Presenting Yourself as a Global Leader
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mba6026_u5a1.docxRunning head: LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN
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Leadership Development Plan
James Smith
MBA 6026 Unit 5 Assignment 1
5/14/16
Leadership does not have a unanimous meaning, as its meaning can be based on the context to which it is applied. The United States academic structure defines leadership as a process in which a person uses their social influence to request the support of other people in performing a task. In this paper, leadership will be defined as the ability of an individual to lead or guide other people in performing tasks or activity. There are numerous theories used to explain leadership, ranging from integrated psychological theory, situational and contingency theories, Behavioral and style theories to positive reinforcement. There has also been developed different explanations to the approaches that different leaders take while in their leadership positions. These explanations include, Autocratic or authoritarian, democratic, Laissez-faire or Free-rein, task oriented and relationship oriented approaches.
Leaders are considered instruments of positive transformation and development. The reputation of leaders is most often than not gauged by their performance and effectiveness. Good leaders are expected to lead their followers to attaining higher objectives and at the time of their departure, leave their followers in a better state than they left them. Toxic leaders are the kind of leaders who leave their followers in a much more devastated state than they were at first. Global Leadership is a course that studies the key elements that leaders of the future need to know to get familiar with effects of globalization. A global leader has several characteristics they need to possess to be considered successful. Some of these characteristics include vision, integrity, focus on results instead of the means, should delegate roles and not work alone, open-mindedness, appreciative of cultural diversity, technologically up to date and one who works with other people in partnerships that will add value to their work.
For leaders to succeed in their goals and avoid being discouraged by failure, they should learn to accept failure, but take it as a lesson learned the hard way. Responsibility acceptance is used to measure of one’s self-worth, security level. The skill also indicates the sign of courage and strength of taking charge of whatever actions one does. The ability can make an individual to develop rewarding ways. The skill also increases achievements in one’s life, besides being a sign of maturity and personal growth and not a show of weakness. Additionally, responsibility earns one respect having in mind that human beings make mistakes almost all the times and therefore are prone to faults which creates an appropriate ground for considering leadership via making improvements on the regions of weakness. To be a successful global leader, it is important for individuals to develop a global mindset. Individuals should also make themselves familiar with the most recent trends in the global leadership field.
Aspiring global leaders are required to navigate through complexities, exceed traditional and local borders and build approaches and experiences that make it possible for them to become global leaders. Some of the ways in which leaders can improve their skills are by taking the initiative of indulging into projects which are not related to their job description. This will increase their exposure and understanding of the world at large. As it is always said e leader never stops to learn.
Leadership concerns for the future
Leadership is taking another turn now, with its global definition changing from its initial understanding to more contemporary understanding. There is a host of trends which leadership has been taking in the recent past. Some of this trends affect the current leadership and act as a shaping bar for the future leadership. As stated in the introductory part, it is extremely imperative in assisting a global leader to be conversant with the changing leadership and adjust to fit in the system. One of the trends is a shift in the definition of leadership where leaders are defined or measured by the influence they have and not their roles. In this trend, the position and therefore the role of a person in leadership is not the primary determinant of how effective a leader is, but the command and influence the person has on matters and their followers. It has been studied that increased influence leads to higher performance of a leader (Jasper, 2010).
Another trend is that Higher-performance Organizations (HPOs) are allowing managers to carry out a self-selection of what global leadership programs they would like to participate. The main targets of the global leadership programs are the high ranking executive and managers. However in the new trend by the Higher-performance Organizations manager, not necessarily the high ranking, can take part in the program if and when they express interest. It is this trend that is making the Higher-performance Organizations to increase their performance even further. A third trend is the implementation of the strategic workforce planning which is a major pillar in supporting the development process of global leadership. The strategic workforce planning strategy is used to identify competency gaps and promote the development of skills in global leaders. The fourth and last trend are measuring the efficacy of global leadership development using the performance of an enterprise.
