Business Paper

Reflection #3 - The Leadership Challenge

Chapter 7- Leadership Transformation through Opportunities

Mentor’s response

Leaders come up with various strategies that help them seize the challenges, turbulences, and adversity and then make everything better. Leaders take challenges, turbulences, and trouble by focusing on the organization's vision and goals. They also stay motivated, maintain focus, and communicate the challenge to the team to contribute from each one of them.

Reflection on the mentor’s response

A leader should understand that challenges will always come on the way; however, a leader should always have a strategy for dealing with challenges. Generally, when challenges arise, a leader should focus more on the organization's vision or goals. By focusing on the organization's vision and purposes, the Leader is not likely to be diverted from the essential aspects towards achieving the goals but instead will come up with strategies to prevent distractions.

Personal response

Having a challenge-strategy is quite essential for any leader (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). A strategy helps the Leader seize challenges as they happen through their strengths as they use the power to improve weaknesses. They also stay motivated and focus on the objective. For instance, a particular school teacher set a target of achieving a specific grade in Chemistry. However, the school did not have adequate resources, and textbooks were not found in the school. However, the teacher maintained a focus on the target. He did everything, including spending his own money to buy textbooks for his students; the students also remained motivated, and at last, they exceeded the target. The Leader also calls his entire team members to accountability, for instance, ensuring that every team member takes part in solving a particular issue in the organization. Thus, to take ordinary mundane and find improvements and excellent, leaders foster inner energy, which helps them understand their capability. They also focus on their destination, learn from mistakes, challenges, and bad times et cetera (Kouzes & Posner, 2018).

Chapter 8- Experiment and Take Risks

Leadership and risk-taking

Mentor’s response

A safe environment refers to an environment that allows all members to grow with equal opportunity while at the same time permitting risk-taking. Leaders should focus on motivating members to participate and not be afraid to make mistakes; instead, they should embrace and learn from mistakes.

Reflection on the mentor’s response

The Leader's motivation is quite crucial towards the facilitation of a safe environment that permits risk-taking. A motivating leader enables the team to accept challenges and failures/mistakes and then encourage them to learn from them and improve.

Personal response

Exceptional learning is likely not to occur if the environment is safe all the time; therefore, it is necessary to create an environment that encourages and supports risk-taking while embracing the potential for mistakes. Motivation plays a vital role in this case; it is also essential to understand that providing the required resources is critical to providing a safe environment while permitting risk-taking. For instance, a teacher in class can make students understand the facts that progress may only be achieved by taking risks, and as a result of risk-taking comes possible errors and failure. A manager in the organization should also encourage his team while making them understand that mistakes are essential steps and stepping stones to figuring out the best and appropriate solutions.

Chapter 4- Check the Ego

Mentor’s response

The Ego is likely to impact the performance of the team in a negative way. Ego makes an individual focus only on their agenda, safety, status, as well as gratification but not on those of the team as well as the organization; this is likely to reduce the performance of the group, bring divisions in the team, distrust, and finally a disintegrated team (Kouzes & Posner, 2017).

Reflection on the mentor’s response

Ego influences an individual's judgments with pride, envy, or hurt feelings, which means that they can come up with decisions that hurt their team. The performance of the group is affected.

Personal response

Research has shown that the Ego is a significant barrier to success and leadership; the Ego is likely to negatively impact leadership performance. Ego is a barrier to individuals in an organization working together effectively. Examples of situations where Ego can manifest itself in the organization include a leader refusing to consider team members' suggestions thinking that he knows everything and that his decision is final. Also, being ignorant or ignore the conclusion of the team members. There are several ways of dealing with employees with a stronger ego in the organization. The Leader can deal with Ego at the workplace by encouraging the employees who have moderate or weak egos to participate more, rather than permitting those with more robust egos to overshadow them. Other ways include; reminding such an employee with a massive ego that you are the boss, among different methods.

Chapter 5- Cover and Move

Mentor’s response

Lack of teamwork prevents the significant achievement of the objects or goals. Motivating the team, creating a unified vision, collaboration, and focusing on the plan's achievement are strategies that can help, and they are essential to fostering teamwork in an organization.

