ideas and ultimately leading to argument
over irrelevant ideas. In addition, it was also pointed out that despite being vocal, I lack the
quality to control individual within the group.
The little spark of leadership in me was further ignited by the act of novelty and gesture of
sheer kindness and compassion showered to the fellow citizens by His Majesty, Jigme Khesar
Namgyal Wangchuck, the 5th King of Bhutan. For me, my king has been my real life hero and
I always considered him as the epitome of leadership. Out of the many, what motivated me
the most is his quote that we do not need leadership of the masses but, we need the leadership

of the self. This profound message propelled me further to search into myself and in
particular the leadership qualities that I resides in me. This message indeed paved my way
into the leading with example and in doing so, in the little way possible it influenced the
behaviour and attitude of people surrounding me. A sublime attribute that was commendable
of His Majesty, the 5th king of Bhutan was his aptitude to view circumstances optimistically.
He is a democratic leader who seek views and opinions from his citizens on every decision
concerning the national interest and he reserves the final responsibility. Besides this, he is
revered for delegating the authority and the decentralisation of power has hugely benefited
the development of the country in various aspects. With his leadership, the whole chain of
command and communication remains active and likewise because everyone is called on
board to participate in the decision making process, a high level of commitment from the
citizens is observed. And what separates my king from others is the treatment of his subjects
with utmost compassion and empathy, and in almost all the critical ventures, he leads the
team himself, thus leading by example. In this manner, he encourages the citizens to rise up
for the common cause. And now as I come to understand, the leadership exhibited by my
king is completely harmonious with the transformational leadership theory, which primarily
emphasizes on interaction and communication with others as they tailor a vibrant relationship
which accrues trust from the members. This ultimately leads to increased intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation in both the leader and the subordinates (Gittens, 2009; Lussier and
Achua, 2010). Reflecting on his leadership, it concludes that, transformational leader
provides charisma, encouragement, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration to
the group.
Upon embarking on the leadership subject at the university, it had a feeling that despite
leadership being a birth right to each one of us, there is an ocean of knowledge pertaining to
leadership that I have been separated from. This difference in knowledge has indeed triggered
the evolution of leaders and followers. As I knew more about the subject leadership, I was
presented with numerous leadership styles, but it depended all on me to select one that best
suits my traits and objective and, most importantly to select a leadership style that is
comfortable and blends appropriately with me. In addition, I felt that to being a team of
people together and allow to proliferate as one spirit for one common goal, it would be
elementary for me to grow as well in the first place. I realised that to be a world class leader, I
should capitalise on fundamental characteristics such as intelligence, innovation, interactive,
integrity and intellectual.
By understanding four basic elements of a manager and a leader which includes creating an
agenda, developing a team, execution of agenda and evaluation of the outcome (MacLeod,
2012); I found out that the leadership role encompassing these elements were more
comfortable to me over the manager role. I find myself comfortable establishing direction
rather than budgeting and planning, and more fitting delegating and organising people with
appropriate tasks over managerial role of organising and staffing the employees. Similarly, I
felt that motivating and inspiring was my thing than controlling or regulating the project
(MacLeod, 2012).
Once I complete my journey on the subject of leadership, I look forward to first assessing
myself in terms of my traits and characteristics and then blending it with the best possible
leadership strategy. Then assessment of the workplace culture and the desire of my team
should be of prime consideration. Following that, I see myself practising the best possible
leadership style, leading the team by example and ultimately attracting and inspiring a lot of
people in order to achieve a common goal with ease and fulfilment. Apart from this,

considering the fact that communication is one key aspect in every venture’s success and the
fact that miscommunication has devasted more projects than any other factors; post the
leadership course, I aspire to inculcate in me and teach to the world at large that the real
concern as a leader was ascertaining that the communication was balanced and managed
without managing. This is owing to the fact that, if communication runs beyond the
appropriate limit it really does not matter if we are communicating, it is just a waste of
precious time. With the past experiences and the associated challenges confronted during
those times, I earnestly look forward to taking my communication skills to a next level to
include affirmations on jobs done well, progress made and be understanding when going gets
rough.
Conclusion:
In concise, leadership existed subconsciously in me ever since my childhood and it took some
time to develop into a conscious thought and eventually with time and more comprehension it
emerged as a visible behaviour.
Today, in the most competitive of times, most organisations assign a task to a team of people
and subsequently when a group of people of varying though and behaviours are endeavouring
for a common goal; guidance, support and direction is of paramount importance to steer the
project in the desired direction. This calls for a right leader to lead the team. The leadership
style and personality of the leader will tremendously impact the outcome of the team. So as a
leader, it becomes essential to be dynamic and adapt as per the changing situation and status
of the team.
In the initial phase, to set the direction of team and to bring every individual of the team on
board, the leader has to be a little of autocratic leader and once the team is bonded together,
the leader should change his or her style to transformational or participative leadership
whereby trying to understand the desires and problems of the team and enabling them to
participate in every proceedings and most notably the decision making processes concerning
the outcome of the project. The prime objective of the leader should be to encourage the
employees through his ethic and personality and ultimately promote efficient and ambient
working environment. And considering the present time, the leader should be able to promote
and exude innovation in order to gain competitive advantage in the market.
There is a quote that 80% of the issues surrounding project failure are issues with people”.
So, it becomes imperative for a leader to know how to evade issues and how to mitigate them
once it emerges into project. Significantly, leaders must go through a lot of practice. And a
leader need not necessarily be champion in every venture and field of expertise, but a leader
should have the ability to delegate the right task to the right person at the right time.
Bibliography
Baumrind, D. (1991). The Influence of Parenting Style on Adolescent Competence and
Substance Use. The Journal Of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56-95. doi:
10.1177/0272431691111004

Dinham, S. (2007). Authoritative Leadership, Action Learning And Student
Accomplishment. Australian Council For Educational Research, 33-39. Retrieved from
https://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference_2007/3/
MacLeod, L. (2012). A Broader View of Nursing Leadership: Rethinking Manager–Leader
Functions. Nurse Leader, 10(3), 57-61. doi: 10.1016/j.mnl.2011.10.003
Miao, Q., Newman, A., Schwarz, G., & Xu, L. (2013). Participative Leadership and the
Organizational Commitment of Civil Servants in China: The Mediating Effects of Trust in
Supervisor. British Journal Of Management, 24, S76-S92. doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.12025
Noure Elahi, M. (2012). Participative Decision-Making in Management and
Leadership. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2163366
Summers, D. (2018). Permissive Leadership and the Illusion of Control. Women In Higher
Education, 27(5), 8-15. doi: 10.1002/whe.20571
Sut, H. (2017). The efficient leadership of modern school principles. New Trends And Issues
Proceedings On Humanities And Social Sciences, 4(1), 20-26. doi:
10.18844/prosoc.v4i1.2047