Leadership Skills Analysis Individual Assessment Answer

Introduction

The measure of leadership today takes in a number of evaluations for one to be considered a good leader or an effective leader. After all, organizational proprietors, directors and owners have since learned that leadership forms the basis of organizational success or failure. Thus, leaders are being evaluated on a number of attributes before being handled office to lead teams and be responsible for the overall operations of organizations. These criteria upon which leaders are commonly assessed as either good or bad leaders are commonly known as the qualities of a good leader. Some of these include; visionary, inspirational, coach, honest, good communicator (interpersonal communication), strategic and a critical thinker name it (Champlain College Online, 2019). As such, as an intending leader, I have been subject to a leadership test to measure my leadership potential on a scale of some of the above mentioned qualities. Largely, this essay is a reflective account of the results that were obtained from my leadership test. The essay ends with an action plan of how I intend to advance my leadership attributes to become the revered leader I want to become.

Main Body

The test survey scale revealed showed my morality ethos as exceedingly strong. Being a leader comes with managing teams and resources of an organization. Without being honest, a leader can easily misappropriate the organization’s resources, discriminate against teams which may risk failing the business or causing conflicts within the organization (Kozodoy, 2020). As a leader, you are expected to stir the organization in unison and have an emotional attachment on the organization. The success or failure of the business is in the same way attributed to you. Yet this goes along way on how you manage your teams, and how effective the organization resources are used. Good leaders are leaders who take pride in the success of the organizations they lead. This means that they work their toes and ensure their teams are in high spirits to enable them achieve success. Unfortunately, divisionism and corruption does not allow organizations to achieve this milestone. I am glad my morality levels scored high and this gives me confidence to believe I can well manage organizational resources and I can equally manage teams without any complaints of discrimination, and/or isolation. This will likely award me trust from my team and the same morals can be espoused and practiced by the team; me being their leader.

Even as a learner, I have always exhibited honesty throughout my academic journey; I have always worked my course assignments alone and desisted copying or engaging in academic malpractices of whatsoever kind. I am always able to defend my research work because it is primarily carried out. Unfortunately, I have many times been ostracized because of my principles. Many colleagues believe that I am uncooperative when it comes to matters regarding academics because I do not share with them my coursework answers. Nevertheless, I have always held an innate belief in me that by helping my colleagues, I will only be doing a de-service to them as they will not be encouraged to write their coursework and the results they obtain will not be reflect their academic knowledge. In a word, the results will not be theirs. Therefore, the ethical principle of honesty is innate in me and I hope to carry on with this in my future vocation as a leader.

Whether you are a learner, leader, employer, or employee, life will always suffice you challenges to counteract to succeed or fail at them and fail. To leaders, this is a regular encounter and how you deal with them determines a lot in the future of the organization (Abilene Christian University, 2021). Is it be poor performance, employee turnover, employee conflicts, competition from rivals, dissatisfaction at work, leaders grapple with daily issues and yet are expected to resolve them and ensure the success of the business. This calls for very many attributes to counter these daily challenges chief among which is being positive and upbeat. Being positive is believing that regardless of the current poor situation, things will surely change and change for the betterment. Every leader needs to be positive, to be upbeat. It is from this that inspiration and motivation is drawn. Many a times, businesses face gloomy situations; the management loses hope and so do the employees. All what is needed is a positive person to reassure and comfort the rest of the staff that all will be well to enable them carry on even in the most discouraging of situations.

My past experiences reveal to me that I have always been positive in life and I am able to inspire others to remain optimistic that after the dark corner, light rays always shine. Many a time, I have applied for jobs where I have had to wait for weeks and months before being invited for interviews. My last job offer working as an operations manager in B2Gold was a clear revelation in this regard. I applied to work as an intern operations manager in January 2023 but I was only called upon to interview with the organization Human Resource in May this year. It was because of optimism that I hanged in there without the deviation. On the contrary, I would have applied in many other organization to attain a placement for my internship practice. I remained positive to be invited partly because B2Gold has always been an organization I have desired to work with in my life. But also, I was positive that I would be invited for the interview and that I would pass the interview. This degree of optimism is reflective of my unrivaled sense of positive belief that has been part of my life all through. I believe this is a salient feature for me as an intending future leader. There is no doubting I can back on it to stir my subordinates in times when the going is tough.

