Leadership, Strategy and Change - Example

Leadership, Strategy and Change: Reflective Journal Name Institution Course Name & Number Date of Submission Leadership, Strategy and Change: Reflective Journal Introduction Leadership, strategy and change are three related concepts that are important for the success of any business. Leadership is related to the strategy and change in the sense that leaders are responsible for ensuring effective implementation of strategy and change to ensure success. Throughout this course, a number of important issues related to leadership, strategy and change have been brought to my attention that is worth reflecting on. For this reason, this reflective journal will reflect will highlight lessons that I have learned from the leadership, strategy and change lessons covered in the previous weeks, thus far. Week 2: Theories of Leadership Leadership has for a long time been recognized to play an important part both in personal life and in business. However, the debate as to how leadership works has been an issue of debate over the last century. To help understand how leadership is developed and works, a number of theories have been developed both tradition and modern most of which are at odds with each other. Trait theory is one of the traditional theories of leadership that focuses on the personalities that differentiate a leader from a non-leader (DuBrin & Dalglish, 2002). According to trait theory otherwise called ‘great man theory’, leaders are ‘born’ not ‘made.’ This is to imply that leadership is a quality that is innate and cannot be acquired through learning. Although trait theory holds true to some extent, I have observed certain shortcomings from this theory. In particular, I have noted that the theory fails to take into account the environmental and situational factors that might influence the development of a successful leader, such as role models. Studies conducted by Avery et al. (2007) that was based on twins found that inheritability of leadership to stand at just 30%. This finding definitely suggests that about 70% of leadership qualities are learned through interactions with the external environment and situational factors, such as exposure to leader role models. For this reason, as much as trait theory appears to be true that leadership is inherited, evidence suggests that people can learn leadership qualities as well. I have learned that the shortcomings of great man and trait theories were adequately addressed by contingency or situational leadership theory. This is because contingency theory recognized both situational and individual factors in determining effectiveness of leadership (Avolio et al., 2009). For instance, it is common to observe that leadership effectiveness does not depend solely on the leadership style that one adopts, but also with the relationship that the leader builds with the followers, the leader’s power and task structure. For this reason, I strongly believe that situational leadership should be adopted by practitioners in training programmes. From the lesion, I have also learned about the modern leadership theories that include charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership and authentic leadership. I have learned that charismatic leadership is based on the behaviors and characters of a leader. These leaders have the power to inspire and bring about enthusiasm in the followers through their articulation of vision (DuBrin & Dalglish, 2002). In the real world, there are many leaders who can be said to have been charismatic leaders as they were able to not only bring about enthusiasm in their followers, but also inspire them through their visions. Such leaders include Martin Luther King Jr., and former U.S. President Barrack Obama. The same applies to transformational leadership, which is about the creation of a vision and inspiring followers to implement (Cutler, 2014). A good example of transformational leader in the business world is Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group who not only created a vision for his company, but managed to inspire and rally subordinates to work hard to ensure that the company achieves its objectives. Servant leadership is another important leadership approach learned in this lesson. I have learned that servant leaders are those who put the interest of the people they serve ahead of their self interest (Pierce, nd). However, I am made to understand that there are not so many servant leaders because most leaders are driven by greed, and self interest. The same applies to authentic leadership which is difficult to get in the contemporary society. In summary, the lesson on leadership theory has taught me how leadership is developed and works. Besides, I have learned that no single leadership approach or style fits every situation as all have their strengths and limitations that one must know when deciding on the one to adopt in leading people. Week 3: Self-Awareness Skills The question as to what constitutes effective leadership dominates literatures. However, most literatures cite self-awareness as one of the most important qualities that any leader needs to have to ensure effective leadership (Mintzberg, 2004; Seibert & Daudelin, 1999). Self-awareness implies being aware of the ones strengths, weaknesses, preferences, personalities and styles among others. From the week’s lesson, I have learned that, for a person to become an effective leader, he/she needs to have strong emotional intelligent. Having self-awareness skills is important aspect of leadership because it determines how a leader behaves and interacts with others (Ekman, 2003). In particular, I have learned that high self-awareness score is associated with success and this means that leaders need to strive to ensure that they develop this skill to ensure that they provide effective leadership. The lessons learned about the importance