BUSN 221 : Organizational Behavior and Leadership : Philosophy of Lead

Introduction:

In this reflective paper a discussion is made on the philosophy of leadership that is practiced by me and the approach that I believe in. Also an issue is discussed for analysis of leadership approach and application and the stance that was taken to deal with identified issue followed by relating biblical principles with my value principles of leadership for better reflection.

Philosophy of Leadership

As per me leadership is about creating a comfort zone and awareness that gets the best out of individual, drives to attain goals and makes each person, team and a firm successful. My leadership style can be described as combination of democratic and transformational styles as I am a leader who is believer of philosophy to lead with service, purpose and strategy. I believe in collaborating with others to work appropriately so as to attain a meaningful mission and direction and for me leadership is helping one another like a team (Ramon 2016).  I also pursue certain elements of transformational style as I believe to lead by setting an optimistic role model and hence inculcating a positive vision in others, giving them a clear and bigger picture and offering them a better sense of goal to work for. I am a believer of power of difference to be consistently successful in moving forward so I look for better opportunities, goals and develop strategies that are clear and distinct from others and focus intentionally on optimizing the goals. (Robbins & Judge 2015) Due to these leadership experiences and though of mind I demonstrate the ability to work and build things with others-things that are optimistic, different, valuable and lasting and reflect alignment of purpose and principles in all things I do to lead others so as to stand with my colleagues or team and endure their strengths.  

I am a leader who is a believer of values that builds strengths, consistency and sustainability and as these values are significant to me so I share my vision as a leader with others by demonstrating a positive character by doing the right things even if it is a struggle. I also share transparency and allow others to see my true self so that others also get an urge to dive deep into the truth of being fair, getting things done correctly irrespective of barriers (Messina & Wilde 2017). I am willing to take risk in all situations that are fair, provide opportunities and rewards based on progress, merit and grit regardless of difficulties. I am unwilling to violate principles of ethical’s values and beliefs and due to these values I also get triggered on certain conducts or behavior of others that includes bullying, making unfair or demeaning statement for other’s work or integrity, demonstrating obstructing and opaque attitude that also involves withholding information for personal benefits and doing things secretively or with concealing agendas, sloppiness including repeated errors, careless work and not fulfilling deadline with not communicating that fact on time to adjust deadlines (Benson 2015)

I make decisions that are based on evidences and built on self awareness, strengths based on philosophies. I make decisions after self reflection and acting constructively on facts that are sources of growth. Like I have a good capability to spot trends, risks and opportunities in data evidences and deciding on actions based on those while I am not as good with locating risks and possibilities in prospective things where data evidences are yet to be formed (Edwards 2015).  As a result I help others in finding what is good in them, harvest those with mentoring and coaching to bridge the shortcomings and I behave in same manner for myself, which helps me take most of the decisions collectively though I do have my own viewpoints. As a leader I believe in open communication and try to remain honest and communicate with conviction. In common I believe that communicating more is better than interacting lesser and sooner is better than later. So decisions that expose learning opportunities for most involved and ensure shared improvement are mostly made by me collectively by engaging others in candid and meaningful communication with proper people at all level (Marturano 2016). I believe in combined efforts and expect things to be done in open manner by lowering human resistance that may arise and respectfully correct these defensive situations when they occur between one another and between us. When I am wrong I admit my mistakes and apologize and expect same in case of others which help in good team work and leadership values. Also I try to provide constructive feedback with good intent for others, the team, so that things are done optimally in time and at place with mission in mind.  

Leadership Application/ Analysis

The key leadership issue that is faced in our organisation is guiding the process of change which is a major challenge as people and teams are needed to be managed, mobilised and led with adequate understanding on process of change and their associated benefits so that resistance is limited and effectiveness is attained in implementing change process. Guiding other and teams to change involves interpreting the manner consequences can be mitigated, overcoming reluctance to change and dealing with individual or team’s reactions to change (Theletsane 2015).  As I am leader who believe in team work, actions, learning and winning so to guide the change process and deal with these issues I work by collaborating teams that consist of talented people who are cohesive, extremely clear of purpose and even more powerful as team. To overcome possible reluctance to change and implementation issues within organisation I make decisions that are based on high standards of KPI’s, hard work for greater good and I work collectively with team to openly enjoy our work and change process and celebrate the success (Peterlin, Pearse & Dimovski 2015). My decisions are based on thoughts and values that reflect that we all are winners and all of us want to work in winning teams so my decisions are based on calculated risk taking and then managing those well enough with shared efforts of everyone taken together.

