Leadership assignment 2 PDF

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Done by: Felicia Peh Jia Jie (S3867416)LEADERSHIP & DECISION MAKING [ BUSM 4194 ] MR CHUA CHONG HOCKDzAt the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are ...

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Done by: Felicia Peh Jia Jie (S3867416) LEADERSHIP & DECISION MAKING [ BUSM 4194 ] MR CHUA CHONG HOCK

“At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.” — Michelle Obama (First Lady of America 2009-2017)

Assignment Task 2: Leadership Development Plan

Word count: 2538 Words

Table of Contents Page Executive Summary

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Introduction

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Stage 1 – Observational Research Michelle Obama’s Power & Influence How is Michelle Obama a role model?

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How does Michelle Obama relate to me as a future leader?

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Stage 2 – Development Plan My role model

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Traits and Styles

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Action Plan

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Stage 3 – Feedback

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Conclusion

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Appendix 1 – Michelle Obama

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Appendix 2 – LET GIRLS LEARN

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Appendix 3 – Let’s Move!

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Appendix 4 – Role Model Background Information

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Appendix 5 – S.M.A.R.T. Goals Template

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Appendix 6 – Diagnostic Tools

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Appendix 7 – Leadership Development Plan (Draft)

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Appendix 8 – Feedback from Role Model

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Appendix 9 – Leadership Development Plan (Revised)

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Reference List

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Executive Summary “What does leadership mean to you?” Though there are multiple answers to this question, I feel that leadership is when every once in a while, you would have to roll up your sleeves and do some dirty work once in a while to coach and guide others and bring the team to a great success.

In this report, we address some leadership qualities and styles that can be seen in a respectable and well-known leader – Michelle Obama as well as my role model – Chitra from YMCA. Both women has enlighten me by showing me leadership qualities and styles that I do not own. They have sparked an awakening in me to aspire to be like them. Hence, I wish to acquire the qualities that they have , as well as their leadership styles.

In essence, we can observe that both women are Charismatic Leaders with qualities namely – Self-confidence, Extroversion, Trust and Honesty, and lastly warmth and Humour. I have also made use of diagnostic tests tools to access myself on Self-confidence, High Tolerance for Frustration and Flexibility in Adaptation to Change. As a result, I have come up with a leadership development plan which I ran by Chitra and revised it after getting feedback. I aim to accomplish my goals within a 6 month time frame and attain an Autocratic Leadership Style as well.

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Introduction Leadership can be defined as one’s ability to influence and motivate others to being the best out of them. It is a process where one motivates and influences others to accomplish objectives in a way that makes it cohesive and coherent and reach a common goal1. In this report, I will be going through a 3-stage learning process and develop a leadership plan that best suits me.

Stage 1 – Observational Research Michelle Obama (Appendix 1) displayed countless admirable leadership qualities while being First Lady of America between 2009-2017. Of the many things that was addressed, she focused on racism, women’s rights and public health and launched a “Let Girls Learn” Initiative (Appendix 2) to fund girls’ education projects.

Power and Influence Michelle is a Charismatic2 Leader who has Referent Power3. We can establish that she is a socialised charismatic leader4 as she exercises her power in service of higher goals that will benefit her people personally and the country as a whole. She has developed a warm, positive and humanistic attitude towards people and she is always with the people, getting to know them personally. She possesses an egalitarian, self-transcendent and empowering personality and pursues organisation-driven goals by promoting feelings of empowerment and personal growth.

Throughout the 8 years of being First Lady, she gains the power that she has by building support and trust by being fair while committing to her people’s needs over her own self-interest. She

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Baird et al., 1990, p. 290

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Conger & Kanungo 1988 — “a leader whose purpose, powers, and extraordinary determination differentiate them from others ”

Derman, J. (2011). Max Weber and Charisma — Weber defines charisma “as an influence based on not traditional or legal-rational authority systems, but rather on follower perceptions that a leader us endowed with the gift of divine inspiration or supernatural qualities.” 3

Comes from leader personality characteristics that command followers’ attention, respect and admiration so that they want to emulate the leader. It depends on the leader’s personal characteristics rather than on a formal title or position and is visible in the area of charismatic leadership. 4

Charismatic Leadership and Power: Using the Power of Charisma for Better Leadership in the Enterprises

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has never discriminated against any race or religion and was constantly reminding her followers on the importance of self-care and brought about solutions and ways to incorporate it into daily life. In light of the above, she has also put in place other health related initiatives5 to tackle the obesity rate in the United States which reflects on her commitment to her followers by wanting to do more for her people to improve their living.

Hence, this shows how she acquired and maintained the referent power that she possessed as she is supportive and helpful towards her people while being sincere with her words and promises. Therefore, the people are more inclined to want to help and support her in her efforts.

How is Michelle a role model? Michelle has started many initiatives to make her country a better place to be living in. For example, with the “Let Girls Learn” Initiative, she promised a better future for these girls in her speeches and made strong points to show the benefits and necessity of having a fundamental secondary education6, especially in women.

