Leadership Reflection: Analyzing Styles, Experiences, and Frameworks

This essay provides a reflective analysis of leadership, drawing upon the author's personal experiences and academic learning. The author reflects on the importance of leadership skills for personal and professional success, discussing various leadership styles and frameworks. The essay details a specific instance where the author, as a student, led a group project involving a role-play performance management case study. Faced with a demotivated team, the author analyzed the situation through the lens of motivational theories, including McClelland's need achievement and Porter and Lawler's expectancy theory, and identified the need for a transformational leadership approach. The author then applied the Hersey-Blanchard model to assess the team's readiness and implemented strategies to foster motivation and collaboration. The essay explores the benefits and challenges of transformational leadership, including increased team confidence, innovation, and job satisfaction, while also addressing potential issues such as impression management and the need for adaptability. The author concludes by outlining strategies for future leadership endeavors, incorporating elements of the Blake and Mouton leadership theory and emphasizing the value of continuous reflection and learning.

RUNNING HEAD: LEADERSHIP
Title: Reflection on Leadership
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

1LEADERSHIP
I have always hold a belief that reflecting upon a particular subject will help me in learning more
about it and will connect my gained knowledge with the actual concept of the subject. I believe
that reflecting on my own experiences will also shape me in transforming my learning strategies
as I get a chance on reviewing the learnings as well as the behaviour. During my classroom
course, our teacher introduced us with the topic of leadership and the extent to which this has
become an indispensible area for the success of an individual. According to Frankel and PGCMS
(2019), leadership skill is essential in achieving both personal as well as professional success and
thus the students require the inculcation of the effective styles. According to my understanding
and experience, we can call those people as leaders who have the potentiality of mending a
situation with their knowledge, skills and their ability to persuade others in willingly do a
particular job. In the essay, I will take a reflective approach on the leadership by analysing
different styles and frameworks.
My school days as well my vocational learning courses were involved with working
closely with people from various backgrounds and mindset. Such interactions made me feel the
need of generating an effective management skill that will help in interacting with the people.
Even in my course, I came to know that while taking up a managerial position, I would have to
meet more people that are new, train them, solve the problems effectively and look into the needs
of customers. This is where I need to apply my knowledge in leadership skills, which I am
learning at present. Since I have essentially the aim of becoming an entrepreneur, I try to focus
and analyse on the various leadership approaches set by the business tycoons and their success
story inspires me to a great extent. Recently in our class, we were asked to form separate groups
and perform a role model on a performance management case study. The type of case study that
we generally presented earlier was in presentation or report format. This created a great deal of

2LEADERSHIP
confusion and arguments among the students as most of them were not comfortable with the
role-play. Moreover, some of them were shy of assuming the role of the characters presented in
the play as it required some acting skills and it appeared embarrassing to them. However,
reluctantly the tem were formed but there were hardly any motivation among my peers to get
prepared with task though it was a part of our curriculum and carried marks. I found myself in a
tumult position as the fear of losing marks were haunting me and at the same time I also had no
idea about the role play.
The group that I was asked to lead was equally demotivated and we felt that we cannot
perform well since a sense of embarrassment and confusion was working within us. I reflected
on a particular behaviour that we manifested. Earlier the main boost for making a presentation
was securing good marks in exam. Score is still a primary factor in this case as well. Then why is
it not enough this time to make us work hard. I realised that though, the need achievement, as
pointed out by McClleland, was high in earlier cases and the effort put in it reciprocated the
satisfaction level, the previous task seemed to be easier and we have the required motivational
pull to perform the job (Latham 2014). In this case, however, motivation was affected as,
following the Porter and Lawler’s expectancy theory, as there were a gap between the
performance and satisfaction. According to Porter and Lawler, motivation does not essentially
directly lead to the performance. It is, at the same time, the satisfaction generated from the work
that determines a high performance. In our case, the motivation to secure good marks were
definitely there, but what it lacked was the level of satisfaction since the task was not only
unknown to us, but at the same time generated discomfort. Thus, I chalked out that transactional
leadership would not work in this concept, as the thing that will be transacted will be marks,
which was not enough to motivate.

3LEADERSHIP
While searching for an effective method to instil motivation, I was reminded of the
Fiedler’s Contingency Model, that a helpful and cheerful leader is necessary in a task who will
necessarily maintain a positive and supportive relationship (Saeed, Almas, Anis-ul-Haq and
Niazi 2014). I chalked out that my first step in leading would be to analyse the readiness of the
participants to perform. According to the Hersey Blanchard Model of leadership, the leader is
required to match his style of leadership in accordance with the “readiness” of the team.
Readiness is referred to the extent to which the team is able or willing to accomplish the new and
the specific task. Ability refers to the experience, knowledge and skill that are required to be
possessed by the individual in accomplishing the task. The willingness refers to the commitment
and motivation required to perform the job. In the given case, I categorised the team in the
following manner as suggested by Hersey and Blanchard:
R1- low follower readiness- this refers to the fact that the group has low set of skill or abilities
and at the same time has low willingness in doing the job.
R2- low to moderate follower readiness- this refers to the fact that the team has low abilities but
are willing to do the job.
R3- moderate to high follower readiness. This refers to the fact that the team has high amount of
ability but they are not willing to take the job.
R4- high follower readiness. This refers to the fact that the team has both high ability as well as
high willingness. ( Landis and Harvey 2014)
I found that most of the students fell among the R3. This meant that most of them were actually
able to do the task; however, because of shyness or embarrassment they were not willing to take