of having a high self-awareness is leadership resonates with the reality in contemporary organizations. For instance, I have observed that leaders who are aware of their weaknesses are better able to hire people who are better able to hire employees who have the skills in the areas that they lack the acumen. Therefore, this ensures that the experts in areas that the leader lacks the acumen are hired to do the work and this ensures organizational success (Goleman et al., 2001). Besides, self-awareness is an important leadership quality because I have been made to understand that such leaders are more willing to embrace diversity of ideas that someone on the team might have that could be better than their own. On the contrary, lack self-awareness can result in undesirable consequences. For instance, if a leader assumes that he/she knows all, this can prove detrimental to the performance of an organization because they might be tempted to do even things that they lack expertise in. The importance of self-awareness skills in leadership is particularly highlighted by Daniel Goleman who argues that the ability to manage oneself and their relationships is determined by four fundamental capabilities, including self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and social skills (Goleman, 2000). This view is supported by Kouzes et al. (2010) whose study found that self-awareness and self-management are necessary for authentic leadership. Based on this findings coupled with the lessons learned about self-awareness, I am convinced that for any leader to be effective in leading subordinates, then the leader must have high self-awareness; otherwise he would not be able to provide effective leadership. In summary, self-awareness is the best leadership tool. As such, leaders need to evaluate their personality, style, behaviors, skills and to understand their strengths and weaknesses and exploit self-awareness in providing effective leadership. Week 4: Interpersonal Skills Interpersonal skills are things that people often take for granted. However, based on the lessons learned about interpersonal skills, I have come to understand that this is a skill that one needs to become an effective leader. It was interesting to learn that people spend up to 70% of their time talking, meaning that listening only takes about 30% (Fritz et al., 2005). However, based on the lessons learned, it has emerged that failing to listen can be a costly thing, especially to a manager because it can result in change in appointments, disputes, return of shipments, divorce and apologies among others. For this reason, a leader needs to have strong listening skills in order to communicate effectively and authentically (Bianco-Mathis et al., 2002). I am also made to understand that effective listening is not just about listing using the ears; rather listening requires that one become focused, interpret and analyze what others have to say in terms of words, tone and body language. This requires maintaining eye contact, demonstrating interest and encouraging whoever is speaking with affirmative responses. The other important element of interpersonal skills that is important in leadership is trust. I have learned that a leader needs to gain the trust of the followers in order to lead. One way to build trust is for the leader to demonstrate integrity (Fritz et al., 2005). From the lesson, I also learned that there are various ways that a leader can develop trust from followers. These include sharing personal feelings, opinions, likes and dislikes, sharing vulnerabilities, embracing others the way they are and accepting others. Therefore, I hope to use the skills gained in building trust with the members of the staff to ensure the creation of a good working relationship between myself as a leader and subordinates. Additionally, I have learned from the lesson that empathic communication is an important interpersonal skill that a leader needs to develop to ensure effective leadership. Empathy means showing others that you are concerned and care about them and their situation (Rogers & Roethlisberger, 1991). Empathic communication is an important interpersonal skill that leaders need to have because it helps build trust between the leader and the subordinate and the fact that it makes the leader put themselves in the subordinates situation, which minimizes exploitation of the subordinates or doing something that might hurt the followers (Fritz et al., 2005). Therefore, acknowledging the importance of empathy, I intend to develop this interpersonal skill as I hope to use it to build trust between myself and the followers by making them recognize that I care about their feelings and situation. Lastly, the lesson highlighted the importance of coaching as an important interpersonal skill that a leader needs to develop to be able to provide effective leadership. Coaching involves helping others know how to perform a task or solve a given problem (Bianco-Mathis et al., 2002). During the lesson, I learned that coaching is an important aspect of leadership because it equips subordinates with the skills that they might need to perform a task. Assigning an employee a duty that they lack knowledge about can be detrimental to a company as it can result in the employee making errors that can prove costly. Therefore, to motivate, and increase the confidence level of employees in their job, as well as to ensure productivity, I intend to apply the lesson learned by providing coaching to subordinates to enable them have the skills needed to solve problems in their assigned roles. There are a variety of ways that a leader can coach employees, which include through on-the-job training and mentorship among others. Week 5: Implementation Skills Strategy implementation is one of the most important stages in strategy execution. The lesson has pointed that a leader might have a good strategy