She articulated more positive images of the effects of starting and continuing this initiative in multiple empowering and motivational speeches, all of which she related her own thoughts and concerns on how heartbreaking it is to see girls being stripped of the opportunity of an education. Through such verbal means, she was able to communicate her dedication and provided with enough credibility by uplifting and attracting people to support her through a collaborative effort and forming a team to start and gain funding for the initiative.

As a Charismatic leader, she is emotionally expressive and a role model as well. Michelle is brave and self-confident to articulate her opinions without fear of being shot down or gone against. More importantly, Michelle relies on the rule of reciprocity7 by sharing what she has through multiple charity work and making large scale donations to more than one charitable organisations. After taking the first step towards such acts, she empowers her people with

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Lets Move! – health initiative by Michelle Obama (Appendix 3)

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it was proven that education allows women to empower and lead better and healthier lifestyles from the skills, knowledge and self-confidence to escape poverty to give themselves a better life. 7

Chapter 5, Dubrin et al – CP1071 - Leading for Change (2nd edition), Cengage Learning Australia, 2017

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speeches with rational persuasion through use of facts, data, and logical arguments to move them with causes and encourage them to do the same.

How is Michelle related to me as a future leader? Michelle has shown multiple acts of selflessness, concern and compassion towards her people whilst being an empowering, inspirational and motivational leader. With self-confidence and her beliefs in a meaningful cause, it makes her assertive and thus, motivational and influential, and her ability to influence people of all ages in her country is not pinned to the authority vested in her. Even though she has position power from being First Lady, she does not require it to be influential, which I find amazing as it is not easy to command the confidence in the people unless one has taken the time, effort and sincerity to know and get the people to trust, all of which Michelle has done.

How does the above relate to me as a future leader? I believe that a successful leader is one who can easily motivate and influence their followers through their personal power, and can be more successful when he does not require the use of his position power to ensure that his followers see through given orders. On top of this, I feel that I can improve on my interpersonal relationships by adopting the methods that Michelle has displayed as First Lady. If I am able to influence others without the use of position power, I would deem myself as a successful leader. As I work towards becoming a successful leader in the future, I want to acquire this self-confidence and ability to work well in ambiguity. This is because change is inevitable, and it can cause unwanted stress that hinders decision making.

Stage 2 – Development Plan MY ROLE MODEL My role model is my direct boss / superior, Chitra, from my holiday job at YMCA. She is a student care supervisor and has been in the field for over 6 years as she climbed the organisational ladder up to her current supervisory position (background info: Appendix 4). I look up to and respect Chitra as a role model because she possesses the leadership qualities of

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Extroversion8, Trust and Honesty9, Warmth10, and Humour11. Chitra has almost 7 years of experience in student care, 2 of which involves management as she was promoted, which also gives her expert12 power as a leader. Hence, having someone that possesses such qualities and power within a close proximity, will enable me to naturally pick up these traits through direct first hand learning from day-to-day interactions during work. To elaborate, I have listed examples to illustrates how she has the above-mentioned qualities:

Quality

How it was displayed

Extroversion

She is involved with her team and an outgoing, spending lots of social time with her team. She decorated the centre together with us despite barely coping with all the new responsibilities and tasks.

Trust and Honesty

She delegates her work with full trust on our performance ability. She is honest with her work problems and seeks our opinions / suggestions on managerial issues and integrates them into her plans. She allows us to make most decisions without having to seek her approval as well.

Warmth and Humour

She socially integrates herself and is perceived as a friend instead of “the Boss”. We chat about both work and non-work related issues, which is uncommon and usually disallowed in other centres. Her approachability is further enhanced as she has insidejokes with us.

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being outgoing and gregarious is helpful to leaders. They are likely to be more interested in participation with their group members. 9

shown by a leader ‘walking the talk’ that is consistency between what they ‘espouse’ and what they ‘enact’. Leaders must also trust others. 10

enables leaders to develop rapport, be perceived as charismatic, and to provide emotional support to others

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increases a leader’s approachability. Appropriate humour can help to diffuse tension and conflict and be used as a power tactic. 12

Expert power results from a leader's special knowledge or skill regarding tasks performed by followers. When a leader is a true expert, subordinates go along with recommendations because of his or her superior knowledge.

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I look up and respect Chitra as a role model in leadership because of the above qualities that she has. Since I am lacking in these qualities, I want to learn from her and become a better and more successful and capable leader myself, just like her. Chitra displays Participative Leadership13 clearly. From the above, we can also establish that she is a Charismatic leader who commands the trust in her followers / team and therefore, in addition to her position power, she can assume that her team will follow through with her decision without being concerned with whether we will have differentiated or clashing opinions with her decision and harm the efficiency. She is also an Autocratic Leader as she confidently makes the final decision in resolving problems, even though she hears and integrates the input from her employees. Hence, I look up to her and aspire to be able to lead others like she does.

