Leadership In Business: Factors And Personality Traits - An Essay.

The leader as relationship builder Reflective Journal entries must demonstrate application of course materials to personal experience and observations and include an evaluation of those experiences and also lessons learned.Reflection focuses on self-including feelings, thinking, values and corebeliefs driving behaviour, and how these contributed (or not) to being effective in the given situation.

Logical analysis uses all elements of the concept and critically analyses situation, gives support for conclusions and addresses areas for improvements.

Behavior, Contingency, and Influence Theories of Leadership

The term leadership, when it comes to business, can be defined as the ability of the management of an organization to set as well as achieve challenging goals, outperform the competitors, take swift and decisive action and finally provide effective intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation to the followers so that an enhancement in the yearly revenue can be obtained. From time immemorial leadership has been considered as a major subject of research by the researchers. Several theories are there which are built in order to explain the factors that regulate effective leadership. According to the behavior theories, the behavior of a leader is the factor that regulates his or her leadership skill. On the other hand according to the contingency theories, situation is a major factor on which the decision making ability of a leader depends. According to Influence theories, the personality of the leader highly influences the effectiveness of his leadership. Leadership involves 6 major factors namely, influence, intention, personal responsibility and integrity, change, shared purpose and followers.  An efficient leader must have the quality to influence other to come together around a common vision and be firm in their beliefs.  Along with that an effective leader must be committed to the common good instead of self interest. The major characteristic that an individual must poses in order to become an effective leader includes optimism, self confidence, honesty, integrity and drive. While optimism includes the tendency to the positive sides of any situation and expecting that the ultimate result of an act will be positive, self confidence helps an leader to develop effective judgmental. Decision-making and innovate idea presenting capabilities. Honestly of a leader helps him to remain truthful and also enhance the intrinsic motivation of his followers. Integrity on the other hand, helps the leader to act keeping accordance to solid ethical principles. Finally, drive helps an leader to stay motivated which in turn creates a high effort level.

According to the theory of charismatic leadership, the personality of a leader highly regulates the effectiveness of his leadership. I personally, agree with the fact that personality of the leader not only demonstrate his commitment towards the organization but also majorly influence the followers. As per my opinion, self awareness of a leader can be considered as one of the most crucial aspect of personality. However, when it comes to me I have evidenced lack of control over my emotions and attitudes at specific situation. For instance, I remembered a scenario when I was given the responsibility of a class monitor by our class teacher. While monitoring the class, I found myself highly uncomfortable while punishing my peers. However, while this feeling was absence in me whiles nominating other classmates for mischievous acts. Thus, I noticed that my emotional connection with people does impose high impact on my leadership. However, according to the theory of leadership, an ideal leader will never me decision based on personal relationship. Researchers state that the personality of a leader can be segregated into big five personality dimensions namely, Extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience. Extroversion can be defined as the degree to which a leader is sociable. As a leader, I find myself to be an extrovert leader since I am highly comfortable in meeting as well as talking to new individual. Extroversion does impose a positive impact on the leadership since effective communication helps a leader to understand the specific requirements and thus implements strategies based on the requirements. Agreeableness on the other ham determines the degree to which a leader is able to get along with others. Competiveness, forgiveness, compassion, understandability and trustworthiness are some features of being agreeable leader. When it comes to my degree of agreeableness, in majority of situation I always demonstrate respect to my peer.  However, I lack the ability to help other wth their personal issues.

6 Major Factors of Leadership

Conscientiousness refers to degree to which a leader is achievement oriented, dependable and persistent. As an individual, I am highly committed to my work. No only this, I always extends my helping hand to my peers whenever, they faces any professional issues. However, I understand that, I have to be more conscientious in order to develop my leadership skills. Emotional stability is referred to the degree to which an individual is calm, well-adjusted and secure while handling an adverse situation. An emotionally stable leader has the ability to handle stress and criticism in a positive way. Moreover, emotionally stable leaders do not take failure or mistakes personally but gain experience from both of them. Leaders with high emotional stability are good at building as well as maintaining positive relationship with their followers. When it comes to my emotional stability, I think I am a emotionally stable individual. I am able to associate different internal physiological cues with different emotions. When in an adverse situation or under pressure I can easily compose myself down. This in turn helps me to deal with the situation more effectively. When it comes to my behavior with others in an pressurized condition, I tries my best to demonstrate positive attitude and stay calm when experiencing mood swings. This in turn does impose positive impact on my relationship with the peers.  Can detect the moment when I an developing anger and at that period of time I prefers to be either silent or suppress my anger with artificial communication. Apart from this, I also helps my peers to manage their anger by giving them effective advice. Along with that when performing in an uninteresting project, I tries to motivate my team members so that they can provide the best of their performance. According to researchers, an efficient leader is always open to experiences and changes in order to remain up to date with the contemporary market trends. Being an imaginative and creative individual, I am always open to explore new ideas. I think this personality of mine will help me to explore unique as well as innovative ways to deal with complicated issues.

