MBA401, People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership: Self-Reflection

This essay is a self-reflection on leadership, analyzing the student's leadership strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. The essay discusses the student's experience acting as an H.R. leader in a class activity, highlighting skills such as problem-solving, communication, and motivation, which are all critical for transformational leadership. It also identifies challenges like a lack of real-life leadership experience and a tendency to get distracted by peripheral issues. The student evaluates their performance, reflecting on the importance of continuous learning, self-awareness, and the development of trust. The essay references various leadership theories, including transformational and transactional leadership, and outlines an action plan for future leadership development, emphasizing the importance of continuous self-assessment, embracing feedback, and building trust within teams to achieve leadership goals. The student emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the ability to motivate others, and the ability to adapt to various leadership styles.

Running head: SELF REFLECTION ON LEADERSHIP
SELF REFLECTION ON LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Discussions
Leaders are not born but made. They have the qualities or the credibility due to which,
people listen and follow them. The responsibility of providing training, development and
direction to a group of individual or a team lies within the leaders. An effective leader leaves a
potential impact from the top management level to the bottom of the business. Several leaders in
the world leave either a positive or a negative effect on the people. Leadership is having both the
talents as well as the skills to exert influence towards achieving the organizational goal. In order
to be an effective leader, a person should have both the qualities (Garnett 2018). The
organizational leaders set the company’s vision, mission and corporate culture. Their
performance and management skills are evaluated using different management style the leader
possesses.
In this essay, I have analyzed my leadership strengths and the areas needed for
improvement. Being a leader, I will encourage others by providing the required tools and admit
my inadequacies when needed. It also includes the different leadership skills possessed by me
along with the real-life incident. This essay also deals with my self-assessment results and
everyday routine. It also states the limitations that I own and inspires me to act accordingly, both
by my actions or words.
Leaders play an essential role in the smooth functioning and effective performance of
different organizations. Its practical application depends on the methodology adopted by the
leaders to their subordinates or associates. Various approaches exist in the modern business
environment. Transformational leadership is one of them and is considered as the most popular
approaches, in consideration with many specialists as the perspective (Northouse 2017).

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Therefore, it is vital to highlight that transformational leadership is concerned both with benefits
as well as with risks. It is responsible for healthy development and effective organizational
performance.
My experience of the leadership skills in the activities performed in the class has been
paramount. I am very fortunate to have had formal opportunities for developing my leadership
skills. In the activity presented in the class within a group of four people, I acted as an H.R.
leader in a large corporation. The self-assessment of my power, conflict and leadership style
shows my capability to collaborate effectively to meet the goals mandatorily to achieve the
objective and the success of my team members in the class. For practising transformational
leadership, it is vital to have an understanding of the leadership skills such as problem solving,
communication and motivation.
My strength towards the knowledge of leadership skills and concern of people specifies
the transformational style of leadership in me. My greatest strength is problem solving. I always
try the best and efficient way to do any task. Before taking any decision or achieving any
conclusion, it is essential to identify the situation and the problem cautiously. This skill in me
helped in solving the problem with free choices of the solution to decide before the time given to
us. Besides, I am an excellent spokesperson and have the qualities of influencing people with my
words. I used my communication skills to understand the challenges my company is going to
face. I briefly discuss every suspect or dispute that can arise concerned with the task. As a
compelling orator, I took the opinion of other members in our group before coming to any
conclusion. According to me, one should love the work he or she is doing. Another strength that
I possess is motivation. To keep myself motivated, I am always in search of new ways and have
the willingness to learn new things and ways to do a particular task differently. Self-motivation

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helps me in working in a team with a positive vibe all around. As a leader, I developed a well-
motivated energetic environment and gave support to every member to arrive at the conclusion
of the task.
I faced some challenges while working in a team as a leader. Lack of experience in the
real-life scenario to act as a leader in resolving the problem was challenging for me. As I am
good at problem u, but as a leader, I have never experienced such issues. Lack of focus can be
considered as another weakness in me. This is because, instead of selecting only a few objectives
and dealing with that, I was perplexed with several peripheral issues. I have good communication
skill, which is often misinterpreted as being a debater. My passion for working in this way may
be misunderstood by some people in the wrong direction. I also have the problem of trusting
people. I am not able to build trust and confidence in others. These weaknesses in some of the
other way can be turned into the strengths. Lack of experience as a leader can be improved with
time. It only requires patience, time and close mentoring with the experienced leaders to lead
effectively and efficiently. Encouraging self-reflection can help me in focusing on my personal
growth and development. Focusing on my strengths can help me in getting rid of my
shortcomings and help me incompetent decision-making in the future.
The transformational leader focuses on people's culture and their learning experiences.
Besides, every leader have specific goals but “transformation in the values and the priorities of
the leaders’ followers and motivation to perform beyond expectation” is the prime motive of all
the leaders (Barreto and Hogg 2018). The strength of the transformational approach lies with the
leader's associates that are responsible for the success of an organization. The different examples
explained during lectures helped me in associating my learnings in connection with the
assessments to perform better. In this way, it helps me in developing a healthy and positive