The change process that was faced some time back in my organisation was during staff restructuring where a new cross functional team was to be formed to meet a strategic goal. During that change process as all of us needed to think in a new process to meet client requirements so it was essential to include people from different knowledge areas so that it was easier to think in strategic direction. But the restructuring change was not as easier as it was perceived as it created some obstacles to the component of evolution of change management and in promoting its smooth transition. As reluctance was expected in cross functional teams and specifically in staff restructures, so being a leader of this new team I was supposed to analyse the situation first and then develop suitable course for action to establish coherence and collective outcome (Letwin et al. 2016).  The first thing I realised to overcome resistance and transform team behaviour was to promote open communication to set fears to rest along with encouraging resistant members in new team to endure change with confidence. I made an open interaction with all members of my team and made them believe that all of us make mistakes and all things do not work well though we try but we should all take care to learn together and work together to lead to better results with shared principles, ideas and knowledge. During this change management so that I could overcome the issue by goal was to inspire wiliness of shared values amongst others in team to build cohesion for a common goal for long term filled with integrity. This definitely meant that when everyone of team thinks together in one direction then we would take bold risk taking decisions to mitigate occasional troubles during our goal attainment journey.  So this was the principle that I tried to communicate with others in team so as to make them understand why working together is significant in operating in a dynamic environment even when there may be differences of opinion. This philosophy helped me bring all members of team together to manage change when there was a moment of difficulty after staff restructuring which helped me bring a united team so that we would continue to invest in organisation’s future, our own personal development and maintain a constructive attitude.  

Position/ Stance on Leadership issue  

As change is commonly scary and difficult so people tend to resist as keeping an existing habit is easier than change while trying to attempt new things where there is possibility to fail. So people like to remain in comfort zone than to go ahead to unknown things. But during the course of managing change in staff restructuring process I realized that reluctance to change is not inherently bad as commonly thought to be and in actual it is good thing. This is because it helps to think to ways of management that can be selected to battle carefully against resistance. Secondly when people show resistance it triggers a question whether the change going to get relevant growth or is it worthy which helps to make sure that resource are re-evaluated and are not thrown into something that does not have a clear payoff.  Lastly it encourages planning and interactions to understand where reluctance would likely occur and come out with a proactive plan to avert it. Other than communicating to resistant people for change and listen to their concerns; sharing the potential reasons; benefits to change another strategy that can be used to demonstrate a clear leadership and avert resistance is making the approach to change in context to or about people as clearly change is possible when people are supportive and adaptive. So in this case of staff restructuring I communicated to people in my team that the restructure was a plan not only to deliver the project requisites but it was also a milestone through the lens of user adoption i.e. people or team members, as change would expose everyone who was part of implementation to be at front runner level giving them more scope in career advancement. I made the team believe that performing the goals with a staff restructure is not only about change implementation, it is about what people selected for opportunity could do with help of this change. This strategy to deal with reluctance to change by using philosophy based on fighting resistance with culture helped me train members of my team to be natural leaders first and be role models or influencers for everyone else which had a ripple effect to change the stance on issue.

Conclusion: 

Hence to conclude it can be said that to lead with value principles in recognition to biblical values I reflected in my leadership the thought of well being and an integrated life where my principles were based on leading a healthy life, integrating career, community activities and wellness for all in terms of mental, psychological and spiritual manner that allowed all of us to prioritise the important during the moment (Case & Chavez 2017). By following this biblical principle in my leadership approach I believe everyone will enjoy their work, be more productive and return for organisation will be multiple folds because this value principle helps to build strong team to support goals fulfilment that is desirable.  

References:    

Benson, Dale, MD,C.P.E., F.A.C.P.E. (2015). CREATING YOUR PERSONAL LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY. Physician Leadership Journal, 2(6), 64-66. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1771763262?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Case, S. S., & Chavez, E. (2017). Guiding lights for morally responsible sustainability in organizations: Revisiting sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 17(2), 35-49. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1927088046?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Edwards, Susan P, CMA, CPA,C.L.C.P., C.G.M.A. (2015). LEADING WITH STYLE. Strategic Finance, 97(1), 19-21. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1695972814?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Letwin, C., Wo, D., Folger, R., Rice, D., Taylor, R., Richard, B., & Taylor, S. (2016). The "right" and the "good" in ethical leadership: Implications for supervisors' performance and promotability evaluations. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(4), 743-755. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2747-5 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Marturano, A. (2016). Leadership: Where organization studies meet ethics. Iranian Journal of Management Studies, 9(4), 767-782. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1884048163?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Messina, P., & Wilde, R., I.C.M.A.-C.M. (2017). DEVELOPING A COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY. PM. Public Management, 99(5), 13-15. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1913309008?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Peterlin, J., Pearse, N. J., & Dimovski, V. (2015). STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING FOR ORGANIZATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY: THE IMPLICATIONS OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP APPROACHES. Economic and Business Review for Central and South - Eastern Europe, 17(3), 273-290. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.15458/85451.4  [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Ramon, A. (2016). The relationship between philosophical orientation and leadership. Business Premium Collection. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1827600768?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]

Robbins, S.P. & Judge, T.A. (2015) Organizational Behaviour. (15th ed.) pp 368-382. Pearson Education Inc, USA. 

Theletsane, K. I. (2015). Dynamics of leadership, issues, trends and options. The Business and Management Review 6(3) 158-173. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1707734380?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 27 Oct. 2018]