To inculcate with the global leadership trends in business, connectivity, complexity and context are necessary skills that the leaders should adopt. Secondly, context enables a person to make business processes. Also, complexity helps in the assessment of challenges and opportunities which assist in the construct of a flexible and innovative business environment. Connectivity on the hand helps an individual to understand various actors and stakeholders in the global business environment. With a good working system of connectivity, a global leader can improve their working productivity. The effect of increased productivity is that the performance of such a leader will go high. As seen in the fourth trend, since the efficacy of global leadership development using the performance of an enterprise, increased performance will translate to high effectiveness of the skill development of the managers. Complexity can be used as part of the role of a strategic workforce planning (Jasper, 2010). Here, the team can address many issues facing the company as possible, and working as a group thy can develop working solutions to help solve the issues once and for all. Use of these strategic workforce planning teams and strategy is a cornerstone scheme to increase the efficacy of the global leadership program. A global leader also can factor in strategies and ways of solving problems. A leader is faced with problems every single day, but the manner in which they solve the issues determine their performance and influence in decision making. Excellent decision making increases one’s influence and hence leadership rating.
Emerging leadership theories.
Leadership is referred to as a social and a mutual process whereby the participants are involved in interactions that result to the establishment of a collective goal. Development of a global mindset is paramount to developing global leadership skills. As mentioned above, part of the skills that an aspiring global leader has to acquire and develop are connectivity, complexity, and context. This section will discuss several theories related to global leadership such as the relational theory, contingency theory among others. The relational theory is comprised of two major approaches or perspectives which are inclusive of; the entity perspective and the relational perspective. The primitive focus of the entity perspective is the recognition of individual qualities which help in the development of the interpersonal relationship. On the other hand, the relational perspective of the theory describes leadership as a socially constructed process that helps build the understanding of global leadership. Together, the two perspectives assist in the development of a social construct which influences the emerging coordination and constant evolution in the business world.
The second theory is the behavioral and style theory. This theory was shaped by philosophers who had the conviction that leadership is defined by a set of behaviors. The theory holds that for one to be a good leader, they must possess strong personality with a well-developed positive ego. To become a leader, one should, therefore, possess confidence and very high self-esteem. The argument in this theory is that if one can not lead themselves, there is no way they can lead others. This theory led to the development of a managerial grid model that stipulates existence of at least five styles of leadership based on the leaders' concern for people and goal achievement.
The third theory is the contingency theory. Unlike the relational theory, this theory matches the leaders skills and capacities to the appropriate situations. This theory holds the argument that the ability of a leader to be successful relies heavily on the manner in which their leadership styles fit their context in various situations. The main concern of the contingency theory is the style of leadership of each (Brzezinski, 2004). The styles of leadership are measures alongside the situations at hand. The theory primarily evaluates the leaders through a common demarcated LPC scale that is designed in such a way that it can enable an analyzer to exactly know the level of leadership of a person in a specified environment.
Among all the theories explained above, the contingency theory is the most effective in global leadership agenda. The theory helps assess a leader’s ability to become successful in a particular business environment. The environment in which people operate is structured different, and hence, a certain leader may perform well in one type of environment and perform poorly in another. The fourth theory is the path theory which deals with the manner in which leaders motivate their followers in the performance of their duties. Through the path theory, leaders can effectively monitor the relationship between employees and their work setting. This evaluation helps in the development of employee satisfaction by being motivated in an effective manner. This theory mainly defines the reason why the organization was established, elimination of problems that might occur through the assessment of the organization's threats and provision of support through specified methods of offering encouragement to employees. The path theory is effective in the development of global theory leadership strategies and agendas. The theory provides a leader with an exemplary framework that provides a practical model which focuses towards the establishment of the purpose of the organization and utilization of employees’ energy towards maximum performance.
