Leadership is both the specific skill and mindset, enabling one to lead people to obtain goals. The mindset includes evaluating oneself and finding the leadership style that fits the most. Then, it should be practiced to see how it can solve people’s problems and how one can actually lead people using this style. Skills necessary for each leader are primarily social ones, which allow them to communicate with people efficiently and bring them together. Another essential set of skills is analytical and strategic thinking, necessary for creating leadership’s goals, which will be the core of the whole work process.
Leadership Styles
There are various leadership styles: they can be justified in various situations. The authoritative style is when the leader makes all decisions by themselves and controls their implementation, evaluating the results of each task. The consulting style is based on communicating with the team and considering all their advice; still, a leader makes the decision. The participative and delegating techniques involve the team in the decision-making process directly. As for me, the consulting style seems to be the most appropriate in most cases. In addition, it fits my character perfectly, as I understood from my personality analysis, which is necessary for those who want to become leaders (Guide to the Completion of a Personal Development Plan, 2016). Thus, I am usually using this style in my practice: I think that communication with my team is the crucial element of leadership.
Leadership Values and Motivations
My values for leadership are personal courage, strong strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, active listening, and the desire to help others. There are various skills and attitudes necessary for a leader, but I think that those mentioned are the most important. Active listening implies the developed emotional intelligence: the ability to see and understand other people’s emotions (Create a Personal Leadership Growth Plan, 2012). It helps resolve all inevitable conflicts in all teams as everyone sees the world via their own vision. My particular motivation for leadership is my desire to help other people communicate together and reach their goals, connected with my own eagerness to obtain suitable compensation for my work. I think that personal courage is the most critical factor that allows bringing people together to work for a particular set of goals. Strategic thinking enables the formulation of those goals clearly and realistically, making their achievement helpful for the whole team.
Leadership Competencies
There are specific competencies necessary for leadership: developing subordinates, modeling behavior, being ready to challenge the status quo, and high reliability and accountability. Development of subordinates means, essentially, ranking people: deciding who will be responsible for which work and how their results will be evaluated. I would estimate my skills in ranking as average, and I think I need to develop them particularly. Modeling the desirable behavior is the ability to understand people’s desires and reach an agreement with them and the leader’s own desires to make the team move toward the set goals. I would estimate my skill as relatively high, as my emotional intelligence and communication skills are among my strong sides. Challenging the status quo means that the leader should be ready to create a new strategy and take responsibility for it, and I am always ready for that. Last but not least, the leader should have good accountability and be ready to be responsible for all their actions, and I am always prepared for that, too.
Conclusion
Thus, my leadership style is consulting, and my crucial skills are emotional intelligence, strategical thinking, and personal courage. My primary motivation for leadership is my desire to bring people together and help them achieve their goals when connected with my own ones. I estimate myself as strong in emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and people’s understanding but average in people’s ranking. In that way, to become a better leader, I need to learn how I can delegate responsibility among my team members and evaluate their work.
References
Create a personal leadership growth plan. (2012). AFC. Web.
Guide to the completion of a personal development plan. (2016). Collegio Volta. Web.