MAN6304 Project Leadership: Instrumental Values & Leadership Skills

a) Identifying two of the foremost instrumental values and discussing how they contribute to my project leadership 

I want to be a successful entrepreneur in the future and I am quite a religious person. Therefore, I have some set of values that I cannot deviate myself with. My preference always goes to the transformational leadership style and I like to work with the people to recognise the alteration to create the vision to guide the change within the organisation.  

Honesty:

Honesty is very important in leadership as honesty is observed as the openness and transparency of the character. The leaders must have the willingness to communicate the thinking or feeling in order, to be honest. The leaders must give value to the honesty as it is the one characteristic that makes the leaders credible to other employees (Shah & Pathak, 2015). Honesty is the willingness to discuss and listen to issues before the data is thought through when the leaders do not have crystal clear data. Honesty is all about fulfilling the promises what the leaders make to the employees. I believe in honesty and for me; it is all about integrity and positivity. It is the ability of the team leaders to develop trust and legitimacy is completely based on the honesty. According to Antonakis & Day (2017), leaders set a strong example of honesty in order to inspire the team members and the followers. At the very first stage, the followers take the leaders to be dishonest and the leaders need to prove themselves to the honest to do something good for the employees. I have been always honest with myself and each of my steps follows the path of honesty. Honesty will help me to stand up for my beliefs and honesty will make me acceptable to all my team members and followers. Being an honest person; I expect that I will have many close friends and each of the friendship will be valuable for me. Honest people are trusted by the near ones and peers and people seek the help from the honest individuals. Being an honest person will make the management rely on me in future workplace and there will be no fraudulent activities in my character trait.

Ambition

Being a leader; it is important to have the ambition to make the organisation bigger or do something out-of-box for the employees. Leaders should be ambitious and they should make the planning for the future development and the vision. As stated by Shah & Pathak (2015), without the ambition and the direction of the leaders' the managers may not be able to lead the team. I am little ambitious about my entrepreneurship; however, I cannot call my high in ambition as I always like to take calculative risk. I think that employees who express the ambition in regularly; they must be able to go beyond and make something difference. Ambition in leadership is very much needed so that the leaders can show genuine interest about company's future to make the project of corporate vision. In order to complete the project leadership; the ambition is needed to fulfil the vision of the organisation. Higher-ambition leaders have the quality to integrate both economic and social value (Frich et al., 2015). Transformational leaders have the quality of the ambition and they are able to change the vision of the organisation. Leaders need to show the ambition making balance with the sustainable institution and the honesty (Bass, 2016). My perception is that ambition attitude of the individual leads to satisfaction in the workplace. Pursuit of the ambition will land me in greater goal of future and it will make me hard worker with boosting the confidence.   

b) Identifying one greatest weakness and discussing what impact it has on my ability to lead others around me 

I want to be successful in my life; however, I will not take any wrong path to get the desired position taking the short-cut. Before starting the venture of my entrepreneurship; I want to work in a large multicultural organisation to collect my experience and knowledge. My greatest weakness is team-working; as I always fear to work in a team. It is not that I do not like to work in a team; however, during the team discussion; I face issue to share my concern or opinion. Sometimes, when my plan or opinion is not taken by the other team members; I feel disgusted. During the team working; I face the issue of lack of trust. People need to trust to the other members during the team working and it increases the bonding of the team members. I face the challenges to trust my team members so easily; if I do not find the team members to communicate easily; I do not like to build the rapport. Role of uncertainty is another challenge to do within the team. There is difference between working as the individual employees and working as part of a team (Beyer, 2017). The team leaders need to share the clear goals to the employees and employees have to achieve this. I face the weakness when the goal of the team is not clear. I can set the goal for myself; however, individuals’ contributors of the team make issue for me.

Team working will be important for me to build my career in the management. Being a leader, I have to manage the team. Team working can promote the atmosphere that fosters the motivation. I will make myself close-knit with my team members and I will share my ideas with team so that I can understand others’ perspectives as well. As pointed out by Breeveart et al., (2014), team working sometimes offer different feedback as well as perspective that help the team leaders and the managers to brainstorm collectively to provide great learning opportunity.  I need to develop my team working skill to promote the workplace synergy to support patients, shared goals and encouragement from the team members.

c) Selecting two leadership skills and explaining how they contribute to my current project leadership practice 

Communicating directly:

Communication is very critical for establishing the alignment and executing strategy. Effective communication is one of the significant qualities of the leaders to work with the employees. The leaders must have written and speaking quality; the leaders’ message must convey organisational mission and vision. I think that listening is one such factor of communication and the leaders must listen to what the professionals say. As stated by Arvidsson et al., (2017), professionals listening are included to the message of the leaders. While communicating, the leaders must compliment the team members about their good work. I think that compliments are most effective way to mitigate the situation. The leaders make themselves able through delegating the tasks clearly communication. The leaders need to explain the way to communicate with the employees. Communications skill helps the leaders to manage the meetings and during the meetings, the leaders directly communicate with the employees (Men, 2014). I want to improve my communication as communication will help me to overcome my introvert nature that makes me nervous during the critical situation. In project leadership; I want to improve my positive verbal and nonverbal communication as it will help me to closely observe the employees without speaking. I will try to listen attentively to the fellow people showing interest in every situation. I will try to deal with telephone conversation in an appropriate way.

