Introduction
Holding two positions in one organization after school has improved my leadership competencies and skills by exposing me to numerous ways of guiding, influencing and directing followers towards realizing specific objectives in different challenging situations. I have learned that offering suitable resources, motivating personnel, executing visions and values, initiating effective communication and boosting morale can persuade followers to complete their responsibilities (Batista-Foguet et al., 2021). The use of different leadership styles like democratic, autocratic, participative, authoritative, and others have different influences on followers. Leading a technological and organizational change during my first year of supervisory role after leading a successful change in the accounting department was my career’s most challenging but educating leadership experience. This experience empowered me to understand the role of personality traits, leadership behaviours, styles and approaches on employee behaviour and performance (Hanelt et al., 2021). Incorporating my preferred leadership approach to transform team affiliates and social systems proved interesting. Although leading the entire change process improved my skills and competencies for bigger similar roles, I had to innovate approaches and skills to address leadership subjects and ethical dilemmas that arose before reaching successful change (Gigliotti et al., 2019). My personality traits and intensive leadership experience and knowledge acquired through these two positions increased my desire to advance my leadership competencies by engaging in leadership development and training programs to eliminate identified weaknesses described under formative positions, personality attributes, and the selected leadership styles and behaviours.
Formative Positions, Skills and Competencies and Reflection on Lessons Learnt
Working in two related positions in a consumer food enterprise after school has equipped me with exceptional leadership and change management experiences. I joined the organization’s accounting department in a critical position when the supervisor had just resigned, and the consumer food enterprise was undergoing transitioning from a traditional, manual accounting scheme to a software-automated one. The organization assigned me to oversee the transition by collaborating with the interns in that department and guiding them in incorporating the new changes in their accounting and financial reporting system. Although I had no working experience, I had intensive knowledge of accounting processes and the corresponding accounting software. My leadership competencies evolved frighteningly as I successfully guided the internships and other accounting department members and produced outstanding results, including accurate reporting, effective cost management, and sound financial and investment decisions guided by accurate capital budgeting.
The tremendous change management knowledge and leadership competencies attained through the accounting position and the corresponding change management that facilitated the successful transition to an automated and electronic accounting system earned me a promotion to the supervisory level. This job position also required me to manage an expansion change involving various challenging situations and ethical dilemmas, greatly advancing my leadership competencies. I meticulously relished this supervisory role as expanding the operations to other regions to generate more revenue streams encompassed juggling multiple simultaneous alterations, updating corresponding documents to capture the transformations, differentiating customer needs in different locations, delegating expansion duties to team affiliates based on the qualifications and experiences, and guiding the execution of such responsibilities. Although I hold a different position, the accounting and supervisory roles improved my leadership skills and facilitated my career growth to my current managerial role, which involves more challenging decisions.
I utilized numerous skills in managing multiple teams in the second assignment because most team members had different cultural values and backgrounds, resulting in conflicting interests that called for my attention, innovative problem-solving and mediation strategies and skills. I had to engage in numerous training programs to manage the staff and equip them with the skills and knowledge required to accomplish the assigned responsibilities (Abadir et al., 2019). Engaging with these programs throughout the expansion or growth change process empowered me to lead by example and use effective communication strategies to maintain constant communication with all team members. I also acquired effective communication, problem-solving, analytical, interpersonal and other outstanding leadership and team management skills.
I also acquired excellent ethical leadership skills and practices during operational expansion and accounting transformation positions. Some include relationship building, critical thinking, innovation and creativity, quick and effective decision-making, justice, honesty, respect for others, and humane behaviour (Sharma et al., 2019). I also generated cohesive relationships by engaging all the team members actively throughout the expansion process, from planning, through change implementation to anchoring it to organizational culture. Teamwork, collaboration and team-building skills facilitated these true, participative and cohesive relationships by building trust among the team members (Henkel et al., 2019). Combing creativity and innovation with these participative and cohesive teams motivated all staff members to remain busy with their assigned responsibilities and approach different situations using different concepts, resulting in timely execution of all activities, reduced gaps and downtimes during employee suggestions and my feedback, and met intermediate and final deadlines.