TRAITS AND STYLES After taking 3 diagnostics tests (Appendix 4), I have evaluated my results and thus establish that in the near future, I want to pursue to obtain Self-confidence14, a High Tolerance for Frustration15 , and Flexibility16 in adapting to change. On top of that, I want to adopt an Autocratic Leadership17 Style to improve on my leadership style. Self-confidence allows you to project confidence which will inspire the self-confidence in others. The more self-confident one is, the more powerful they will be as they will naturally grow stronger whilst being more confident when faced with challenges. As a follower, I am more inclined to follow a leader who is confident and knows what they are doing, than to follow a leader who is unsure. Hence, I believe that a key factor that will improve on my leadership is self-confidence.

I feel that having a High Tolerance for Frustration is highly important as nothing really ever goes as planned. Change is inevitable. Therefore, I see an importance to adapt to changes quickly and easily, which brings in the last quality I wish to acquire — Flexibility in adapting 13

Participative leaders share decision making with group members and Accepts suggestions from group members 14 realistic self confidence projected by leaders inspire self confidence in others. 15 enables a leader to cope with changes to goals and plans. 16 allows the leader to adapt to change and to different situations. 17

retain most of the authority for themselves and make decisions confidently, assume that group members will comply without being overly concerned with group members’ attitudes toward a decision

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to change. When there is doubt, it hinders the ability to cope and thus affects the flexibility. Hence, the above 3 qualities compliment each other and therefore, I feel that it will help me improve on my personality and be task oriented in the process.

I am a participative leader as I often seek a wide range of opinions before making decisions. When faced with challenges, I am a team player who looks for input of others to resolve the issue as I believe that more heads are better than one, regardless if I am holding on to a formal or informal leadership position or not. Hence, I want to be able to adopt the Autocratic Leadership Style to improve on my leadership as being overly participative often leads to my indecisiveness. I often come across as less confident due to my inability to make decisions quickly. Thus, having an Autocratic Leadership Style will help provide me with direction and not drown in my own indecisiveness. On top of the above, my role model has additional participative leadership qualities that I feel can be incorporated into my leadership development plan.

ACTION PLAN I believe that in leadership, it is who I choose to become. To create my goals, I will use the S.M.A.R.T. criteria

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(Appendix 5), which I will restructure to fit my Leadership

Development Plan (Appendix 7) after taking my Diagnostic Tests (Appendix 6).

Hence, the end goal is to improve on myself as a person and my leadership qualities and styles. Therefore, I need to do the following: •

Emulate more leaders that I look up to and observe their leadership qualities

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Assess myself honestly by taking Diagnostics Tests to assess my strengths and weaknesses as a leader

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Review results from tests taken and take into consideration the other qualities that my role model posses before coming up with a Action Plan

•

Create the Action Plan

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Welcome feedback approvingly and ask for support frequently by finding a mentor who is willing to critique and guide me on a monthly basis to ensure that I stay on track

•

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Retake the tests again in 6months after applying my action plan

Esposito, E., 2015.

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Periodically, I will seek the help of my role model to provide me on feedback monthly to keep track of my progress and whether I am still intact with the action plan. I will be retaking the diagnostic tests at the end and make comparison on how much change I have made. With the monthly assessments / continuous feedback, I will be able to tweak my action plan accordingly to current events and circumstances so that I stay intact and not deter from the end goal that I would like to achieve. I will know that I have succeeded when my actions influences others to things the same way that they would react towards my role model while at work.

Stage 3 – Feedback (revised plan appendix 8) I created an Action Plan and sent it to Chitra for review and feedback. After gathering feedback from her (Appendix 8), I have come up with a Revised Plan (Appendix 9) on my goals and ways to improve. I looked at my plan and can agree with Chitra that I have to narrow down my list of goals to the predominant ones that I can see myself successfully reaching within the allocated time frame of 6 months. With the feedback that Chitra has given me on how I can proceed with my action plan, I feel that I can do the following after incorporating her ideas and suggestions:

GOAL

Strengths/Weaknesses

ACTIVITY

HOW

Goal # 1

Improve Self-Confidence

Address my self doubt

Come to a conclusion of acceptance of my self-doubt. Identify the triggers to tackle them directly. Elimination will help improve on my self-confidence when I avoid them.

Identify Triggers Eliminate Triggers Goal # 2

Improve Extroversion

Get to know my team members on a deeper level Be more proactive

Goal # 3

Adopting an autocratic leadership style

Be assertive

Be more open and outgoing and socialise with my co-workers. Improve interpersonal relationships by getting to know them personally and letting them know a few new things about me. Voluntarily take up tasks to complete and offer help to co-workers whenever they need it.

Being younger causes my co-workers to overlook my abilities and experience, as compared to them. I will need to be assertive and ensure that they listen and take me seriously. This results in completing tasks that I have communicated to them without question or fear of being left undone.

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I hope to gain some referent power while I am improving on myself and acquiring more selfconfidence and extroversion will add on to my personality, and that will automatically command the respect and confidence of others. An autocratic leadership style will be adopted ...