Reflective Report: Leadership Development, Skills, and Gallup Analysis

This reflective report delves into the student's leadership development journey, analyzing their current role, responsibilities, and challenges within a team project. The report examines the results of the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment, identifying key strengths like individualization, significance, focus, maximizer, and futuristic thinking, and explores the student's preference for transformational leadership. The paper contrasts this style with transactional leadership, highlighting the benefits of a transformational approach. It also discusses the implications of feedback received, offering recommendations for future leadership development, particularly in managing team dynamics and leveraging emotional intelligence. The report concludes with an emphasis on continuous self-improvement and the adoption of transformational leadership principles.

Running head: REFELECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Executive summary
This paper is a reflective report on my leadership development. The paper talks about my
journey in developing my leadership skills and how I overcame critical situations with my
effective leadership skills. The test on the Gallup Strengths Finder provided with an accurate
results that described that my signature themes were individualization, significance, focus,
maximizer and futuristic. The leadership style that I follow is transformational leadership as
when compared to transactional leadership, the prior style has more benefits and is more
effective. The paper then goes on to suggest some recommendations on the analysis of the
reflective report on my leadership development.

2REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Current role and responsibilities in leadership....................................................................3
Leadership journey..............................................................................................................4
Results of Gallup Strengths Finder......................................................................................4
Current leadership style.......................................................................................................5
Leadership style and capabilities.........................................................................................6
Implications of the feedback................................................................................................6
Recommendations................................................................................................................7
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................7
References............................................................................................................................9

3REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Leadership is an art of leading people towards achieving a certain goal through creativity
and inspiration (Grint et al., 2016). In order to get things done, it is important that the leader is
capable enough to handle the responsibilities and manage his employees in an effective way.
This is a reflective report that analyses my journey of leadership. The current role,
responsibilities and the challenges that I face in my organisation are discussed in detail. In order
to understand the strengths, weaknesses and the style of leadership that would be perfect for me,
the results of Gallup Strengths Finder are analysed. Finally, my current leadership style, which is
based on the transformational leadership theory, the implications of the feedback and the
theoretical concepts are scrutinized in the present paper.
Current role and responsibilities in leadership
Recently, I was given the opportunity to lead a team in a group project in an organisation.
The project was related to psychological research on memory where we had to conduct a primary
research, carry out field study, analyse and interpret the data, and then draw conclusions from it.
As a leader, it was my responsibility to keep track of all the members in my team and understand
their capabilities. I believe that every individual has unique set of talents and that combining
such individuals together in the team would enhance the team results. Each of them put their own
creative ideas that can be used to improve upon the results and achieve the desired target.
However, I did not realize that putting such different people in a team would be problematic
because of the conflicting ideas that they presented. The difference of opinion created huge
conflicts and that threatened to disrupt the whole working process. An effective leader is one
who is able to manage his followers in an effective way, understand the difference in opinion and

4REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
encourage them to put in their ideas in a way where everyone ultimately agrees to follow the
same path (Rigoni & Asplund, 2017). I tried to apply the same strategy and could see the
positive results. The team members believed that I had done a good job in leading the team by
understanding their level of comfort and helping them with their work through proper guidance
and analysis of the task.
Leadership journey
In order to be an effective leader, it is important that the leader possess the four basic
orientations that are director, motivator, realtor and dreamer (Lacerenza et al., 2017). I have had
the opportunity to gain knowledge from various leaders and teachers during my years in the
university. One of the most influential personalities that had great effect on my leadership
journey was a teacher who I admired the most. He was not only a teacher; he was a leader in the
true sense. He used to motivate, inspire and fill us with passion towards achieving our goals. He
followed the transformational style of leadership. This kind of leadership motivates the followers
to follow them and work hard towards achieving a common goal. The support, the
encouragement and the mentorship that he provided was exceptional. He helped us with our
problems that encouraged us to share our difficulties with him. These are the qualities that a
transformational leader has. He became an inspiration for me and that led me to adopt the
transformational style of leadership in my approach to lead the team.
Results of Gallup Strengths Finder
I took the Gallup Strengths Finder to find out my signature theme. It is a tool that is used
to discover the strengths and weaknesses of an individual. It is a framework that comprises of
significance, focus, empathy, individualization, competitiveness, strategic thinking, adaptability,

5REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
dreamer and so on. My results showed that I had executing theme as my signature theme
(Gallup.com, 2020). This means that I am focused on the task and always try to achieve my
goals. The results highlight the fact that I am an achiever, who is disciplined and focused in the
work. I also found that I had good expertise in my communication skills. Being successful and
achieving higher goals is what motivates me and I use the same skills to motivate my team.
Current leadership style
My current leadership style is transformational leadership. I believe that it is the best
style of leadership that every leader should follow. Transformational leadership theory describes
that a leader should be creative, innovative and motivating (Mohamad, Daud & Yahya, 2014).
When a leader cares about the well-being of his followers, it encourages the followers to work
harder, they get motivated to follow their leader until the end and as result, and it increases their
productivity. A transformational leader encourages each follower to put in their ideas, listens to
their opinions with proper interest and responds to their feedback (Breevaart et al., 2014). In
regards to the above benefits of transformational leadership, I try to follow the same leadership
style whenever I am in charge of anything. Earlier such kind of leadership has shown effective
results and I believe that in future too it will keep on proving to be the best style of leadership.
When compared with other styles of leadership like transactional leadership, where the leader
believes in rewards and punishments for motivating the employees, researches have shown that
the employees are demotivated in such an environment (McCleskey, 2014). Therefore, I follow
the transformational style of leadership.