Reflection on the mentor’s response

A leader should ensure effective communication, motivating the team takes into consideration the steps to dealing with, motivation might include praising, giving gifts and prizes to team members for the excellent work they have done, this will make them value what they do and this help to ensure more collaboration in the workplace. Another step could involve building a team spirit, this similarly could involve rewarding the team, and this could make them feel included and valued and, in turn, help in overcoming divisions while at the same time enhancing teamwork. Another step may consist of involving the team in decision making; this will similarly make them feel that they are involved in the affairs of the group as well as the entire organization, and they will also feel that their contribution matters, the team will trust the leadership while at the same time building trust among themselves.

Personal response

Silos refer to the structure and behavioral barriers that tend to prevent communication, collaboration, and success in an organization. Usually, Silo reduces the efficiency in general operation, it facilitates trust and morale, and it might gradually result in the demise of a productive company. Therefore, leaders have to understand silos and develop strategies that can help the organization circumvent these barriers. Leaders should focus on removing the silo mentality in the organization. This can be achieved through various methods, for instance, providing training to the team, creating a compelling a unified vision, working and focusing on the set goal, motivating the team, collaboration, et cetera (Kouzes & Posner, 2017).

Chapter 6- Simple

Mentor’s response

The steps involved in ensuring effective and simple understood communication include using the right communication method, effective listening, and providing positive feedback, among other ways.

Reflection on the mentor’s response

As a leader, ensuring Effective communication is essential because it enhances understanding, which means that people communicating are likely to understand each other. Moreover, positive feedback further enhances effective communication, as it motivates the exchange of ideas, contributing to effective communication. Providing clear information, controlling emotions during transmission, and using the language understood by everyone involved is critical (Kouzes&Posner,2017).

Personal response

Communication is essential in any organization. Communication is what makes things move; through communication, team members in an organization can understand each other and pursue the organization's goal. Due to the organization's importance, it is essential to make or keep this communication useful and simple/understood to embrace every individual. This is Because the organization comprises diverse employees from different parts of the world with different cultures and languages; thus, useful and understood communication becomes an essential aspect in such cases. For instance, an understood communication is where a language that is understood by everyone is used during transmission. Secondly, using a simple language spoken by everyone is another way of making communication effective and understood. For instance, they are communicating in English if all employees understand and can also communicate in English. Effective communication includes aspects such as Respect, empathy, involvement, among other elements.

Chapter 7- Prioritize and Execute

Mentor’s response

The leaders' steps to avoid being overwhelmed involve getting help from others, being creative, applying the team to help solve issues within the organization, and solving problems quickly and on time, among other strategies.

Reflection on the mentor’s response

As a competent leader, it is essential to request and or get help from the team members when faced with problems. Capable leaders ought to ask for help from other people in the organization. For instance, through delegation, the Leader might get some activities to be handled on time, which will help reduce the level of stress ("leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations, 5th edition," n.d).

Personal response

In an organization, situations might arise where the Leader might become overwhelmed by issues. Research shows that in overwhelming cases, competent leaders should take various steps to avoid being overwhelmed. For instance, competence leaders usually use or apply creativity because it will help them solve critical questions or puzzles. When the Leader involves the team in the Problem, it is a good strategy that allows the Leader to get some ideas that can help them solve a particular issue he/she is facing. For instance, the Leader should involve the team in making decisions about a specific topic. By applying the team in deliberating on issues and findings, the solution to the problems is likely to be reached by the team, and this will help the Leader not to be overwhelmed because the Leader will be able to prioritize other issues which might need deep personal involvement which in turn reduces overwhelming (Kouzes & Posner, 2017).

References

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge workbook was revised. John Wiley & Sons.

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2018). Leadership challenge 6e + practices 5e self + practices 5e observer set. Pfeiffer.

The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations, 5th edition. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/the-leadership-challenge/9781118281963/c08.xhtml.