Motivating others

As a leader in the workplace, it is needed to motivate other people in need. In the workplace; not employees will be self-motivated; therefore, it is the duty of the leaders to motivate the employees to prepare them for the situations. According to me, motivation is very important for the leaders to keep and it is very necessary for the leaders to hold the motivating quality while leading the group. The leaders can treat the team members kindly and the team leaders give the responsibility to the team members so that they can do their work in a perfect way (Bolman & Deal, 2017). In addition, the motivation of the team leaders comes from mainly tonal quality and the communication. Motivations are of two types; extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. The leaders can set the stretched goals and they can get to know the people directly. I think, motivating others will foster collaboration within the team and team leaders provide the team members with a pleasant place to work. The motivation of the team members can encourage happiness of the team members. In order to motivate the team members, the team leaders need to believe the same (Dong et al., 2017). I will set the goals for myself in the future before preaching to the team members about motivation and motivating the team members to provide opportunities for self-development.

Development plan 

Two personal goals that will contribute to project leadership capabilities

First personal goal:

Team management skill:

A good place to start is by listening to what members have to say. Involve the team members in important projects and decisions. It is important to delegate where possible and trust that they will do a good job. Leaders need to make sure that they are sufficiently challenged and invest in their learning and development, by coaching them directly and providing feedback as well as more formally by identifying courses that can help them to develop their skills (Buckman et al., 2015). Leaders are responsible for own professional growth as well as for leaders’ team’s development. It is important to make sure that leaders ask for feedback from own boss on a regular basis, both in terms of overall performance and specifically with regard to big meetings and presentations.  

Needs of team management skills:

Team management is important as it makes the team members unite and the team members can work together in harmony. Team leaders frequently have the best goals and the team members involved the team. I think team management skill provides motivation to the team and leaders are no longer an alien for the team members. I lack the skill of working with the team as I cannot sync with the team members. Therefore, I have to improve my communication and confidence to make myself acceptable to the team. Team leaders can take team huddle where the team members can discuss team's issues. Team leaders can attempt to make and convey long-term vision, venture back and consider what that vision is. According to me, team leaders can meet with the general population to enable themselves to see enormous picture objectives. Team management can make the team leaders good in communication and it makes the leaders presentable for the team members.

Benefits:

Team management skill in leadership helps the team members to foster the creativity as creativity thrives when the people work together. As stated by Heifetz & Linsky (2017), team management skill can blend the complementary strengths of the team leaders. Team management skill can provide me with building the trust among team members when I will work with a team. Team management skill will teach me with conflict resolution skill and I will be able to negotiate the matter of the team members. In addition, I will be able to promote the wider sense of ownership. Moreover, I will be able to encourage healthy risk-taking ability within the team and the team members will share the vision.

Second personal goal:

Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking ability is one of the important qualities that the leaders need to have as it makes the leaders able to take the decision of the business. According to Liden et al., (2017), strategic leaders naturally and instinctively have the strategic mindset and they naturally analyse, study, probe and debate for the information. The leaders organise, structure, coordinate, develop and plan before they take any decision. Strategic leadership needs to think and impact others in the ways that promote the enduring success of the organisation. Strategic thinking of the leaders is associated with the strong understanding of the complex relationship between environment and the organisation. Strategic actions of the leaders bring out the decisive activities that can be consistent with the strategic direction of leaders. The leaders within an organisation can focus on the complexity, ambiguity and chaos before making the strategic plan.  

Needs of strategic thinking:

I am not at home with the strategic thinking as I easily get nervous when the situation becomes wrong to me. I cannot make out my mind and I start coping with tension. I cannot facilitate the strategic actions as I have lacked in risk-taking ability. Therefore, I have to understand the concept of strategic thinking capability. During my school days, I used to control festivity of our class taking the responsibility all myself. During that time, I used to take the decisions as I was the mentor of the class. In my future career, I want to take have a strategic commitment to the organisation's strategic direction. Strategic mindset enables the team leaders to take the decision about the next move of the business and the leaders make themselves able to understand the opponent’s strategy to counter the move. As stated by McCleskey (2014), strategic thinking makes the leaders able to stick to the original strategy and each of the moves must not be last for long for the planning process of business.

Benefits:

Strategic thinking capability of the leadership improves the guidance of actions in order to gain the company’s mission and objectives. As opined by Johansson, Miller & Hamrin (2014), strategic thinking provides the ability to cope up with contingency. Strategic thinking capability makes me identify the competitors as well as opponents. In the future, strategic decision making will be helpful in making the business allies and long-term survival of the business. Personally, strategic thinking will make me able to gain the power of detection to understand the changes. In addition, strategic thinking will provide me agility to respond positively to change.

Personal development plan:

Conclusion

It can be concluded that I always provide values on ambition and honesty; I value the religion and my perspective around the world. No situation can make me deviate from the perspective and values. I have the weakness of team working as I do not stand the criticism when the team members do not accept the shared vision. I will try to improve my leadership quality on team management and strategic thinking capabilities; both are important to improve control the team members within the organisation. I will also follow the leadership development plan which will help me to improve my communication, motivating others and decision-making qualities.

References

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