4LEADERSHIP
up the job. Since they have not performed such task before, the fear of not succeeding made the
refrain from preparing for the presentation.
According to Hersey and Blanchard, the best way for dealing with this kind of situation is
the participation of the leader in emphasising in “high amount of relationship behaviour and low
amount of task behaviour.” (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy 2014)I found out that most of
my teammate actually has a detail idea about a role play and how the total presentation can be
chalked out. Thus, there is less requirement of indulging much with task related discussion. What
the situation actually needs is motivation and relationship behaviour.
In this context, I found that the disengaged team must be motivated enough, be reminded
about their purpose of the work and must be kept integrated in the working relationship. Thus,
the transformational leadership approach appealed me more in the given scenario as the
intellectual stimulation and the creation of urge to complete the task needed to be established
(.Odumeru and Ogbonna 2013.) The resurgence of interest required in appealing the contributors
will transform them and bring in them the purpose ad meaning to drive the group. I started to
motivate them by bringing in various intellectual stimulation and the ways of dealing with the
problems. I also learnt that in the transformational leadership, the leader must act as the role
model that will influence the team. Thus, though I was also a bit apprehensive about the role
play, I preferred not to show that to my team members (McCleskey 2014). Moreover, I also
started reading articles on the subject to increase my knowledge and my confidence in turn. I
transformed this confidence to my team and this ability to connect imparted a sense of
confidence within the members.

5LEADERSHIP
This kind of leadership effectively helped me in gaining my own confidence as well as
the confidence of others. I felt that in future as well this type of leadership would help me in
generating the trust of my colleagues, subordinates and teams. Moreover, the creativity and
innovation associated with this type of leadership appealed to me to a great extent since this type
of leadership focuses on the transformation of a frame of mind and make the team members
competent enough to deal with further difficulties. This type of leadership also involves a high
range of job satisfaction and organisational commitment as the leadership focuses on individual
development. One of the major positive issues that I found while applying the transformational
leadership was that the team members got a scope of discussing their concerns and problems
freely and thus I got to know what actually refrains a particular member from doing the job.
Moreover, in the process of discussion effective solutions could be provided not only by the
leader but by other members as well. This enabled among the members a problem solving
attitude. There were however some problems associated with the leadership process that I
encountered in the process. The primary problem was that people initially hesitated in sharing
the problems and even though they shared, confusion arose when others wanted to contradict
him if that did not match with theirs. Another problem was that different problem required
different solutions which was tough to hear and solve at the stipulated point of time. Another
major problem that I encountered with was that the type of leadership made high use of
impression management. Leaders also tends to be guided by some prior set of ideas. Moreover
since the leadership style is an accumulation of various styles it is therefore hard to maintain
strictly keeping all the propensities intact (Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube 2015).
Contemplating the previously mentioned issues and obstructions, I have made up my
mind that I will be taking up the referring technique while guiding the team as it will help me in

6LEADERSHIP
handling the direct clashes with my team members in case of any problem or shift in ideas. I
have also thought of requesting guidances from our professors and the seniors in helping us with
the project so that the tem does not feel that they are blindly doing any job. (Giltinane 2013).
One of the vital sources that needs to be taken into consideration in analysing my
approach to the leadership and reinforcing my own values and is also presented to some extent i
the Theory of leadership that was developed by Blake and Mouton. This theory, essentially is an
expansion of the theory X and theory Y as put forth by McGregor (Ghasabeh, Soosay and
Reaiche 2015) and i can associate myself with the management style located in the Y axis where
a certain level of trust and belief was put upon the members from the part of the leader. Blake
and Mouton argued on the idea of the benefit of putting task over people and people over task in
some essential situations. It is to be understood from looking at various models that every people
as some essential default in them. However, i cannot relate myself to theories where productivity
is given more importance than the well being of the individual.
While reflecting on the incident I found that I could have also incorporated the
transactional model within the whole process. Though the main area of concern was the marks
that we were going to gain, however, motivation could have been installed more subtly by
incorporating some rewards and appreciations in the process of learning new things. However,
the applaud and the cheering up of the other team members on performing well while taking
preparation acted as a reward for all the team members at that point of tie and we were glad that
we all generated a sense of love for what we were doing. The inhabitations slowly started to fade
away with time.

7LEADERSHIP
Reference List:
Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
Ghasabeh, M.S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., 2015. The emerging role of transformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), pp.459-467.
Giltinane, C.L., 2013. Leadership styles and theories. Nursing standard, 27(41).
Landis, E.A., Hill, D. and Harvey, M.R., 2014. A synthesis of leadership theories and styles.
Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), p.97.
Latham, J.R., 2014. Leadership for quality and innovation: Challenges, theories, and a
framework for future research. Quality Management Journal, 21(1), pp.11-15.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership
development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.
Nanjundeswaraswamy, T.S. and Swamy, D.R., 2014. Leadership styles. Advances in
management, 7(2), p.57.
Odumeru, J.A. and Ogbonna, I.G., 2013. Transformational vs. transactional leadership theories:
Evidence in literature. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(2), p.355.

8LEADERSHIP
Saeed, T., Almas, S., Anis-ul-Haq, M. and Niazi, G.S.K., 2014. Leadership styles: relationship
with conflict management styles. International Journal of Conflict Management.