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Five Most Important Leadership Skills, Essay Example

Pages: 19

Words: 5295

Introduction

Any person, related to any profession, or field of practice has an ambition to fulfill in his life. I, being a business student also strive to fulfill a specific goal, which would be the milestone for achievement of my self-actualization goal. In the coming years, I see myself as an innovative director of student affairs at Al-Faisal University (where I am currently working) leading my students to achieving their goals and ambitions of life successfully. Simultaneously, I also see myself as leading my father’s personal business on the brink of success. I see myself sitting at the core of decision making, determining the future of the company and its employees. Although, this role seems to refer to self employment, a preset business model would be more preferred by me.

Leadership roles always attract me. I have been witnessing the supreme leadership capabilities of my father who had set up his own company some 20 years before, and now employees more than 20,000 employees. I wish to be in such a position that hard core decision making starts to take at my desk. The major thinking behind this ambition is the enthusiasm to make an organization work for me rather than working for the organization itself. However, the tough responsibilities that this leadership role would bring with it, and the accompanying hindrances and decisions are a different story and would only be experienced, once I encounter them practically.

I do not aim to be in a typical sales, operations, accounts, or management profession in the future. Instead I aim to be that person of my organization who sets the course of action of the company and determines the way towards which the employees work. Setting goals and objectives and looking over targets as well as appraising performance of workers entice me greatly. However, I have made myself to accept this fact that without achieving goals, fulfilling targets, and enhancing my own performance, I would not be able to fulfill my own wishes properly or even improperly. I need to have proper experience in the different fields of life be it pizza delivery, packaging or blue collared jobs such as accounting, researching or selling. Have a firm belief that until and unless I do not gain experience from every walk of life, in fact every major walk of life, I would not be able to develop those traits in myself, which are meant for business leaders.

However, I do accept that leadership skills in one cannot be created or learnt, but they only exist in one person by birth. Whether the leadership skills are available or not is a latter question. However, I occasionally try leading my friends, family or colleagues as and when the need arises. A holiday excursion to mountains, a group task at college or work, I try to lead my group and check on occasionally if any signs of leadership can be found in myself.

One of the most things that I love to do in my current job is leading the students. It is indeed, a very rewarding job at the end of the day. Seeing students leaving my office smiling after entering crying is a factor of success to me as I know that I was able to comfort her and provide her with guidance. With my current role at the department, I am wearing the hat of leading the team and leading female students. I have been in charge of all students activities for the past period, therefore such person should obtain great leadership skillsI have a firm belief that naturally born leaders are the only people who can lead their family, friends, colleagues or a whole organization towards a specific course of action. The mere ambition to be at a decision making position and to determine the course of action makes me think more than frequently that I have been born to lead. I wish to imply this philosophy in my later life too.

Born to Lead!

The Fantastic Five

In my own prospect, the five most important leadership skills, competencies, and attributes are given below.

Sense of Responsibility

My past experience, no matter how meager it is, and the things learnt from books and taught by my teachers and elders have led me to the conclusion that sense of responsibility is the most important element of leadership skills. A majority of human beings have a trait to do work, but avoid being responsible for it. And this is the key to a person’s demand. Although, higher level managers do a little amount of work, as spoken amongst junior staff, yet the reason behind their pays and perks is the level of responsibility that they behold. Doing things is a different story, but facing the consequences is an altogether different job, for which very few people are prepared.

I believe that having a prime sense of responsibility would be the first step towards climbing the ladder of leadership. Whether it would be a company, a team or small group, I would have to face the responsibility of consequences of whatever tasks are performed by my subordinates. (Lussier & Achua, 2009)

This would also cover my punctuality. Whereby taking care of deadlines, monitoring performance and keeping follow up, organizing meetings and appraising performance would all come under this heading. As I wish to be in a leading role and guide others, I would have to remain extra cautious and careful and avoid being indulged in any activities that regards me irresponsible. Abiding by the level of responsibility, I would adhere myself to all the principles and regulations and work in the correct direction.