Although the change was successful, the overt resistance to the expansion challenged my leadership skills and revealed various areas for improvement in my leadership competencies. Employees openly objected to the expansion into the highly-populated city based on potential competition from numerous food chains, restaurants, hotels and cafes with considerable market shares and valuable brand names. I incorporated an innovative problem-solving approach to collaborate with other leaders and supervisors to generate and communicate an engaging expansion vision and benefits to employees and motivate them to participate actively (Hanelt et al., 2021). Incorporating negotiation and conflict management skills proved helpful in reaching a consensus with the workforce because I lacked an explicit strategy to respond to overt resistance.
Collaborating with colleagues and seniors in embracing problem-solving, negotiation, conflict management and effective communication skills to get the workforce to our side and facilitate smooth growth (Gigliotti et al., 2019). Comprehensive marketing research and segmentation to identify target markets and consumer preferences in the new city empowered us to devise more expansion benefits like generating more jobs and revenue streams, expanding customer reach and influencing market price, and using them to earn employee support. Agility, time management and adaptability skills, along with clear communication, enabled us to stimulate the initial inspiration and generate the urgency required to initiate expansion change by initiating honest dialogues and discussions with the workforce (Saha et al., 2020; Gigliotti et al., 2019). They also facilitated constant changes in my leadership behaviours, styles and strategies to support the changing corporate operations and external environment.
My two positions and the change management opportunities empowered me to acquire substantial leadership competencies, including extending respect, service, justice, and honesty to team members and colleagues (Sharma et al., 2019). Although the transformational leadership style enabled us to engage the employees, it exposed them to disruptions, burnouts and others. I employed Maslow’s motivational theory of needs to inspire employees to accomplish their responsibilities throughout the expansion process. This motivational theory enabled us to meet the needs of team members of diverse cultural backgrounds and professional positions and motivate them to perform well (Hopper, 2020). The company’s human resource management also engaged in employee motivation by generating a reward system with financial benefits like bonuses, pay rise, per diems, allowances and others, and non-financial ones like belonging via appropriate teams, safety, self-esteem, self-actualization and other to generate extrinsic and intrinsic motivation required to accomplish the desired change.
Although my leadership skills and competencies had developed considerably during the second change management exercise during my second position, the lack of elaborate solutions and processes to address some ethical dilemmas revealed numerous weaknesses in my skills and competencies, generating a need for more training and experience to become an elaborate leader (Sharma et al., 2019). I learned to uphold all the ethical practices, develop advanced listening skills to listen and understand staff members, incorporate various training programs to facilitate employee development, and extend respect and care when responding to complex and challenging situations (Saha et al., 2020). I depicted various weaknesses in my leadership practices due to inadequate employee inspiration in my practices. However, I am learning to act as a source of motivation and inspiration to team affiliates by incorporating adaptable and flexible practices, admitting and responding to workforce feedback and concerns, and closely monitoring staff health and welfare to avoid burnout and build a cohesive, participative and supportive community for better change management in future.
Analysis and Reflection of Personality Attributes
People respond to various situations differently based on their personality traits, influencing their communication, job approaches, conflict resolution, and others. Understanding personality attributes and their associated influence on individual behaviour and team participation. Personality attributes also play an important role in understanding other team members and collaborating to increase productivity and eliminate employee dissatisfaction, absenteeism, conflicts and other adverse results (Harari et al., 2021). Evaluating my personality attributes via the Eysenck questionnaire, leadership knowledge obtained from various leadership concepts and theories, and profile indicators showed that I have substantial positive personalities that facilitate effective leadership. However, it indicated weaknesses that needed continuous improvement to become a better leader.
