Kent Institute LEMT305: Self-Reflective Journal on Leadership Skills

This self-reflective journal for the LEMT305 Leadership for Managers course delves into the multifaceted aspects of leadership, aiming to equip individuals with the knowledge and skills to become effective leaders. The journal explores various leadership theories, including Great Man, Trait, and Behavioral theories, and examines how these frameworks influence managerial practices. It highlights the significance of leadership qualities such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and ethical conduct, and discusses the application of these qualities within organizational settings. Furthermore, the journal analyzes different leadership styles and their impact on team dynamics, emphasizing the importance of building relationships, motivating followers, and managing diverse workforces. The author reflects on personal experiences to illustrate the practical application of leadership principles, including decision-making, communication, and conflict resolution. The journal concludes by underscoring the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement in the journey towards becoming a successful leader, and it emphasizes the ability to empower and influence others to achieve organizational objectives.

Running head: LEMT305
Leadership for Managers
Student’s Name:
Student’s ID:
Subject:

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Introduction
The fundamental objective of the paper is to reflect upon different aspects of leadership that
helps an individual to become an effective leader in the future. It will discuss the theories and
concepts of leadership that helps in enhancing the personal qualities of a leader. Moreover, it will
also help in identifying different leadership styles along with the significance of leadership
qualities for the managers. It will also help in understanding how leadership role is applied
within an organization and among the team members. Therefore, the paper will also help in
enhancing skills that will help develop leadership while working in an organization.
Introduction to leadership
Leadership is determined to be an influence based relationship among the followers and leaders
who want real outcomes and changes that represents their shared commitments. Leadership
involves the following characteristics, such as influence, intention, personal integrity and
responsibility, change, shared purposes, and followers. A leader manages the organizational
activities to achieve the organizational targets efficiently and effectively (Biemann, Kearney and
Marggraf, 2015). The leaders, such as the managers, are responsible for directing, staffing,
organizing, planning, and managing the organizational resources. The vision of a leader is to set
a desirable future for the team and the organization and a picture of an ambitious organization.
Based on the direction, a leader creates strategy and vision and increases opportunity by focusing
towards the horizon. To build alignment, it also creates values and shared culture by encouraging
flexibility and networks along with learning opportunities. I gathered knowledge that a leader
builds a strong relationship with others. However, leaders also possess the following qualities
like an open mind, nonconformity, listening, and emotional connection with the team members.
Leadership theories
A manager is considered to be a leader within an organization who adapts the following theories
such as, Great man theories, Trait theories, Behavior theories, Contingency theories, Influence
theories, and Relational theories to manage the organizational operations accurately (Tabassi et
al., 2016). The theories are discussed below:

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Great man theories
It states that leadership is abstracted as a single Great man who influenced others and put
everything together related to the strengths of inherited abilities, qualities, and traits. This theory
is applied by the managers who possess certain qualities such as, intelligence, courage, charm,
and judgment along with action orientation (Grill et al., 2019).
Trait theories
As per this theory, leaders possess certain characteristics and traits that differentiate themselves
from non-leaders and helps in achieving success. This theory is followed by managers who are
capable of understanding their function and position and external and internal factors.
Behavior theories
It states that the behavior of a leader is connected with the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of
leadership. It is applied by the managers to identify the behavioral pattern of the leadership styles
(Demirtas, 2015).
Moreover, I come to know that a leader possess various features like drive, integrity, honesty,
self-confidence, and optimism. On the other hand, the three specific types of leadership roles are
advisory role, collaborative role, and operational role. For example, the operational role is
managed by the division president, a collaborative role is handled by a project manager, whereas
an advisory role is managed by human resources. A leader follows certain behavior approaches
like democratic and autocratic leadership approaches (Kang, Solomon and Choi, 2015).
Furthermore, I gained knowledge that a leader, such as a manager within an organization, also
follows contingency approaches. All these approaches are used by a leader to examine the
leadership style and utilize it effectively. As per the situational model of leadership, a manager
enhances others to participate in the organizational operations that help in developing the
confidence and skills of the team members. A leader also contains five types of leader decision
styles to influence others; they are a delegate, facilitate, consult group, consult individually, and
decide. All these styles help a leader to make appropriate decisions regarding organizational
activities.

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The personal side of leadership
Based on the personal side of leadership a leader demonstrates the quality of self-awareness
where it recognizes the internal features of one's nature such as, perceptions, attitudes, emotions,
appreciating the pattern that affects others and personality traits. I got to know that self-
awareness helps a manager to remain constant and grounded and helps in identifying the
expectations of an organization. I acknowledged that a manager as a leader possesses five
personality dimensions such as extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional
stability, and openness to experience. All these characteristics are important for a leader to
understand the behavior pattern of others. From my classroom experience, I learned that values
are regarded as a significant belief as it influenced the behavior and attitudes of an individual.
Personal values help the leaders to understand the problem and situation and perceive
opportunities (Kauppila and Tempelaar, 2016). However, from my experience, I observed that a
leader must follow the characteristics of Theory Y, where an individual is committed to
executing work efficiently to gain success. To become a successful leader, it follows a cognitive
style that helps a leader to use, interpret, process, and perceive relevant information. The Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator helps a leader to measure how a person differs in evaluating and gathering
information for making decisions and mitigating issues (Engelen et al., 2015). All these
attributes will be helpful for me in the future to become a successful manager within an
organization.
Moreover, from my classroom experience, I have learned about the assumptions of the leader's
mental model where questioning helps leaders in shifting and understanding their mental models.
It possesses the capability to sense the economic, technological, political, and social aspects that
enables a manager to respond immediately to a given situation (Zhao, Hwang and Lee, 2016).
Whereas, global mindset demonstrates the ability of a manager to influence systems,
organizations as well as individuals that represents different features. While, a leader's mindset is
developed with the help of personal mastery, systems thinking, open-mindedness, and
independent thinking. Based on my personal experience when I was working in a reputed firm to
assist a senior leader, I acknowledge that all these characteristics play a significant role in
managing the work appropriately without facing any challenges. Within the organization, I was
responsible for helping the senior leader to manage the organizational work and make relevant
decisions. However, while working within the organization, I have understood the aspects of

