Traits And Strengths Of A Leader That I Possess Essay Examples

Introduction

Leadership is one of the most relevant topics of the century. The dynamics around leadership calls for change whenever to suit the environment in which it is practiced. Leadership is stepping up of the individual to a position where he can influence team members to contribute willingly to the achievement of a common goal. Different scholars have had a different perception of leadership which is influenced by experience or specialty. Classical management theory is still in operation to date despite the active reformation of leadership approach to rip the most out of it. In this paper, I will discuss Jim Kouzes' and Watkins's approach to leadership in reference to my leadership strengths and weakness. I will also explore ways that I could use to tackle my weaknesses and to capitalize on my strength
According to James Kouzes, there are five practices of exemplary Leadership models; Model the will Inspire shared vision, challenge the process, allow and enable others to act and encouragement of the heart (Kouzes 1987). Kouzes' work is based on contemporary leadership practice. Kouzes book was creating out of opinion collected from more than 7500 individuals. Response of the surveyed individuals was used to draw reason based ideas and draw conclusions on matters involving leadership. Some of the highly valued traits include the following: a leader must be the advocate of what he believes in by practicing what he says is right. A leader is honest forward-looking, inspiring and competent.

Kouzes advises that a leader should have some traits that will make people follow them willingly. Such traits are necessary for the exemplary practices of a leader. There are many traits that a leader should have. In strength based leadership, a leader with the least favorable traits performs in the same capacity as the leader with many traits as it neglects weaknesses. There are traits Kouzes considers necessary for every leader. The following are traits strengths that are linked to leadership functions, and I possess.
Honest-As an honest individual, and I regard this natural trait to be my leadership strength. This trait has served me well on occasions where I have to deal with other people. Honest build trust in the leader and gives more reason the subjects to follow and obey the leader. If the leadership should model the way, then he has to honest. Utilization of this strength is limitless since this trait is bound for exemplary leadership in that the leader would want his subjects, to be honest. People tend to build trust in me quicker and through this controlling of people who are being led is easier.
Forward looking-I tend to be motivated by desired outcome and most activities that I involve myself in are means of achieving a certain end. People believe in leaders because they represent their interests. People want leaders to have a sense of direction ad survey have shown that people prefer when leaders are forward-looking and result oriented. People have concerns about the future and a leadership that makes sense of this is doing enough to motivate the people and make them attached to the organization. This strength is used in directing and positively influencing the employees.
Competence/ technical knowledge- leaders should have technical knowledge and some degree of competence so they may make good sense of the situation in a given environment. Leading a group that deals with matters that are familiar to the leader make work easier for the leader. If the leadership position includes decision-making, a leader with technical know-how will make more informed decision. A leader may proof this with a track record. Technical knowledge is not however the strongest trait of a leader, but there are advantages accrued to technical abilities.
Inspiring- Leadership is different from management and leaders should be able to inspire people willingly to supply their contribution towards the achievement of a common objective. People should be challenged to deliver more and set their achievement standard that will motivate their actions. Inspiration grows employees as the try to find ways in which they can perform better.

Leadership weaknesses that I have and how to deal with them

Too much attention to details- I tend to pay attention to almost anything. It is easy to realize that attention to details can be a problem especially in scenarios where it not required or delicate. It is the strength that is misplaced and is, therefore, a leadership weakness if I cannot tell when details attention is required or not. In strength based leadership, such traits cannot be considered as a weakness. The situation where a financial manager who is kin on detailed is given an oversight role may demoralize his followers and cost the leader much time. Solution of this is not training a leading to ignore detail's that post him in an environment where details matter
Stagnancy- I tend to value old methods and ideas and always advocate of their retention. I know now that such unwillingness to give a chance to new things is an unfavorable trait of a leader especially in the business environment. A leader should be proactive and transits with the change in environment to remain relevant and build trust in the employees. This unfavorable trait can be changed if it is appreciated by the leader that it is indeed a problem. I realize not being proactive and innovate a new way in which objectives can be achieved being stagnant and people naturally like progression.
Not trusting employees- Taking too much caution when dealing with employees sends a different signal that you cannot trust them. This unfavorable trait do not go easy on delegation and employees think that I go too hard on them I closely supervise them. To overcome this don not require much work but change of attitude and perception of employees. It hinders progression to some degree because people do not have free will to apply their unique talents on the job.
Lack of vision: Organizational objectives can be achieved without a vision and with or without vision don not make much difference to most people. If employees are the subject, they might want to know their future in the company and the existence of Vision in the leadership is a motivational factor. Unfavorable traits that should be changed by practice and capacity building

Challenges faced by a new manager

A new job as manager may require completely different approach and thinking. The first few months as a manager are the most challenging and require good planning and approach. James in his newly updated and expanded book focuses on challenges that are faced by managers and try to offered advices that will help new managers to make better choices concerning their career. Typical leadership environment is may need little attention to details and more of motivation and over sighting. After the analysis of challenges faced by new managers he gives an advice on how to approach the new job from preparation of points that need focus. The biggest determinant of success is self-understanding and preparedness for the new job. The manager ought to do some self-analysis and self and rating. SWOT analysis is highly commented. A leader should know weakness and strength.

