A leader is a person who influences people to move in a particular direction or towards achieving a goal. On the other hand, leadership is the process of social influence, where leaders maximize the efforts of others towards achieving a goal. There are two conflicting statements in leadership. Some argue that leaders are made, while others are born. I always believe that I was born a leader. My journey in leadership started way back in primary school.
In most cases, my friends selected me to be in charge of the games we used to play during our free time. They would always look forward to me giving directions on the game and choosing the opponents. I was so influential, and my friends loved being fair and creative. At my primary school level, I was also appointed as a class prefect by our class teacher. Leadership followed me in high school, where I was appointed as the chairperson in the Red Cross Society club. I was also selected as the boarding area captain. I developed an interest in campus politics and became an aspirant in the students’ university association. I managed to win the elections and served as the students’ secretary-general. The leadership experiences all through the three levels exposed me to many occasions and broadened my mind. I learned how to deal with different situations and people with different personalities. They shaped me as a leader and sharpened my leadership skills.
After my bachelor’s degree, I volunteered to work as an intern in Dream Spring microfinance company. I worked as a cashier, and my roles were to serve customers by either receiving their cash deposits or providing withdrawal monies to the Sacco members. The internship gave me an excellent experience as I experienced working under a person and helped me embrace submitting to the existing leadership. I learned how to interact effectively with customers, illiterate, disrespectful, and ignorant. I also learned to endure lousy leadership. The branch manager where I was working was so harsh and rude. We were sometimes forced to work overtime and weekends with no compensation. The manager was also a dictator. He never listened or bought other people’s ideas; rather expected everyone to follow her orders. She made decisions by herself, which led to some messes in the company. Many workers found it difficult to bear the situations and thus, decided to quit the job.
Effective leadership is very crucial for the success of any organization. The poor leadership by our manager led to the decline of the company. The fall was due to the poor relationship between the manager and the employees. Following the lousy climate in the company, the workers extended it to the customers because, at times, the employees would serve customers when they were in a bad mood and thus, offer poor services. The employees, therefore, lacked morale, and some ended up resigning the job resulting in insufficient workers.
In 2017, I got my first career job in Dream Spring microfinance. After working in the company for one year, I was appointed team leader. I was in charge of the salespersons. I had ten salespersons who were subject to me. My role was to oversee their activities and ensure they did the right thing. I was to ensure they had the correct information concerning the company and its services, our qualified customers, and the documents needed for marketing. I worked effectively as a team leader, and my team emerged to be the best. I would always encourage them and share some practical skills of winning and fetching customers. I was friendly
After working in the company for two years as a team leader, I was promoted to branch manager. My role was to manage the entire branch. The team leaders were subject to me. They would bring me reports from the salespersons and communicate any challenges they would experience in the unit. I was expected to make all communications from the head office and give accounts of the branch’s progress. I would receive the customers’ documents from the salespersons and team leaders, verify them and approve them for loan disbursement. I would also follow up on our clients’ progress of loans payment. I would send them emails to remind them to pay the outstanding debt and communicate the remaining amount and the duration for payment.
My responsibility as a football coach in one of the local football teams in my local area has also nurtured my leadership skills. My role as a coach is to organize and schedule friendly games and select potential players, determine the team members’ abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, ensuring that the field for practices is available and that team members get to the pitch on time. I also establish rules and regulations and ensure they are followed to the letter, resolve disputes and address any bad behavior among the players. The leadership opportunity has created networks that have allowed me to interact with people of different statuses. I have traveled outside the country once to take my team to international competitions. I have learned to deal with people of different personalities as people manifest their true selves when they are very excited or angry. During the games, players are pleased and grow very angry, especially when the game is unfair. As a successive leader, I have received rewards for being the best coach in different competitions levels in the country. I have received certificates showing my competency as a leader. The certificates have been of great help to me as I seek employment in my career.
As a leader, I have also faced various challenges in my service. Some of the significant challenges in my leadership experience include honing effectiveness. Honing effectiveness involves challenges in developing the relevant leadership skills such as time management, decision making, and speeding up with the job and activities in the football team (Adegunle, 2017). Secondly, it was a challenge to inspire employees in Dream Spring microfinance. Lack or poor inspiration to employees is a significant cause of an organization’s downfall (George, 2018). It was challenging to inspire salespeople, especially those who had difficulties in marketing. Sometimes, some would receive no salary at the end of the month because their marketing clients paid commissions. It wasn’t easy to inspire such a person as their output depended on their efforts.