Whether one is an authoritarian leader, participatory or transformational leader, to achieve your set goals in the organizations, one needs to prioritize what they want to be achieved. This goes a long way setting targets for the organization, setting deadlines, and motivating the team to achieve what you want to be achieved. By setting goals and targets, a leader focuses his team to achieve that what needs to be achieved. The survey test scale showed my ability to prioritize the set goals/ability to prioritize what I want done as strong. To me, this is a good attribute showing up in my life as this is exactly needed to lead well. Still, I know as leader one does not simply prioritize what they need to be achieved and have it achieved. This goes a long way with laying down proper strategies to enable you achieve what you what be achieved. Largely, this involves setting targets for each individual, training the team to equip them with the practical skills to achieve what they intend to achieve, inspiring teams and delegating teams to write interim and periodical reports informing on their progress on the set target.

While this feature shows as high in my life, theory shows to me I need to develop strategies through which I can effectively utilize it to achieve my desired results. True, I have always been focused in my life to achieve every goal I wanted to achieve. But I know the dynamics in which focus works in a team is different than when one is an individual. In teams, this may call for unison; the unison of a whole team towards a specific goal/s. As such, as an intending leader, I will be prayed to always develop better strategies I will use to ensure my teams are always focused and remain focused on what we want to achieve as a team. Yes, while I do accept that is one area where I want to improve (area of weakness), I am pleased that I know although I am focused as an individual, my attribute may not be practicable when I am working with a team.

In organizations, stalling or delays are always synonymous with slow progress, project failure and increased costs of operations (Carroll, 2022). Nevertheless, some delays are necessary if it needs understanding what needs to be done; training and properly equipping the project with the required resources to well carry out the job. Procrastination is bad if it is much since it stalls progress and may even affect employee morale. My reaction to important calls is always imminent; I do not delay when it matters the most and I hope this will be a good quality for me at work. It will help me and my team accomplish our assigned tasks within the set deadlines and further meet our customer demands. But just like in the above, I understand procrastination can be a consequence of many factors while working at an organizational level. Although I do score well on this aspect, as a leader, I understand I need to cultivate a reactionary approach to important aspects for this to be embraced as part of the organization culture from top-downwards.

My communication abilities are esteemed of a leader. One of the primary attributes of good leaders are effective communication and the survey test results affirm my communication abilities. My ability to communicate clearly endows me the capacity to pass on information across the team effectively; everyone will be able to understand my messages. This will save me from being misperceived by the team. I will also be able to communicate clearly the organization mission and vision without any mishaps. My ability to read body gestures, and adjust to other people’s communication styles is what I pride in more though. As a leader, I believe one needs to be backward-looking to your subordinate’s body gesticulations when speaking. On one hand, it helps inform your communication when speaking but also important it helps you to manage the employees well. As a leader, one of the primary roles I have is to uphold the team you are leading and this goes a long way to involve how you communicate with the team because poor communication can be a source of misunderstandings, dissatisfaction and errors at work. To me, this has been one main strength of main. I intend to draw on my ability to communicate to mend and build relationships with my team.

As a leader, one needs to be involved, and not alienated from his team. In any case, you need to engage with your team to know of their challenges and to draw your subordinates near to you. Naturally, I am a social person and I can capably work with teams and solve problems mutually. But I do this within the appropriate boundaries to maintain my degree of positional respect while at the same time I keep a sense of touch with my peers. I am happy of this sense of humanity within me and this is one of the features that heartens my feeling to ply my trade in leadership. I believe I can lead and corporate with people; I am able to use this attribute to encourage people to work hard to achieve my set targets. I know, being a leader is not all about issuing directives or commanding. As a leader, you need to relate with your subordinates to know their challenges and draw measures on how you can resolve them. This also allows your subordinates to have a sense of belonging and feeling of care upon which they build their loyalty to you.

My characteristic to praise others when they do well or succeed is an attribute I know every leader needs to have. Its human nature for people to feel good when praised; after all they have done good or added value on something. Theoretically, this is a feature every leader leading a team needs to have. By appreciating others, the appreciated feel appreciated and this encourages them to even work hard. It also breeds a culture of competitiveness where the appreciation involves award giving, and promotions in the case of a workplace setting. I feel content I have this natural attribute; I will always give awards to the best performing teams, send appreciation letters to individuals that will have performed well and I am planning on adopting this strategy as one way of encouraging team work and a sense of belonging amongst my subordinates at work. I know this will also contribute to employee retention at work.