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relationship with the team members. The significance of positive social relations between the
leader and the associates should not be underestimated. In the current scenario, the human
resource is considered as an essential asset for the organization, and hence, its role is continually
increasing in the existing business environment. The transactional leaders focus on the task and
the requirement with rewards expected on individual or group performance. In this case, the
same is expected of us. As a student, we receive a reward for being successful and punishment
on failure.
Both these effective leadership styles will help me in future in my professional career. As
opined by Anderson and Sun (2017), the transformational leaders look for new ways to work.
They do not react to the situation; instead, they take to attempt to create and figure them. It is a
form of leadership style, where the leaders inspire, encourage and motivate employees for
innovation. This will help in creating and shaping the success of any company in the future. In
the activities performed in the class, I used the strategies of a transactional leader for increasing
the effort to raise the members’ mental awareness and motivate them to arrive at a conclusion.
Both the style will help in performing successfully in a group in any organization in the future.
Both the transformational and transactional theories of leadership support my action plan. After
taking the assessment tests, I clearly found my leadership strengths, weaknesses, and requisites
transparency. I have learned the roles, qualities and skills a leader should possess and visualize
myself as a growing leader. With a view to accomplish my leadership goals for the future, I
create an action plan where the objectives are specific, measurable and real. This will help me in
achieving future goals and continuously assessing progress.
During the last three days, I have strived to understand the factors that determine the
effectiveness of a leader. For becoming an effective leader, it is essential to have good followers,

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as the leaders cannot exist without followers. I must possess the inherent characteristics and the
qualities, required behaviour and styles to function effectively in different situations. The
continuous development in the educational field allows me to pursue my lifetime learning, grow
socially and contribute efficiently to work with my peers. While doing the leadership-skill
building exercise, I experience the positive influence required to maintain while working in the
group. Working in a group as a leader helped me in locating, evaluating and presenting the
information in a proper way. Different members had different opinions and information in
cognitive exercise. My team received positive and constructive feedback. All of us gave our best
to perform the assessment exercise efficiently and got relevant feedback.
The self-assessment will help me in guiding the leadership opportunities in the future.
Throughout my leadership journey, I have understood the leadership traits and their significance.
My personal visualization of a great and useful leader is the one, who is self-conscious and
knows what their viewpoint is. These leaders strive to achieve their full potential and work in
correspondence with their morals and values. A leader is committed to his or her work and never
think of giving up. The leader makes sure that each group member shares a shared vision and
work hard in achieving that vision. A leader is a motivator, role model, citizen, challenger, an
informant at all times.
The successful leaders have the ability required for challenging the process for new
opportunities. The self-assessment helps me in identifying the areas for self-improvement. An
effective leader encourages and improves the strategies, process and techniques required for
changing. It is essential that a successful leader is a citizen and a change agent. Citizenship of a
leader means the active engagement of the people and the leader to serve the community
(Komives and Wagner 2016). Thus, it is tremendously significant that a leader actively

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participates or engages in group efforts. Participation helps in gaining the trust of the people and
establishes the credibility of expertise.
With a view to enhance and develop my leadership skills, I need to work on areas for
improvement. I need to challenge myself to grow in the future. One example that I should
develop is to focus on doing things with selected objectives of the peripheral issue rather than
working with collective opinions. I should also practice having trusts on others. It will help me
building faith and confidence in the people working with me. It will also help me in participating
in various communities and get involved with people all around. Throughout my college days, I
do not engage myself much in the events and activities of the college communities. Involving
myself in the communities will help me in getting prepared for the leadership role in the near
future. Another way to develop my leadership skill is my ability to learn by listening to others
more effectively.
Leaders must know what they want and should be able to communicate it and empower
others despite staying on the course (Allison, Kocher and Goethals 2017). My strategy to
maximize my effectiveness of being a leader is outlined in this essay. From my self-assessment
test and activities, I have learned a lot about leadership skills and personality traits; a leader
possesses from experience. The feedback received from the self-assessment test will help me in
applying to my growth and development in the near future.
The experiences stated above helps me in analyzing my personal strengths and
weaknesses for the growth and development of the leadership qualities in me. Strengthening my
strength will help in achieving my career growth more productively. Improving my weaknesses
by getting higher education and gaining job experience will help in self-improvement. I have
stated several opportunities for my future growth at an individual level for working in the future.

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Self-assessment helps me analyzing the areas where I need to improve for further growth and
development skills of the organization. Putting some efforts to become an efficient and effective
leader will help in improving my management style and reduce the pressure of working. This
will boost my self-confidence and decrease my hesitations in taking quick decisions. The
continuous change will help in adding values and knowledge to me that is beneficial for my
growth and productivity in the near future.

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References:
Allison, S.T., Kocher, C.T. and Goethals, G.R. eds., 2017. Frontiers in spiritual leadership:
Discovering the better angels of our nature. Springer.
Anderson, M.H. and Sun, P.Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a
new 'full‐range' theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.76-96.
Barreto, N.B. and Hogg, M.A., 2018. Influence and leadership in small groups: Impact of group
prototypicality, social status, and task competence. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology,
2(1), pp.26-33.
Komives, S.R. and Wagner, W. eds., 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the
social change model of leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Northouse, P.G., 2017. Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.