The functional theory is most particularly useful for addressing specific behaviors associated with a leader that are expected to contribute to organizational effectiveness. Again as stated earlier, the argument that a leader’s behavior is important in determining the overall performance of the business has featured again. The functional theory argues that the main role of a leader is to ensure that anything needed by his followers to accomplish a task is availed (Sadler 2003). Therefore, a leader’s performance is measured by their ability to provide to satisfactions whatever their group needs. A good leader does their best to avail the requirements of their people to make service delivery smooth, fast and efficient. The five main roles a leader plays under the functional theory are monitoring the environment, organizing their juniors’ activities, teaching and coaching their followers, offering motivation to others, and actively participating in the group's work. The theory argues that subordinates analyze the behavioral characteristics of their leaders through two approaches; the initiating and consideration structure. Initiating structure involves behaviors that are directed towards the performance of roles whereas consideration structure involves those behaviors that foster good interactions.
Personal plan
To become a global leader, it is important to be able to navigate through hardships, moving beyond the traditional and local thresholds. It is also of utmost importance to develop new approaches to issues and experiences that enable global leaders to flourish in their areas of specialization. A global leader should cultivate their skills to include both global and executive leadership competencies. The importance of developing a personal plan for global competency is that it helps a leader to become competent to a level that they can lead the organization in the management of vision and strategies that enhance its performance. Development of a personal plan involves leading oneself towards the demonstration of ethics and integrity, in the adaptability of leadership stature in a display of drive and purpose. Also, it a personal plan helps the leader to direct their subordinates towards the value of diversity and pre-existing differences. The result of this values is increased trust among the workers. Besides, the values mentioned above lead to cooperation hence effective teamwork, ultimately growing the overall performance of an organization performance (Andriessen, 1998).
Global executive competencies, call for the leader to be open minded in their way of thinking and-and adopt tactical approaches towards cultural interest and sensitivity. Such skills will help the leaders be in a position to deal with hardships that come their way during their tenure. To grow effective skills to become a global leader, I am required to adopt the global leadership competencies. The contingency theory can also be incorporated to establish the ability to become successful as a global leader (Wiseman, 2009).
After carrying out a SWOT analysis on my skills, there are some results that are very important in my self-assessment and hence the development of a personal global leadership plan. I found that my strengths are patience, I am a good listener, I like sharing roles with my fellow workmates, I am always willing to learn, and I have high connectivity. I also found out that I have some strengths that I have often overused in a bid to make things work out well. Some of these overused skills include devotion so that I sometimes find myself overworking myself just to make sure projects are completed well and in time. My listening skill is often also abused by people who take advantage since they know very well their grievances will be heard. As a result, some of my colleagues might abscond duties and make fake excuses which due to my compassion I believe and fail to question them. This overused skill has cost me a lot as I end up undertaking duties assigned to others.
My life mission statement is to be the best leader that I can be. There are some skills I have however not mastered which I will need to master. These skills include leading meetings, giving feedback after project accomplishment and termination. As a result, I often find it difficult to manage board meetings, opting to delegate the duty to someone else. The meetings I lead end up being messy and time-consuming. Also, after carrying out a project, successful of unsuccessful, I am not keen enough to be able to gather the necessary report to compile the required feedback. Also, I have relatively low firing skills that make me fail to fire workers when I am supposed to hence there are some ghost-workers. I am aiming to practice these skills to better my leadership skills. I am aiming to practice this skills at my part-time workplace within the next six months. I have the necessary resources required to practice skills such as delegating duties. As a leader of my work group, I intend to be able to have the chance to delegate skills to my colleagues. As a leader, I am also allowed to recommend the firing of a colleague under considerable grounds.
My exemplars are Hillary Clinton and my boss Mr. John Bowien. Hillary Clinton is a determined woman who has not allowed her past life to haunt her desire to lead the most prestigious nation in the world. In the ‘90s her woes during when she was elected to serve as chair of the board that was to make the Bill health care adopted in America. Her political enemies used that chance to ruin her reputation hoping to spoil her future possibility of clinching a high profile government position. However, this year, her political appetite has risen undeterred. My boss, Mr. Bowien, is a humble person whose business acumen is something to look up to. His assertive decisions, delegation, communication, interpersonal skills and even his termination skills are admirable. I also intend to identify a mentor and through the help of my mentor, develop some skills that I lack which are very important in my leadership goal. Besides, my mentor will encourage my whenever I go wrong and be the first person to collect me. I hope to learn from my mentor and apply the skills learn to real life.
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