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emotional leadership where a leader must have the abilities to understand, recognize, perceive,
and effectively manage the emotions. Thus, a leader must be capable of understanding positive
and negative emotions. The elements of emotional leadership are relationship management, self-
management, social and self-awareness (Jang, Zheng and Bosselman, 2017). All these elements
help a leader to regulate their emotions and motivating others. Therefore, the implementation of
these components will be beneficial for me in the future to enhance my leadership qualities.
On the other hand, from my personal experience, I noticed that leaders face various challenges
and obstacles that result from their self-interest and personal weakness. The challenges faced by
leaders involves satisfying the shareholders, fulfilling the needs of business partners and vendors,
and reducing the cost of the products. As a result, the leaders develop an ethical tone where it
acts as a role model for others, focuses upon greater goods, consumers, employees, shareholders,
partners, and vendors to gain benefits (Demirtas and Akdogan, 2015). I understood the fact that it
is essential for a leader to follow the characteristics of servant leadership that help a leader to
become a moral leader.
I also learned that it is significant for a leader to identify their followership style and take
adequate steps to become a successful follower. A leader facilitates or directs to attain a specific
development goal or improve specific skills. A leader also provides feedback to the team
members by communicating and analyzing to help organization and individual to improve and
learn (Popli and Rizvi, 2015).
The leadership as a relationship builder
A leader builds a relationship with others by motivating others to gain a specific course of action.
Motivation plays a significant role in employee productivity. Hence, a leader must follow
motivational theory to enhance better performance and fulfill the needs of the followers. A leader
must provide extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to the employees in the form of appreciations and
promotions and meeting the lower needs of the employees. I acknowledged that a successful
leader exhibits four categories of motives such as intrinsic negative approach, intrinsic positive
approach, extrinsic negative approach, and extrinsic positive approach. However, empowerment
helps a leader enhance motivation by fulfilling the higher-level employee needs (Renko et al.,
2015). To empower the leaders and followers understands the value and significance of the
organization.

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From my classroom experience, I got to know that a leader act as a sensegiver and communicator
instead of just as an information processor. To communicate with the followers, the leader asks
several questions to the team members as it helps in motivating people to empower, think, and
build self-confidence and positive attitudes (Kim and Yoon, 2015). It also helps a leader to build
respectful and trusting relationships with the followers. I acquired knowledge that to build a
relationship with the team members; a manager makes an efficient use listening skill that
provides an opportunity to others to present their ideas efficiently and effectively. I realized that
the use of social media and non-verbal communication would help me in the future to develop
strong relationships with the organizational members.
Furthermore, it has been observed from my personal experience that building team leadership
helps a leader to avoid various threats such as inattention to results, negligence of accountability,
lack of commitment and trust as well as fear of conflict. There comprise of several components
that help in leading a team towards high performance. The components are coaching and support,
diversity of unambiguous roles and skills, and compelling explicit metrics, clear objectives, and
purposes (Cuadrado, García‐Ael and Molero, 2015). I understood that it is the responsibility of a
manager to assign roles to the team members like task-specialist role and socioemotional role.
The task-specialist role involves energizing and summarizing, seeking information, giving
opinions, and initiating ideas. Whereas, the socioeconomic role includes compromising and
following, reducing tension, harmonizing, and encouraging.
Meanwhile, a leader understands and minimizes the difficulties by diverse groups within an
organization. It is the responsibility of a leader to support and motivate the diverse groups to
satisfy the needs of the organization. I gained knowledge that a manager determines the role of
attitudes and cultural values to determine how to manage the employees coming from different
ethnic backgrounds and cultures. A leader also builds a relationship with female employees by
using employee affinity and sponsorship to support minority and female advancement and
participation (Cheong et al., 2016). Managing workforce diversity helps a leader to enhance
financial competitiveness and meet the requirements of diverse consumers. Moreover, the
women as leaders such as female managers are examined based on their goal accomplishment,
task behavior, intellectual stimulation, communication, and interpersonal skills (Cui et al., 2015).

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I gained knowledge that a leader uses politics and power to achieve significant organizational
goals by practicing the aspects of charismatic leadership and sharing the idea and vision to the
other members of a group. I learned how to apply the perceptions that help in differentiating
transformational from transactional leadership. I also gathered knowledge of how to utilize
coalitional leadership that helps build cooperation to attain organizational goals. The classroom
activities provided me an opportunity to understand the difference between hard and soft power
and recognize particular types of power within an organization.
Conclusion
The paper helped in understanding the significant aspects of leadership for managers and their
effectiveness in managing organizational activities and employees and making appropriate
decisions. The paper revealed the fact that different leadership theories help a leader to motivate
the employees and achieve organizational goals. It also provided an understanding of different
leadership styles based on the leader's decision style that helps a manager to come up with ideas
and innovations. It has been observed that it is the responsibility of a manager to encourage
others to participate in the organizational work that helps in motivating others.

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