My level of responsibility would also be a source of inspiration to my juniors or the team that I would be leading. Hence, it would aid in adding charisma to my personality, another hard core requirement for leaders and leading personalities, which is being fulfilled by all the previous ones. (Lussier & Achua, 2009)

Acting responsibly would also determine my other activities as well as the other elements that would be coming further in the essay. For example, my responsible behavior would also determine the type and level of communication I am involved in, and would indicate whether my tasks are being done effectively or not. Also, it would determine my relationship with other employees and especially those juniors who have been working in my team or the company I would be leading.

Rather than being optional, responsibility would be the necessity for my profession as absence of responsibility at leadership level would also mean nil responsibility from the employees. Extra caution would have to be exercised taking care that my fellow workers or team mates do not find any trace of irresponsible attitude from my end. Also, I need to make sure, that no such irresponsible attitude is exercised by me, because apart from unworthy consequences, it would also result in the wastage of effort put in by me juniors and would negatively affect their morale and motivation.

Communication

Communication is a major skill that needs to be in person leading an organization of people. Lack of effective communication would mean that decisions would not be conveyed to the staff properly and efforts would not put through in the right direction. This would result in wastage of resources for results that are not required.

I would strive to maintain a two way communication network whereby those who are working for me, or whom I making work, can also put in their suggestions since hands on experience would be gained by them only. Acknowledgments and notices must be received and properly conveyed if the work is to continue on smoothly. I would also strive to clear any confusion that might sustain in the staff and motivate them continuously to do work. Main preference would be the progress of work in an efficient manner, towards the right direction. (Forster, 2011)

I would aim to maximize the efficiency of communications infrastructure so that proper communication takes place at all the times. Be it in form of written, electronic or graphical, hindrances to effective communication should be minimized at the lowest possible level.

Communication plays a very important and effective role in the smooth running of an entity. Hence it would be focused that all the modes of communication are open, and are used by the people appropriately. It must be made clear to the staff that any confusions or misunderstanding should be solved before the work is started so that work can be done efficiently. It should also be noted that leadership is primarily concerned with relationships. And without proper communication, no sustainable relationships can exist.

Two way communication forms the basic necessity of this requirement, because apart from barking down instruction it is also important to know what the work force has to say in respect of a particular task. Effective communication skills also need to be employed by a successful leader to create relationships, maintain them and to take advantage from them by using them wisely and profitably.

I aim to utilize both verbal and non verbal communication. For example, laughing more often, being enthusiastic, speaking faster or smiling, and listen attentively when the work comes. (Forster, 2011)

Communication skills would also make me able to negotiate more easily because a person is manipulating his relationship with whom he is negotiating and also communicating with him. A well time joked, a playful gesture or about-to-cry gestures could help affect pressurize my opponent and help me to gain the desired result. Apart from this, my ability to motivate the staff would also depend how well I can communicate with them. Hence, communication skills would again need to be properly addressed by me, in order to carry on the rhythm of work efficiently and motivated. Proper communication skills would also aid me to keep my team motivated and continuously provide them the aim and vision of the work that is being done, and the reason for doing the work. Once, this aim is well set among the team, they all would e work with a clear goal in mind.

Honesty

A very popular saying I have been hearing all my life is “Honesty is the best policy.” I have established that honesty is another major element that needs to exist in leadership personalities.

Being honest with work means that one ca success far out in this area of work. Honesty results in zero confusion and makes one realize his own mistakes. It further paves the path to correcting your own mistake, no matter how harsh they have been. Honesty with one’s own self as well as with you work partners also leads to a boost in one’s self respect as well as nourishment of his/her respect in other’s eyes. Tasks and jobs would be crystal clear, and chances for mistakes would also e given.

Although I am still impatient at making mistakes, whether they are made by me or my mates, I tend to provide area of improvement for me as well as my fellows. The patience to accept mistake and recognize that it had been your own fault takes a lot of guts, but then it’s a major requirement if one plans to be honest. It is a fact that people have to sacrifice for being honest, but leadership arises from this element only. Also, with being honest, one cannot be responsible, which is the primary trait for leadership skills.