Many researchers in the personality attributes field recognize extroversion-introversion and emotional stability as the prime factors that define an individual’s personality. The central scopes in most personality attribute philosophies include introversion and extroversion, with introversion exhibiting unsociable, reserved behaviour and extroversion portraying an outgoing, active attitude. The Eysenck questionnaire links emotional stability personality attributes to people who can calmly address challenging circumstances and situations and maintain calmness and high productivity throughout the challenging period (Eysenck et al., 2021; Appendix 1). Completing the personality questionnaires enabled me to obtain numerous insights, perceptions and acumens into emotional stability, extroversion, compassion and introversion dimensions of personality traits. According to the first part of the questionnaire (Appendix 1, Part One), my personality traits fail to fall under any of the two personality attribute scopes, extroversion and introversion, because I marked 9 As and 11 Bs (Eysenck et al., 2021; Appendix 1). These questionnaire results align with my mixed personality and behaviours, including responding differently to situations, socializing, networking, interacting with others during working hours, and introspecting during personal periods. Although these traits portray various strengths and weaknesses, my constant aspirations and efforts towards becoming an ambivert by constantly eliminating weaknesses and reinforcing strengths associated with introversion and extroversion have empowered me to address various leadership situations comfortably due to the associated emotional stability.
The eleven Bs selected on the same part of the completed questionnaire portrays my sympathetic trait (Eysenck et al., 2021). The results match my empathetic and compassionate nature, which often overpowers and blinds my leadership decisions and actions. I have experienced constant growth in incorporating participative and democratic leadership approaches because this personality trait empowers me to engage peers and team affiliates in important responsibilities and decisions. My scores in my profile support these attributes by portraying high emotional stability in most of my decisions. I agree with the findings because I often make decisions calmly in various situations (Abid et al., 2021). Although these personality traits facilitate my positive leadership behaviour, my constant improvement in emotional stability proves useful in employing situational leadership approach to guide followers through different situations and avoid formulating infeasible decisions.
The profile indicator analysis also played an essential role in revealing my personality attributes and their influence on my leadership decisions, empowering me to become an ethical and productive leader by investing in improving my leadership weaknesses and reinforcing my strengths. It enabled me to test plentiful personality elements, including emotions, relationships, resilience, imagination, empathy, and many others (Wendt et al., 2020). I scored low on vigour, average on emotions and energies, and high on imagination, relationships, empathy, ambition, resilience, assertiveness, structure and calmness. These results confirm my deep concern for the personalities of other individuals, assertiveness, conceptually controlled thinking, creativity, and participation in my work environment. Although I support the results obtained from the profile indicator, I disagree with the solid introvert results because of my moderate adherence to systems.
Although my personality traits positively influence my leadership approaches, decisions, styles and behaviours, my extroversion traits engender extreme confidence, affecting my delegation skills and behaviours. In contrast, introverts make it hard for me to communicate my visions clearly to employees. I constantly work on my personality traits and participate in leadership programs to gain more trust in followers and the associated need to delegate duties and improve my vision communication skills (Abid et al., 2021). Setting clear goals, prioritizing learning, learning from seniors and mentors, obtaining mastery over delegation of responsibilities, studying various leadership styles and approaches and improving my communication constitute the main activities that I incorporate to improve my personality and become more effective in my leadership engagements (Asbari et al., 2020). I also constantly work towards maintaining and improving my emotional resilience traits, such as being calm under pressure to advance my emotional stability and assume substantial control over my feelings (Abid et al., 2021). However, my often sensitivity to criticism, getting upset and nervous quickly and taking issues personally indicates inadequate emotional stability, necessitating more improvements in the area.
Analysis of Predominant Leadership Style, Approaches and Behavior, and a Reflection of Strengths and Limitations
Embracing the leadership style questionnaire and its scoring form (Appendix 2 and 3) enabled me to identify my leadership styles and behaviours, assess them based on experiences and theoretical knowledge and reflect on their limitations and strengths. Grouping my responses into the task (structuring) and relationship (consideration) orientations enabled me to determine and analyze the score (Tummers & Bakker, 2021). My overall scores of 40 in task orientation and 47 in relationship focus, as indicated on the leadership questionnaire scoring form (Appendix 3), portray my prime leadership behaviour as generating constructive working relationships while maintaining high performance. These analysis results confirm my zeal for constructive and healthy workplace relationships and moderate task orientation (Henkel et al., 2019). I focus on incorporating leadership styles, behaviours and strategies which promote healthy relationships with colleagues, team affiliates, followers, peers and other key stakeholders by engaging them in important operations and decision-making and implementing their opinions, feedback and recommendations (Tummers & Bakker, 2021; Henkel et al., 2019).