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Leadership style and capabilities
While reflecting upon my journey and the style of leadership that I follow, the
transformational leadership style has given me good results in the past. It is style of leadership
where the leaders are proactive in understanding the minds of their employees by inspiring the
through creativity and a common vision. It is their enthusiasm that motivates the employees to
give their best that increases the productivity of the employees and this in turn benefits the
organisation. There is a constant exchange of communication between the leader and the
employees. This process of providing feedback helps in creating a healthy work environment that
is supportive and encouraging in nature. The leader encourages the employees to put in their
creative ideas that enhances the innovative side of the employees. Some of the important aspects
of a transformational leadership is being emotionally intelligent, having good interpersonal skills
and being inspirational. The feedback that I received from my peers indicated that I am a
responsible leader that provides trust and loyalty to the group. I motivate them as I have good
interpersonal skills that is believed to increase job satisfaction and productivity in the employees.
Another important aspect being a good leader is emotional intelligence. It refers to how effective
a leader is in understanding the employee’s problems and help them through their job
(McCleskey, J. (2014). According to the feedback, I am high on emotional intelligence where I
helped my peers through their problems in achieving their goals.
Implications of the feedback
The feedback that my friends and team members provided to me helped me understand
my strengths as well as my weaknesses. I follow the transformational style of leadership. I
understood that I have good communication skills that helped me in managing the group in a
cohesive manner. I am a person who motivates and inspires people to work towards achieving

7REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
their goals. My followers have been happy with my way of leading that suggests that I am a good
leader. I have a high emotional intelligence too. However, there are certain areas I can improve
upon and try to become a much better leader than I was before. Since I believe in collecting
unique minds together and creating a team out of it, handling and managing them becomes a
huge challenge. I have to learn how to improve my skills in managing huge number of members
in the team.
Recommendations
On an overall reflection of the paper, it can be recommended that I keep on following the
dreams that I have set for myself and continue to believe in myself. The self-confidence and self-
awareness that I have garnered through analysing my leadership skills is the way to progress
further in future. I should keep on following the transformational style of leadership because it is
the best style of leadership. Furthermore, it is recommended that I keep on following my dreams.
Leaning to manage the employees in the organisation is also important as if they are satisfied
with the job and their leader then only they will be motivated to work for the company and give
their best. When employees are motivated to their full potential, they only their productivity
increases and that increases the productivity as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that my leadership journey and development has had a great
progress however, it still needs improvement in certain areas. Learning to manage the
employees, motivating them through incentives as well as encouraging them to give their inputs
in the decision making process is important to enhance their productivity. Transformational style
of leadership is the best way of leadership and I plan to follow that style of leadership in the

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future too. The results of the Gallup Strengths Finder was found to be accurate for me that
showed my weaknesses and the strengths that can be beneficial for me in future to analyse my
leadership journey. Thus, my leadership development has taken a positive progress and I believe
to keep making progress to become an effective leader in the future.
References
Asplund, J., Lopez, S. J., Hodges, T., & Harter, J. (2007). The Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0
technical report: Development and validation. The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ.
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A., Hetland, J., Demerouti, E., Olsen, O. K., & Espevik, R. (2014). Daily
transactional and transformational leadership and daily employee engagement. Journal of
occupational and organizational psychology, 87(1), 138-157.
CliftonStrengths. Gallup.com. (2020). Retrieved from
https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/home.aspx
Grint, K., Jones, O. S., Holt, C., & Storey, J. (2016). What is leadership? The Routledge
Companion to Leadership, 3.
Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership
training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 102(12), 1686.
McCleskey, J. (2014). Emotional intelligence and leadership. International Journal of
Organizational Analysis.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.

9REFLECTIVE REPORT ON MY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Mohamad, M. H., Daud, Z., & Yahya, K. K. (2014). Impact on employees ‘good governance
characteristics, the role of transformational leadership as determinant
factor. International Journal of Science, Environment and Technology, 3(1), 320-338.
Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0. Simon and Schuster.
Rigoni, B., & Asplund, J. (2017). Strengths-based employee development: the business
results. Gallup Business J retrieved: gallup. com/businessjournal/193499/strengths-
based. employee-development-business-results. aspx. Accessed, 12.