Dealing with strength and weakness

Every person has strength and weaknesses that ought to be dealt with critically in a best way. Leadership theories have developed from scientific to classical and today, strength based leadership is under serious consideration by leading companies. The nature of humanity is to find weaknesses and fix them or spend much time in training and improving them. This approach is time and may be resource intensive. Douglas Ivester Became the CEO of coca-Cola company after being promoted from the finance manager. He work was deemed unsatisfactory, and he resigned as pressure mounted. His two years of service as a CEO was his training and practice time as him, and his employers gave much attention to to his weaknesses. The failure Of Ivester have been explained by Watkin in his book The first 90 days to have come from insufficient preparation for the new job and Watkin's unwillingness to let go some of virtues (strengths) of paying excessive attention to details which was required in his previous job but not helpful as a CEO. Is not about what he couldn't do but what he couldn't let (Watkin 2014).
Failure of a leader may not be the sole making of the leader in question but may be contributed by leadership styles insisted by the organization. Having had work experience before the leader may be assigned to duties that best suit his traits, skills, talent, and strength. It will save the transition time loses and lets the leader impact immediately on the job that he is good at.
Watkin advises that a leader should properly diagnose his situation to situation and tailor their strategies to serve them best according to the situation they are in. Transition is a critical stage that calls for preparation, Self-analysis, and learning. A leader taking a new office is advice to learn faster and adapt to work environment as quickly as they could.

Diagnosing and dealing with business situation

Watkin in his book has highlights four business environments that need analysis by the new leader. Such situations include the following
1. Start up- this a common phenomenon with new businesses where the leader should mobile resources and organize them to contribute to a common objective. This situation is also typical of new products that are too lounged.
2. Turn around- this is the most common phenomenon in most business that donor employ strength based leadership. It is when a leader has a group that is not effective and needs to change the situation. The group may not be effective because they are either obsolete or under-motivated or any other reason. Depending on the approach used to solve the situation; this exercise may be resource intensive. Other option apart from posting the group Tom they are well versant and comfortable with may include training, motivation and capacity building. The entire process requires the presence of leadership and effective control mechanism
3. Realignment- this may be a proactive or in late diagnosis a reaction to a drifting situation that may include a product, aunt, a process or even an essential individual member. That calls for a new approach.
4. Sustaining Success- This is like a daily chaos of a manager because, in a classical business environment, trouble is not always and success in various units may be present in the organization. Leaders are keeping a sustained success by improvement and dealing with external forces effectively.

Actions to Monitor and enhance leadership ability

Periodic self-evaluation
Self-evaluation is a tool that will help know areas that need improvement and areas that are not problem can be compared with previous evaluation to see is there is improvement. Evaluation is a readily available inexpensive tool that I prefer to use analyzes my leadership capabilities, as well as improvement.

Setting Smart targets

The answer to the question, “whether a leader is effective or not?” is reflected in the achievement. Objectives that are SMART are a good standard that I prefer to measure myself with. Whenever a target is not achieved, variance is measured, and a reason it was not achieved is deduced. It makes it simple to track performance and correct areas that failed to deliver as I seek to improve on already strong sides. If targets set are not SMART, the outcome of controlling may be untrue. All factors that contribute to the success are considered although some actions may not yield immediate results. Target focus on the leadership role in the achievement of the collective objective.

Employee to employee Evaluation

If communication channels are favorable to people and information obtained from such channels are used to purposely, it can help in self-improvement as the opinion of the people may come handy. Evaluation by another person may give different information that may not be supplied by self-assessment like when a leader wants to know what people think about him.

Conclusion

Leadership is dynamic. It has had contributions from many scholars whose thoughts have helped shape the leadership to suit the time and environment in which it is practiced. Traits of good leaders may be relative if environment of practice differs, for instance, a military leader may require different traits from that of a CEO. Weaknesses are what we are not familiar with or what we cannot do well. It is human nature to fix shortcoming and the identification of shortcomings and learning to be better is natural. Another method of saving on capacity building resources, adopting the strength based leadership where a leader is posted to an environment where he can only apply what he is good at. Strength-based leadership is a new approach to leadership and may need time of testing before it is famous and widely used. It is, however, expensive in terms of personnel. The best way of monitoring leadership trait and skill development is by periodic evaluation. Evaluation can be self or undertaken by a peer. It is difficult to build on a skill if a problem caused by is not considered.

Reference

Watkins, M. (2003). The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (1987). The leadership challenge: How to get extraordinary things done in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.