The results also align with my leadership behaviour during my accounting and supervisory positions in the consumer food company after my college education because they portray me as a relationship-focused leader (Tummers & Bakker, 2021). My unending focus on supporting and motivating my followers and inspiring effective teamwork and collaboration via effective communication strategies improved trust amongst the team members and yielded success at the end of the change implementation and anchorage process. Although the extreme focus on generating constructive relationships may generate challenges such as task execution delays, I avoided such issues by incorporating leadership approaches that could improve task execution without hurting the welfare and relationships of the associated individuals. I have been identified as an effective leader due to utilizing leadership strategies that balance task orientation and relationship focus (Henkel et al., 2019; Siangchokyoo, 2020). However, having 40 and 47 scores in task and people orientation indicates some need to adopt more task-oriented leadership approaches to enjoy the benefit of constructive relationships and effective execution of tasks (the sweet spot) (Henkel et al., 2019).
The predominant style throughout my two leadership assignments at the consumer food company and the associated change management includes the transformational leadership approach. My understanding that the supervisory role involves getting followers to execute the technological and expansion change responsibilities facilitated my adoption of this approach to inspire, encourage and motivate them to create and innovate better approaches to execute these tasks (Asbari et al., 2020). This approach also empowered me to uphold workplace integrity, encourage professional growth, inspire passion, improve loyalty to reduce employee turnover, and ease the transition to an automated accounting system and expanded operations (Siangchokyoo, 2020). Its inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulus, idealized influence and individual consideration enabled me to influence the interns to execute the technological changes and staff members to implement the expansion responsibilities to realize the enterprise’s overall vision.
My experiences in these two change management leadership positions exposed numerous strengths of the transformational leadership approach, including improving communication amongst the change management team affiliates, encouraging professional growth, and inspiring follower motivation by augmenting work autonomy (Siangchokyoo, 2020). This leadership approach also helped in generating and upholding workplace integrity, inspired a passion for task execution, promoted trust and loyalty, eased the two corporate transitions, and inspired the team members to work towards clear objectives (Batista-Foguet et al., 2021). Other strengths of the transformational leadership style that facilitated my accomplishments during the technological and expansion management changes include supporting me in aligning the interests of the workforce to those of the food enterprise company, identifying opportunities for viable improvement of the overall mission, and identifying a common objective that benefits both the enterprise and the workforce (Bakker et al., 2022). Challenging all the team members to assume accountability and responsibility for the transition and expansion tasks assigned to them and giving them control over those tasks was also facilitated by my transformational leadership behaviour.
Although the transformational leadership approach helped in generating and upholding workplace integrity, inspired passion for task execution, promoted trust and loyalty, eased the two corporate transitions and inspired the team members to work towards clear objectives, it limited my capacity to delegate work (Asbari et al., 2020). Disrupting execution routings of executing tasks and prioritizing long-term aims over short-term ones also constituted visible limitations of my transformational leadership behaviour (Bakker et al., 2022). The intrinsic motivation generated via this approach may augment the potential for burnout due to inadequate external inspiration. At the same time, the extreme commitment to career development may expose the personnel to unhealthy work-life balance due to their numerous sacrifices for career growth (Siangchokyoo, 2020). Other potential limitations of transformational leadership include slow decision-making due to the incorporation of opinions from all team affiliates and peers and high demand for continuous communication, which may never be attained due to numerous accountabilities.
Conclusion
The leadership reflection confirms that ethical and effective leadership grows through various experiences, achievements and failures in handling various situations and challenges. Personality improvements, intensive leadership experience, and knowledge acquired through these two positions increased my desire to advance my leadership competencies by engaging in leadership development and training programs to eliminate identified weaknesses. This experience empowered me to understand the role of personality traits, leadership behaviours, styles and approaches on employee behaviour and performance. Although my personality traits supported the successful adoption of transformational leadership styles, I realized that some ethical leadership dilemmas and challenging situations required more diverse personality attributes and the incorporation of various leadership behaviours. Therefore, I will continue improving my personality traits through learning and practice and embrace situational leadership to facilitate using different leadership styles like democratic, autocratic, participative, authoritative, and others to guide followers in different situations.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Personality Test Questionnaire
Appendix 2: Leadership Style Questionnaire
Appendix 3: Leadership Questionnaire Scoring Form
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