Leadership Development Report: Analyzing Strengths and Weaknesses

This report provides a comprehensive self-assessment of leadership skills, identifying personal strengths and weaknesses. It highlights the author's authenticity, coaching abilities, and communication skills as strengths, while acknowledging a lack of innovation and emotional expression as weaknesses. The report then critically analyzes Henry Mintzberg's theories on leadership, outlining his ten managerial roles categorized into interpersonal, informational, and decisional groups. It discusses Mintzberg's views on organizational structures, emergent strategies, and the relationship between leadership and management, emphasizing his critique of traditional leadership concepts. The report concludes with a reflection on the importance of self-awareness and the application of Mintzberg's theories in leadership development.

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Leadership Development
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
My strengths and weaknesses in leadership....................................................................................3
Critical analysis of Mintzberg and his theories on leadership.........................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The first step in developing one’s own ability to lead people in any business organization is to
understand own self to a complete extent. In order to take the initial step, it is important to have
an enhanced comprehension of one’s leadership style, type of personality and related skills of
leadership. Every individual has his or her own set of the qualities of a leader which vary from
person to person (Bolman & Deal, 2014).
Leadership is determined by the experience, philosophies, and styles. It is very important to take
sufficient time in evaluating one’s own strengths and weaknesses in leadership. The fact also
needs to be considered that leadership cannot be taught to anyone. It can only be inculcated by
oneself. Through an assessment of the leadership skills, I got to understand and reflect on my
strengths and weakness as a leader. The evaluations are as follows:
My strengths and weaknesses in leadership
I noticed that I have authenticity in every walk of life which also gets reflected in my leadership
style. As a leader, I need to be fair and morally right in leadership. I happen to have a
transparent approach and command over the confidence and esteem which has been also
reviewed by the team members with whom I have worked. One of my strengths regarding
leadership skills is being able to coach effectively.
The skills of being an efficient coach help in the growth of the employees or the team members.
The team members and the employees are nurtured in the orientation of achieving the highest
level of their performance. I am able to have a clear insight regarding any purpose and able to
create hopeful visions for the entire team of any work. My team members have always felt
inspired and compelled to achieve their individual as well as team goals (Bliss, Pecukonis &
Snyder-Voge, 2014). Another individual strength that I have is the ability to make an effective
communication to my team members or any other individual or groups in that respect. This is a
very important skill which is very necessary for achieving and managing the team or groups and
making things done according to the planned way.
When the matter comes to the weaknesses that I have in aspects of leadership, the lack of
innovation is very much highlighted (Day et al., 2014). Having innovative thought process
regarding taking risks, autonomous and ingenuity through the process is what I lack to a

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significant extent. Regarding the aspect of emotional expression which is also required to be a
good and effective leader is lacking in me. In spite of having good communication skills, I am
not very good at expressing my emotions along with leading the team in an authentic way.
Having free expression of emotions within a team prevents me from building an association with
work mates (Gurdjian, Halbeisen & Lane, 2014).
Building interpersonal relationships are also one of the aspects in which I find to be weak.
Building strong interpersonal relationships within the group would help me in bringing the best
out of my team as team members respond and work in a better way in an environment where
they feel home (Komives & Wagner, 2016)
Critical analysis of Mintzberg and his theories on leadership
In order to meet several demands of performing their functions, the organizational managers take
up multiple roles. Henry Mintzberg has recognized ten roles that are common to the business
operations of all the managers. These roles are categorized into 3 groups such as Interpersonal,
informational and decisional groups. It is also observed that Henry Mintzberg recommends
that business organizations can be categorized along three fundamental dimensions such as 1)
The main part of the business organization, that is, the portion of the business organization
which has a key role in the determination of its failure or success,2) the key mechanism that
assists in coordination denotes to the major method of business organizations use for
coordination of the activities and 3) the kind of decentralization used, which is, the extent to
which the business organizations involves the subordinates in the process of decision making.
By using these basic dimensions, Mintzberg recommends that the strategy that is adopted by any
business organization and the extent to which the organization implements those particular
strategy leads in five configurations of the structures, machinery bureaucracy, simple structure,
divisionalize form, adhocracy, and professional bureaucracy (Lopez, 2014). It was observed that
the most special feature in of theories of Mintzberg is that these theories have stressed deliver the
significance of the emergent strategy, that develops informally at any levels of the business
organization. This happens in a form of compliment or alternative to deliberate the strategy that
is determined at a conscious level either with the acquiescence of the high management or by the
top management. His theories are strongly critical in nature regarding the strategy literature

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stream that concentrates on the deliberate strategy. His theories on leadership critically analyze
the effectiveness of the theories itself. Mintzberg also regards as the folklore the common
concept regarding the lateral relationships and maintaining a comparatively strict control of the
units, activities and time in a business organization. He also refers manager to be a leader and
neither a puppet or a conductor (Ladegard & Gjerde, 2014).
The theories of leadership by Mintzberg further provide analysis of the managerial roles which
are performed by the manager. He has also attempted to have an assessment of the 5 structural
configurations. It also assesses the adoption of a strategy of a business organization and the
extent to which the outcomes are configured in the same organization. It was also observed that
Mintzberg criticizes the separation between the leadership and management and states both of
them to be complementing to each other. He has clear statements regarding the fact that
leadership is the successful practice of management. Through his theories of leadership, he
reflects that all organizations should be structured and configured to specific fields through the
association of leadership (Madsen, 2001).
Conclusion
The reflection on the personal strengths and weakness regarding the skills of leadership is
conducted in the assignment. An in-depth analysis of the theories of Mintzberg on leadership is
being illustrated in brief in the paper.
References
Bolman, L. and Deal, T., 2014. Leadership and management. Christian Youth Work in Theory
and Practice: A Handbook, p.245.
Bliss, D.L., Pecukonis, E. and Snyder-Vogel, M., 2014. Principled leadership development
model for aspiring social work managers and administrators: Development and application.
Human Services Organizations Management, Leadership & Governance, 38(1), pp.5-15.

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Day, D.V., Fleenor, J.W., Atwater, L.E., Sturm, R.E. and McKee, R.A., 2014. Advances in
leader and leadership development: A review of 25years of research and theory. The Leadership
Quarterly, 25(1), pp.63-82.
Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T. and Lane, K., 2014. Why leadership-development programs fail.
McKinsey Quarterly, 1(1), pp.121-126.
Komives, S.R. and Wagner, W.E., 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the
social change model of leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Lopez, R., 2014. The relationship between leadership and management: Instructional approaches
and its connections to organizational growth. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(1), p.98.
Ladegard, G. and Gjerde, S., 2014. Leadership coaching, leader role-efficacy, and trust in
subordinates. A mixed methods study assessing leadership coaching as a leadership development
tool. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), pp.631-646.
Madsen, M.T., 2001. Leadership and management theories revisited. Handelshøjskolen.