in place, but if not implemented effectively can result in a big failure. However, there are certain skills that are necessary for effective strategy implementation. According to the lessons learned, effective strategy execution begins by setting the right goals that must be SMART. SMART goals need to be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and timely (Fritz et al., 2005). A goal particularly needs to be specific to the extent that it should be simple, significant and sensible. Measurability implies that the goals set need to be meaningful and motivating. At the same time, a good goal is that which is achievable. This implies that a leader needs not to set a goal that cannot be achieved under normal conditions as can be demoralize or discourage subordinates from implementing the strategy. Additionally, the goals need to be relevant to the extent that they should be reasonable, resources, realistic and result-based, as well as time-bound to mean that they need to be time-sensitive. The important of setting a SMART goal has been observed by many companies key among them being Qantas. Qantas is an example of Australian airline that understands that its operations impact negatively on the environment. Therefore, to address the problem of emission, the airline had to come up with SMART goals, by setting an emission reduction in water use by 20% by 2020; reduction in waste-landfill by 30% and electricity use by 35% by 2030 and a reduction in emission by 50% by 2050 (Qantas, 2010). These sustainability goals are easy to implement as they meet the SMART goal criterion. Therefore, based on the lessons learned about objective setting, I intend to use this lesson by ensuring that the goals that I set as a leader are those that meet the SMART criterion to ensure ease of implementation. Besides effective goal setting, to get things done, a leader needs to have good time management skills. I have learned that good time management skills is important because it ensures that the tasks the strategy is implemented at the right time. The lesson has also discussed important time management skills that a manager needs to adopt. These include having a plan or timetable to guide in the implementation of the goals set. Having a timetable ensures that every task is executed as planned. Moreover, I have learned that a leader needs to have stress management skills. Because strategy execution is characterized by many challenges such as working with impatient people and handling difficult task, a leader needs to have the skills to manage stress, anxiety and tension. Borrowing from this lesson, I intend to build apply the stress management skills learned during the lesson to be able to get things done. These include planning adequately, controlling anger, physical relaxation, recreation and goal setting. Week 6: What is Strategy? The environments in which businesses operate have become more competitive and complex than before. Besides, the needs, tastes and preferences of consumers are constantly changing. Therefore, to succeed in the modern day business environments, the lesson highlights the need for adoption of an effective strategy. Handy (1995) defines a strategy as an action plan on how to achieve a given objective. I also learned that, in the contemporary businesses, the strategy of a company is defined through mission, vision and values (MVV). The vision statement defines where a company intends to be in the long-term while mission statement defines what the business intends to do to get there. Values, on the other hand, are the principles that guides how a company intends to conduct its business, mainly expressed through code of conduct. The majority of modern businesses have mission, vision and value statements that define their strategic direction. It was, however, surprising to learn that some studies suggest that businesses without mission, vision and value statements outperform those that have MVV (Mitroff &Linstone, 1993). This is because evidences across industries shows that MVV acts as an important action plan by telling a company, where they want to go, what they need to do to get there and the values they promote. For instance, Qantas has the vision of creating the best premium and low fare airline in the world. To achieve the vision, Qantas mission is to meet customer expectations all the time by investing in business and striving to deliver best services. The above mission and vision statements have been key to the success of Qantas as they have acted as a roadmap for the company. The lesson also highlighted how strategy can be used as a source of competitive advantage. The concept of competitive advantage was coined by Michael Porter and has been key to strategy formulation and implementation. Michael Porter observed that the adoption of effective strategy is a source of competitive advantage. This is true as evidence in the contemporary business environment shows that the adoption of a good strategy result in growth and success of a firm. For instance, to achieve a competitive advantage, Qantas had to adopt low-cost strategy that enables it charge affordable fares thus enabling achieve a competitive advantage. Therefore, based on the lessons learned, I intend to ensure that I adopt an effective strategy that would be used as an action plan to ensure organizational success. Conclusion The reflective journal highlights the importance of leadership and strategy the organizational success. The first journal describes theories and approaches to leadership. The journal has also reflected on a number of skills that a leader needs to have to ensure effective leadership, including self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and implementation skills. Additionally, the reflective journal has highlighted the importance of strategy in organizational success. 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