Honesty would also mean the precise knowledge and realization about the skills that the staff possesses. I do not aim to undertake those tasks which are out of my scope merely to satisfy my self-actualization needs. Rather, I intend to realize the skills potential of my staff and would aim to distribute work according to each and everyone’s skills and abilities. In case, there would be any limitations or hindrances in the way of work, I would inform others before hand, because being honest would be regarded as the major skill for my leadership. (Lussier & Achua, 2009)

Honesty, also gives raise to one’s self esteem, and dignity, which are two very important elements needed to be present in leaders. They lead to the honor among the workforce. Studies have verified that people are willing to be delegated tasks by those leaders who are thought to be honest. In fact, a leader is only recognized as proper leader, when he/she has been tested for his/her honesty and is popular for that. People are not willing to work with those who are dishonest, because then they fear that unnecessary on unwanted work load might be shifted to them or they might be blamed for any undesirable consequences.

Honestly also plays an important role in maintenance of relationships with each other because people prefer to be in touch with those persons who they think to be honest. Even dishonest persons who might be engaged in anything from telling lies to doing robbery, would also prefer being with an honest person rather than a dishonest one.

Goal Setting

After the above given traits have been fully encompassed in my personality I would venture towards the nest important element that must be found in a leader which is goal setting. Being a leader of the organization and being the decision maker I would need to set goals and ambitions for my team towards which people can work. The initiating point of this process would be setting up of a vision, as to what I or my company or the company I work for aims to be in the future. For example British Airways aims to be the world’s favorite airline. (Forster, 2011)

A similar vision needs to be set for my own perception as well as the others who would work so that the cause for working is set up. The next thing that would be, is the setting up of a mission statement so that I would be able to determine how do we wish to fulfill the aim we want to have in the future. A mission statement would be a concise and proper statement which would generally state how a company would fulfill its vision. To fulfill this mission, proper objectives would need to be set which would be further elaborated by setting up of goals. The goals are short term milestones, which would be attained for the achievement of long term objectives. The objectives would then lead to the succession of mission which would ultimately make the organization achieve its vision, i.e. where it had planned to be.

However, goal setting is not limited to these procedures. It is also about the setting of daily task and objectives that need to be accomplished on an everyday basis. A slight fluctuation of work performance in a single day can lead to delays in deadlines by weeks. Hence, daily setting of targets that have to be achieved should also be set.

The most important aspect in goal setting skills is that the goals should neither be too easy to attain, nor too difficult to achieve. In other words, they must be adequately achievable and reflect the true potential of workforce. Setting up of too easy goals would deprive the team of that work pace which could have been achieved by utilizing the full potential. On the other hand, setting up of too difficult targets which are unrealistic would lead to negative behavior and demotivation. Hence particular care needs to be taken when setting up goals. (Forster, 2011)

The goal setting process would also enable me, as a leader, to appraise and assess the performance of employees and judge it according to the standard. It would enable the matching of performance given with the performance that had been expected. Also the trend in performance given by the workforce would also make a leader such as me, to identify if the goals that have been set by me are realistic or not. This would aim in efficient setting up of goals, timely appraisal which would encourage others to give the best of their performance.

Innovation

A common reader might find it very surprising to find innovation listed as the least of all elements of leadership. However, the saying goes as last but not the least. According to my findings, innovation comes into practice when the actual work has started and leading position has been taken over. However, before that there have to be several other factors that need to be taken into account. The most important of them, according to me have already explained by me in the previous pages. Once responsibility has been taken over, communication skills exercised, honesty undertaken and goals set, innovation comes into the picture, without which the picture remains incomplete.

Leaders need to have the helicopter approach. This means that they need to rise above the ground and think ahead of others. Leaders need to be able to apprehend the future consequences of any of their actions and task. Apart from this, leaders must be innovative which means thinking out of the box and bearing an open thinking. (Forster, 2011)

Monotony in work makes people bored and uninterested towards their work. Also it results to zero exploitation of those opportunities which can reap a far better result than the current tasks or practices. Hence, leaders require innovation so that opportunities can be explored and used at appropriate timings. It is a strange phenomenon that lack of innovation fades the leadership traits in a personality, primarily because the human nature welcomes changes which are positive and pleasant. Hence, they expect their leaders to continuously come up with new thoughts, ideas and procedures.