Establishing the teams’ norms in the football team and Dream Spring microfinance was not easy. Even after having a hard time setting the standards, it wasn’t enjoyable to find some team members not adhering to them. Lack of adequate finances was also a significant challenge in the football team. As a leader, my role was to look for people and organizations to partner with and fund the group. It was also challenging to deal with the imposter syndrome during my first experience n leadership in Dream Spring microfinance. I lacked confidence and felt that I didn’t deserve to be in the leadership position. I questioned my skills and judgment until I started looking for evidence of my capability in the feedback from my managers and peers.
Some of the leadership attributes that have resulted in success in my regime include integrity, empathy, effective communication, vision, and innovation. Integrity is the foundation of every leadership. A leader should inspire with his principles without compromising. Influential leaders should not make empty promises, take shortcuts, or take actions for personal gain (Newstead, 2020). Empathy is also a great virtue that has helped in leadership. Empathy is the virtue of understanding the needs of others and being ready to help. In showing empathy to my employees, I make use of the four steps; watching for signs of burnout in others, showing interest in the needs, hopes, and dreams of the employees, demonstrating the willingness to help employees in their problems, and showing compassion to people even after they have a loss. I always ensure I communicate in various ways since I need to speak to different people across roles, geographies, and social identities. Active listening has also been a great pillar of ineffective communication. Effective communication also entails communicating the company’s culture, mission, ethics, and important messages (Griffith, 2019). Effective communication is so significant in the success of every organization.
As an envisioned leader, I was inspired by what the company can become and achieve. To achieve the vision, it is essential to develop perseverance and be ready to take risks and unconventional decisions (Bennis, 2020). I keep everybody invested in the process of achieving the vision. I believe there is no mountain too high to climb; it may take time, but it will be completed one day. As an innovative leader, I give other people the freedom to develop their ideas. I am open to new ideas and discussions.
The democratic leadership style has been a powerful tool in my leadership experience. Democratic leadership is a type of leadership where leaders value ideas and input from others and embrace other people’s contributions (Patapan, 2017). Democratic leaders embrace collaboration. Kiarie ( 2017) found that agreeableness is a significant pillar in employee satisfaction. The reason why I embrace democracy is that it births new and better ideas and solutions to problems. The workmates and team members also feel involved and thus, get motivated and have the morale to achieve the organization’s goals; this leads to higher productivity. The employees are also satisfied and have a good working climate. The leadership style increases trust and respect throughout the team. Through the involvement of the employees in the decision-making, I understood my workmates better. The involvement also reduced the significant margin between the people in different ranks, allowing people to interact freely and speak out in case of any issue. A good relationship draws away the employees’ fear giving them boldness to approach their leaders.
The leadership strategies that have worked well for me include delegating and empowering. Delegation involves assigning responsibilities to other employees. The employees feel excited to be entrusted with responsibilities. They work hard and smart to ensure that they achieve the set goals and, as a result, bring considerable growth to the organization (Banmon et al., 2019). Empowered employees are motivated to give the best in the organization. Employees are empowered by encouraging them and providing incentives to make them more aggressive. For example, in microfinance, the best team leader and salesperson are rewarded to feel motivated and work towards being the best again.
The second leadership strategy is continued education. Leadership is said to be a journey with no destination. Continued education has increased my growth and refinement. I have also learned to share my knowledge and experience with others to make them better. We also organize workshop sessions for our employees to be equipped with the new knowledge and skills to make them competent. Knowledge and skills are dynamic, and therefore, employees must learn the latest and modernized skills.
Thirdly, I walk the talk. I always ensure I lead by example. I do things as I expect others to do them. Being a leader doesn’t make me any special. Employees also find it challenging to do something; otherwise, their leader leads by example. For example, I display equality when communicating with employees, extending courtesies, and allowing my colleagues to respond without interruption. I have also learned to treat my employees as customers. It gives the employees a sense of belonging.
At times I’m forced to change my leadership strategies to ensure everything is faring well. For example, I was asserting the correct way by disagreeing with my workmates because of the decisions they air out. They sometimes give conclusions that are pivoted in their interests without considering the goals and visions that we need to achieve. At this point, I’m afraid I have to disagree with them. In the football team, being assertive is crucial as the players can be very manipulative as long as the decision favors them. Being assertive requires confidence in one’s viewpoint and presenting that viewpoint succinctly.
I was practicing justice in the workplace. Although it is good to be good to the employees, some employees are stubborn and will mess up unless you be hard on them. I am forced to exercise justice on such employees and players on them. For example, if I warn a particular player twice and the player is unwilling to change in the football team, I barn the player out of the group. I restrict them from playing several games as a discipline strategy to some. I have also been forced to chase some salespersons who do not obey the company’s ethics.