Action Plan

The test results show that I am performing well on many of the criteria I was assessed on whether I can make a good leader or not. Fairly to me, many of the attributes I were tested on are mostly the traits upon which leaders are gauged as either good or bad leaders. Nonetheless, I know that the dynamics of work can alter or even fail some of these attributes and show me up as a bad leader. That said, as an intending feature leader, I have to develop a set of principles, knowledge and action plans to brace these features if I am to achieve success in my leadership vocation. Following are some of the actions I intend to undertake to reinforce my current leadership attributes;

Develop Group Management Strategies

Yes, there is a difference between a leader and a manager. Although there are differences between the two, managers are not any far different from leaders, and thus I believe as I possess many of the attributes of good leaders, I need to develop strategies of optimizing processes to ensure that my subordinates deliver the expected results whilst maintaining my leadership characteristics. One of the actions I need to undertake is how to prepare teams to achieve their set objectives while remaining focused on the goal. As alluded to earlier, I prioritize and I am focused on what needs to be done. Be it as it may be, I am likely to fail when operating in an environment that needs concerted efforts. Therefore, I need to know the strategies to use to promote concentration among teams. Only then we can be able to achieve as a team, avoid conflicts, and promote the spirit of togetherness and dedication to achieve set goals. Some of the strategies I am planning on using is setting targets to achieve, and giving commissions on the achieved targets (Kennedy, & Nilsson, 2008). I believe in a dynamic organization setting the aforementioned strategies can be handy in upholding a team’s focus to the task.

Develop Negotiation Skills

Although my problem solving skills rank strong, I need to develop practicable negotiation skills if I am to lead well. At all times, there are conflicts in organisations be it teams. My current problem solving skills are subtle and thus more theoretical. I need to lead a team to advance this skillset. I will involve counselors, and mediators to resolve conflicts in my leadership reign.

Delegation

While I am a good team player, I will always need to delegate authority to decentralise powers. This can ease and facilitate effective performance but on the other hand it will help to make employees feel content and part of the organisation.

Develop a Shared Leadership Style

There are many leadership styles and each leader or aspiring leader embraces what they feel best fits their aura as individuals. For me, it has always been the shared leadership style. I want to lead in an environment where everyone feels they are engaged and part of the organization as I believe this will help me achieve the organizational targets as well as mine. Moreover, a thorough analysis of my leadership attributes makes me believe that the shared leadership style best fits my character. My team work ability, interpersonal communication, ability to engage members to solve problems and get ahead within the appropriate boundaries reinforces my belief that I can effectively implement this leadership style at my work environment. To achieve this, I intend to lead where employee participation in decision-making processes will be emphasized and my own engagement in the fulfilment of the company’s activities is visible (Cherry, 2010). I believe this style of leadership will be supportive to me in building relationships with my subordinates but also it will instill a sense of belonging amongst employees towards the organization. In the end, this will reward me with employee efficiency that will be featured from the feelings of satisfaction from the employees.

Learn to Compromise

Much as I do not procrastinate, I need to learn to compromise to allow other peoples input in project execution while at the same time remaining focused. To achieve this, I will foster the culture of quick action on calls and resolution making so as not to be delayed as a result of many decision-makers.

Conclusion

My overall leadership attribute scores saw as good; it is now my responsibility to implement the features that have been seen in me into real-life. I need to practice as a leader in a small level organization to practically implement my skills and develop more lessons before advancing my profession call into leadership. I believe this will bequeath me with the practical skills to succeed at a top level organization or even as a legislator in my home area. I am encouraged knowing that I have many of the attributes that make good leaders, I now have the onus of developing these skills practically and harnessing the knowledge of practitioners in the field to further craft my art in the field. To achieve this, I have drawn an action plan which will help me to hone my current leadership attributes but also allow me a chance to practice in my future work setting with a team of subordinates.

References

Abilene Christian University. (2021, September 7). Do you want to take your leadership skills even further? Here are five skill areas where you need to focus your attention to achieve personal and professional success. https://acu.edu/2020/09/21/the-5-traits-of-positive-leadership-to-master/

Carroll, A. M. (2022, February 22). Project manager's guide to dealing with procrastination at work. Project-management.com. https://project-management.com/project-managers-dealing-with-procrastination/

Champlain College Online. (2019, November 22). The top 10 qualities of a great leader. Affordable Online Degree Programs | Champlain College Online. https://online.champlain.edu/blog/top-qualities-of-a-great-leader

Cherry, K. (2010, September 20). What is democratic leadership? Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-democratic-leadership-2795315

Kennedy, F. A., & Nilson, L. B. (2008). Successful Strategies for Teams. Teaming Handbook. https://ctl.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/TeamworkHandbook-KennedyandNilson.pdf

Kozodoy, P. (2020). Honest to Greatness: How Today's Greatest Leaders Use Brutal Honesty to Achieve Massive Success. BenBella Books.

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