The most important thing that makes a leader, a real leader is that people look back towards them whenever a hindrance occurs. This could either be in form of a confusion, stoppage, or simple mistake. Being a leader, one should be innovative so as to keep thinking of solutions that might not necessarily be the standard practice. Also, it is not necessary that the same procedures and being applied and the same actions being taken. When the leader would be innovative and challenge the prevalent customs, the followers would also look forward to an out of the box approach and be more innovative. Bill Gates, a well known leader and founder of Microsoft rated innovation as the key to success. Employees were allowed to devise whichever area they wish to explore and whatever software they wish to engineer. The only aim, which was strictly implemented, was profitability. Thus, employees engineered their own software and programs according to their area of interest and made the company a technology giant. Similar cases can also be observed in the Apple company where Steve Jobs proved to be most innovative of all by introducing the I-Phone concept to market. A new product in the mobile phones industry secured millions and billions of dollars of revenue in a matter of weeks. This is what innovation is and a very important part of traits that must be present among leaders, otherwise the purpose of leadership is dead. (Lussier & Achua, 2009)

Development and Enhancement Plan over the next 4-5 Years

The very first thing I would like to develop in my personality would be enhancement of my communications skills, because without proper communication I would not be able to delegate tasks properly and interact with work force. I would need to enhance my communication skills so that in future lack of proper communication doesn’t hinder my way towards success. One way of managing this problem would be the art of saying no.

No is a negative comment, a negative answer, a negative feedback. In fact anything related with no is the symbol of negative. However, books have taught me that the art of saying no without making the others realize its negativity is one which must be found in leaders.

In order to acquire this art, I continuously need to be realistic and realize those things which are possible and which are not. In this way I would be able to make thinkgs in the correct order. Recognizing one’s own capabilities is another thing which needs to be taken by me in the account.

A proper reading and thorough research into the books for communication skills would be an important source of knowledge for me. I plan to investigate through books written on communication by various authors. The art to communicate verbally as well as non verbally would then come to be known by me.

In addition to this, I aim to socialize with a lot of people by increasing my socializing activities. This would give me a chance to explore into the practical aspects of communication and experiment the effects of different types of communication that take place between people. I would try using different means of communication with people such as welcoming them, discussing, debating etc.

Another way, I intend to improve my communication skills with, would be doing public dealing. By finding a part time job in a bar, I would start serving as a bartender. This would give me a chance to meet and greet and serve a lot of people and experimenting a variety of means of communication. The public dealing would also help me observe the ways in which people interact with each other and the way they respond to different types of communication. A bartending job would reap me very good financial as well as academic benefits and would make me suit the job.

I would also seek towards asking advice from teachers and instructors and also try attending a few workshops and seminars for the purpose of studying communication as a separate subject. I also aim to write my own research paper over the effectiveness of communication over organizational success so that I can explore the maximum amount of data and information available on the internet regarding communications skills. In this way, I believe I would be able to be equipped with those skills, from which I can enhance communication and be successful as a leader.

After communication skills, my whole set priority would be improving my goal setting skills. Goal setting is all about organizing oneself and managing it. I would try to organize my own self and set goal for myself which I would have to achieve if I aim to be a leader in my future life. At present, I am going rather disorganized, so I am to put my life in routine.

I would set a 4 to 5 yearly plan for my personal and academic grooming. I would make myself a vision which would to be the most successful and distinguished of all of my fellow students. In order to fulfill this vision I would make a mission that would be a popular and favorite leader of all times. For fulfilling this mission I would have to break it down in different objectives such as

Completion of studies with A grades
Employment in a reputable organization
Employment in a dignified job role
Attainment of a managerial position within two years

I would strive to make such goals for myself which are not very easily attainable, but still hard to attain. I would aim to quantify them as much as possible so that they can be obvious and understandable to any common man who sees or read them.

I would further breakdown these objective into goals, such as getting passed in the essay I have been writing for the past few days. Clearing exams with good marks. Securing a degree. Getting a job in XYZ company etc. With the set up of goals and classification of all objectives I would then start upon striving for my mission. In the next four to 5 years I would not revise them or recall them. I would just keep them to my heart that I have to achieve them and race towards achieving one goal or another. I would consider it a failure if I find my goals too easy to achieve. Side by side, failure would also occur if the goals prove to be too hard to be achieved or failed to be unrealistic. Also, there would be a failure again if I altogether failed to achieve any goal because of being unable to accomplish them.