The locus of control of a leader is considered to be an excellent determinant of the personality of the same. The term locus of control is defined as the degree to which individual believe that they have control over the outcomes of event associated with their life. Leaders with high internal locus believe that the action of an individual determines the happenings with him. On contrary, leaders who posses more external locus of control beliefs that it is the outwards force which is responsible for the happenings faced by an individual. I as an individual am a believer of internal locus of control. I believe that majority of incidents that happens to me is related to my previous action. For instance, the recent success of our team is definitely the result of the hard work of each team members. As per my opinion, live internal locus of control helps an leader to remain self motivated, possess control over his or her own behaviors, actively participate in social and political activities and develops ability to handle complex information and problem solving skills. Thus in the long run, my believe in internal locus of control will help me to become an efficient leader.

Personality Traits of an Effective Leader

A major part of leadership includes construction of effective relationship with the team members.  It is said that when leadership gets built on the pillars of trust and confidence, people are more viable to take risks, make changes and keep the movement of the organization alive. With the help of effective relationship, leaders are able to turn their constituents into leaders themselves.  As per my opinion, in order to develop effective relationship within an organization, a leader should always be aware of the fact that all the employees are working as a team.  Working as a team helps each an every team member to execute their maximum ability.  I personally prefers to work as a team instead of working individually. I enjoys the personal interaction while working and obtain more job satisfaction when got to win as a team member rather than winning individually. I believe that my inclination to work as a team will help me to motivate my fellow team members in the long run.

When it comes to building effective relationship with the employees, it is highly crucial to keep employees motivated (Carter et al. 2016). Motivation of the employees ensures job satisfaction which in turn not only prevents employee attrition but also impose positive impact on the revenue of the organization (Draft 2015). A leader can motivate his or her team members both extrinsically as well a intrinsically. Intrinsic motivation can be defined as the motivation which is driven by intrinsic rewards. In other words, the motivation to get engaged in a behavior arises from within the individual since it is naturally satisfying the person. Leaders can provide intrinsic motivation to the employees by appreciating their efforts or introducing justified leaves like maternity leaves or sick leaves. Another method of enhancing the extrinsic motivation of the employees includes introducing various kinds of ice breaking session in order to enhance external communication. When employees get emotionally attached to the workplace their job satisfaction increases and so does their tendency to retain. When it comes to extrinsic motivation, it mainly includes monitory rewards in the form of incentives or performance appraisal. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation strengthens the bonding between the employees and the organization and thus enhances their quality, performance and loyalty towards the organization.  However, according to my opinion, intrinsic motivation has got greater potential to retain employees compared to extrinsic motivation.  This is because, an appropriate work life balance according to me has greater potential to retain employees compared to a sudden hike in the incentive structure of the employees. It is crucial for the leader to understand whether his team members are performing out of their love towards the tasks or fear.  As a team member, I personally prefer to work in my institution out of my love for the job. However, several factors are there that I follow in order to avoid incontinence or embarrassment. For instance, I feel it is cruel to perform well so that I don’t develop inferior complex. Several times I forces myself to compete the task in order submit it within deadline. This activity of mine demonstrate that I have the fear to loose the job that motivates me to perform well.

Another method by which a leader can build effective relationship with his followers includes employee empowerment (Day et al. 2014). Employees can be empowered by incorporating them in crucial decision making processes. Employee empowerment enhances the information flow within the organization. It also enhances the knowledge as well as skills to contribute to the company goals. Not only that employee empowerment also enhances their responsibilities as well as loyalty towards the organization. As per my opinion, in order to create effective relationship with the employees, it is crucial to set clear objectives provide employees with freedom and give sufficient time and resources so that the employees can work efficiently. Apart from that, continuous encouragement alone with greater reorganization and regular feedback also has the potential to enhance the work satisfaction of the employees.

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that effective leadership is more about common good rather than self interest. While analyzing my professional experience, I found out several strengths as well as weakness which have the potential to impose impact on my leadership skills. For instance, while my emotional excellence helps me to make effective decision without getting anxious or tensed, my lack of professional experience has the potential to hamper my decision making process. Moreover, I also need to work on developing my cultural competence. As a n employee the I have several fears which impose adverse impact on my productivity. In order to deal with that, I will undergo leadership training from eminent institution so that my leadership skills get enhanced and I evolve as an efficient leader.

Reference list

Carter, D.F., Ro, H.K., Alcott, B. and Lattuca, L.R., 2016. Co-curricular connections: The role of undergraduate research experiences in promoting engineering students’ communication, teamwork, and leadership skills. Research in Higher Education, 57(3), pp.363-393.

Day, D.V., Fleenor, J.W., Atwater, L.E., Sturm, R.E. and McKee, R.A., 2014. Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), pp.63-82.

Draft, L.R., 2015. The Leadership Experience. Australia: Cengage Learning.