I also demote some workers and promote others in the microfinance and the football team, and I replace some players who are among the first eleven top players. In the workplace, once some duties are delegated to specific employees, some employees grow lazy or start having pride and, as a result, negatively affect the organization’s productivity. Leadership reveals people. Some employees reveal their true character once they get into administration. Some of the character traits are unbearable. Thus, the employees have to be demoted for the well-being of other employees and the company’s success.
Once the new players show more competency than the existing players in the football team, I have to replace the current players in some games because we aim to win and shine in our matches. The competency of the players is highly dependent on the effort of practice and training. I highly encourage my team members to put a lot of effort into training to sharpen their skills and remain the top best players on the team. I am forced to comprise some of the team’s ethics in emergencies. For instance, it is a rule that a player can not be part of a competition if he has not availed himself of training. If we are in a very tight match and the player, even though he did not show up in training and is so skilled, I let him play to avoid losing the game.
In the football team and microfinance company, the people I lead are so happy and proud of me as their leader. I have severally received positive comments from my colleagues concerning my leadership. Twice I have won the elections in the football team as the coach. The re-election in the coach position is a clear indicator that people are pleased with my leadership. The team members also seek help in their personal lives besides support in sports. Seeking help from their coach shows that the team players trust me and can acknowledge my value.
The self-drive among the team members shows that the team members are happy and willing to cooperate with their leader. I don’t have to tell them what to do when they get to the pitch, but immediately they get there, they know what is expected of them. My colleagues in the workplace also involve me in their things, such as events. It is a result of the excellent rapport created between us. They also give good reports to the managers during audits. The manager commends me because he has never had a complaint about me. The employees are also confident enough to raise issues or challenges facing the company. The confidence results from trust in their leader and the good working climate created. The employees also give recommendations and their ideas to various loopholes in the company.
Both the team members and the employees have embraced team working. To ensure success in teamwork, I focus on interpersonal skills such as practical communication skills. Team working is fostered by good verbal communication, listening, and questioning. Effective communication eradicates misunderstandings and unexpressed difficulties between the team members. My ability to build a rapport with my colleagues has effectively ensured teamwork. A good connection yields a sense of harmony among the team members. Persuasion and influencing skills are vital in team working. It is essential to persuade some team members of a specific course of action pros to ensure a shared decision.
I uphold giving and receiving feedback from my team members. The strategy is helping me to avoid getting irritated and angry with other people’s behavior. The plan calls for receiving feedback gracefully and acting on it calmy. Skills in chairing meetings are critical in building team working. The chairperson should ensure that sessions run effectively and orderly. It is the role of the chairperson to ensure that members will not come out of the meeting offended.
Team working has led to embraceable results. Team working has led to job satisfaction. Once the employees are involved in making decisions and are allowed to give their ideas, they feel a sense of belonging and own the company resulting in increased productivity (Ashikali, 2021). Team working has helped to reduce work stress. Ideas from my colleagues get me out of the great dilemma of the action to take. It also prevents me from a course of action that would lead me to a greater mess. Team working has led to personal growth for both my workmates and me as we learn a lot from each other during the interactions in decision-making. I discover new concepts from other people’s experiences.
Team working establishes good relationships between workers to the extent that workers can correct each other or share the weaknesses and help each other deal with the flaws. Feedback from the team members brings an awareness of one’s blind spots about their behavior. Team working has led to many innovations. Collaboration in decision-making and conflict resolution is a central point of good leaders (Allio, 2018). Employees are also happy to work in an organization where their views are considered. Diversity is a highway to unlocking new opportunities, gaining new insights, and overcoming new challenges. Team working allows people to be open-minded. Team working is a crucial tool that cannot be neglected in any organization.
References
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Bennis, W. G., & Thomas, R. J. (2020). Crucibles of leadership. Harvard business review, 80.
Banmore, O. O., Adebayo, L., Mudashiru, M., Oluwatooyin, G., Falilat, A., & Olufunke, O. (2019). Effect of strategic leadership on the competitive advantage of selected quoted insurance companies in Nigeria. The Journal of Accounting and Management, 9(2).
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Newstead, T., Dawkins, S., Macklin, R., & Martin, A. (2020). The virtues project: An approach to developing exemplary leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 167(4), 605-622.
Patapan, H. (2017). Democratic leadership. Routledge. In Islam Beyond Conflict (pp. 77-88).
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