Hence it can be said that improving the goal setting skills and then testing them would prove to be a very hard point because it would either result in utter failure or extreme success. The foremost problem is that this skill cannot be judged very much frequently. However, I would give my approach a yearly review so that I can judge whether my conduct has been towards the right direction or I had been straying at the wrong path.

There is failure in three corners and success at the last. But I still aim to do it, since without goal setting skills I would not be able to formulate any plan for my team to follow and any goals that could be accomplished. Improvement in my goals setting skills would also boost up confidence in me whereby I would be able to give deadlines confidently and follow them up strictly. The goals setting process would be the core of decision making when I would be leading an organization and the lack of accomplishment of personal goals would never allow me to accomplish the company goals. The success of accomplishment of my own goals would make me a leader and would also make me ready to formulate goals for those, who would be working under me.

The last thing I implement to concentrate upon is responsibility. Perhaps getting married or having children would be the best way to teach me what responsibility is. Although so far I have proved to be responsible on living up on my own, paying my fees and managing my affairs, yet I think that this element needs to be concise a bit more. Being a traditional youngster I fall under the mean category of those who are slightly irresponsible. The most important way of creating more responsibility within me, would be by travelling to a new place. Travelling teaches a person a lot of things besides enjoyment. I aim to travel to a distant place with a group of 3 or 4 friends and would firstly observe if my friends informally accept me as their leader. If it is the case, I would accept that my personality does contain some traits of leadership.

Polishing more responsibility into my behavior would prepare me for the upcoming challenges ahead. The most important thing that would teach me responsibility would be formally getting employed in an organization. The job along with its responsibilities would create increasing sense of responsibility inside myself and I would be able take things more seriously in a responsible manner.

I would also try attending more workshops and seminars and try to keep myself up to date with important updates in the industry and the market. Rather than being optional, responsibility would be the necessity for my profession as absence of responsibility at leadership level would also mean nil responsibility from the employees. Extra caution would have to be exercised taking care that my fellow workers or team mates do not find any trace of irresponsible attitude from my end. Also, I need to make sure, that no such irresponsible attitude is exercised by me, because apart from unworthy consequences, it would also result in the wastage of effort put in by me juniors and would negatively affect their morale and motivation.

In other words, enhancing the sense of responsibly would not come into me by doing exercises, attending lectures or doing anything else. Rather it would have to be developed in me by my very own self. In fact, I would have to act more responsibly by increasing the sense of responsibility in myself.

The most important factor which I consider to bring the required level of responsibility in me would be by getting a formal job in any field of interest. I would be burdened with real time responsibilities. Being answerable to someone would bring about a profound sense of responsibility inside me and would lead to increasing sense and level of responsibility. I would be faced with real time challenges and situations, and the very idea that I have to be answerable to someone who is in authority would make me more responsible as to how I take the work and under what perception do I do it?

Conclusion

I aim to achieve those dreams that I have beholden in my eyes for a very long time. I experienced being a leader in my school, a class monitor and basketball captain too. Now I am to be a real leader, where decisions do not involve the setting of players or the pace of ball, rather the decisions involve billions and trillions of pounds or dollars. I aim to be such a leader who leadership is sought by people rather than being imposed them.

I have a firm belief in informal leaderships and I believe that informal leaderships are effective and more accepted rather than formally imposed leaderships. I plan to be an informal leader first, and a formal leader afterwards. In fact I wish to grab the hearts before I grab the seat.

However, in order to succeed to that chair, I would have to realize my own shortcomings, and overcome them in the coming years. I should make myself ready for the challenges that going to come ahead. I would take my weaknesses as a challenge to my leadership skills and would try to overcome by any means with the help of the 4 – 5 yearly plans that has been described in my essay. I would be aiming to achieve them on a year by year basis and would continuously look back to review my past performance with my current performance and strive to make maximum improvements which would be possible at that time.

References

Forster, N., 2011, Maximum Performance: a Practical Guide to Leading and Managing People at Work, Jeddah, al Faisal University.

Lussier, N., and Achua, F., 2009, Leadership: Theory, Application and Skill Development, Mason, South Western Publication.