Effective leadership is a triggering factor for an organization to succeed and amass accomplishments, which should be regarded as essential metrics for positive impact (Rijo, 2024, p.1). Studying leadership theories during my leadership classes this semester has granted me invaluable knowledge about aspects of successful leadership that separate good leadership from even better leadership. This essay serves as a reflection on the two leadership models – transformational leadership and situational leadership – that have helped me to understand and better approach these leadership styles. I reflect on some of the main eye-opening lessons and personal classroom experiences that helped me to develop a new perspective while also coming up with practical steps for implementing these in my daily life. The compelling leadership learning journey is the most personal and professional growth stimulation.
Leadership Approach
Transformational Leadership
The transformational leadership model is the basis of my leadership philosophy and beliefs as a transformational leader. This persuasive, inspiring and motivating approach, as first defined by James MacGregor Burns, not only aligns the followers with the vision for the future but also compels them and uplifts them to reach the level of their full potential (Siangchokyoo et al., 2020, p.2). It embodies the morals of being honest and being real and sets the example of how to act by living an ethical life. Besides that, transformational leaders inspire innovation and creativity at different levels by being involved and having a deep caring, concern and interest in developing future expert leaders. The most inspiring aspect of the transformational leadership approach is the focus these great leaders give to forming an organizational vision and higher purpose beyond just making returns or achieving targets.
Teams become bonded by their mission and positively impact society (Cavaliere et al., 2021, p.2867). I noted that the activities that constituted the class, such as the ones which analyzed the inspiring individuals of the past who displayed this resilience, were insightful and stimulating. Learning how to mobilize the followers for social movement and deliver a dream of equality by using the tactics of Martin Luther King Jr has revealed the true power of a vision that is bold and hopeful. Through religious metaphors and persuasive personal pleadings, his ability to rejuvenate the nation’s conscience was the best example of transformational leadership. A transformational leader increases productivity and efficiency and undergoes fundamental structural changes in the organization, society, and humanity in general (Farahnak et al., 2020, p.106). The creativity of born leaders like Apple’s Steve Jobs or the Wright Brothers, who completely shattered the status quo, proves the inventive power available to them. A transformational leader endures as a catalyst, constantly challenging the regular and reorienting the views toward a potentially higher possibility for others. The transformational thought system synchronizes uniquely with believing that the best leaders uplift the human essence through their speeches and actions.
Situational Leadership
Also, the integrative nature of my beliefs about leadership excellence is supplemented by the practical approach of situational leadership, which teaches leaders to modify their approaches considering particular situations and individual team member’s needs. The Hersey and Blanchard situational leadership theory framework focuses on the importance of analyzing the level of follower readiness, ability, and willingness when deciding which delegating, supporting, coaching, or directing leadership style is the most suitable for the best results and success (Pearson, 2022, p.4). Class exercises on a situational mindset, such as constructing our group’s competence and facilitating participation through active, conscious, and purposeful approaches, precisely formed the basis of my understanding of the metacognitive mechanisms.
I learned quite a lot about flexible approaches and the need to consider various contexts and changeable conditions, which means that “a single leadership approach will not work for everyone and each case”. More than that, I found out that the most efficient leaders are adaptive and fit their style, level of participation, and decision-making processes to the readiness and motivations of specific individuals within their team. Employing a situational strategy necessitates the mastery of emotional intelligence and empathetic sensibilities to be attentive to individuation and environment analysis. Such evaluation entails evaluating factors such as the employee’s skills, readiness for work, the amount of confidence they have, the willingness to follow instructions, and the emotional fortitude on a task, which all have to be looked at. This way, self-starters with a high level of ability and motivation can act independently, and leadership is once again strengthened. What is more, for those lacking self-sufficiency and rightness of purpose, a “directing” leadership style that is more directive, authoritative and practical is fit for orderly operations. This is the case since situational leadership helps teams operate consistently in the “optimal motivation” zones and, as a result, brings about peak performance.
Synthesizing the Two Models
With these two theories, I have gained a comprehensive leadership mindset that embraces ideals of transformation and larger aspirations, dogmatic adaptability and tactical flexibility in a specific situation. My goal is to stimulate by steering the way for a vision that recognizes thriftiness, diversity, and teamwork as a means to achieve high goals. Concurrently, I have learned to develop the necessary emotional intelligence and perception to decide what each team member needs to execute their role successfully based on each scenario. Hence, As an individual focusing on embodying a transformational leadership quality and adding a situational leadership approach to my tactics, I can maximize the potential of a team and an organization. The quest is to rally people with a single cause and direct the same towards the vision of achieving the outcomes that will contribute positively to stakeholders’ value creation. On the other hand, while providing inspirational leadership is necessary, it must be followed by applying practical measures that deal with each specific case of delegation, affirmation, coaching and authoritative response. Such a balanced leadership style recognizes that only some are equally effective in all situations and with every team. My purpose would be to be flexible and skilled in picking up alternative leading styles and be rooted in the established timeless transformation implements.
Classroom Reflections and Insights
One of the main benefits of being in the leadership classes was an increased awareness of amazingly complex personal interactions inherent in good leadership. Although management skills are traditionally underlined as strategic planning, resource pooling, systems setting and process controlling are critical, the heart of being a leader lies in mastering “people skills”. Transformational and situational leadership are centred towards high competencies in authentically communicating, building genuine trust, resolving conflicts wisely and effectively, perceiving social scenarios and cultural context, bonding with different characters from different backgrounds, and motivating superior performance. The “up close and personal” leadership decisions that we examined in class, including the past missteps and downfalls of confident influential leaders, showed how the lack of emotional intelligence and social skills can undermine even strong and effective managers’ capacity to lead. Looking at the inability to convey empathy and humility, listen actively, or effectively manage unconscious bias as the main divisive factors between the manager and the workers, I was inclined to treat soft skills leadership as a must-have skill. These examples left no doubt that leadership is a highly individual enterprise that never goes beyond the level of interpersonal influence, not the intellectual leader’s knowledge or technical talents.
As for workshops, people management techniques like ethical negotiation, conflict resolution, and making the right ethical decisions using ethical lenses enabled me to identify problems in my logical thinking and their solutions. Being an effective leader usually involves dealing with the often ambiguous nature of difficult situations in which ethical aspects are blurred out by varying contextual details. I have gained a valuable set of practical principles by which I would work through these ethical problems. I have also learned that being empathetic and inclusive increases the chances of finding a solution through open team discussions, regardless of background. Through examining transformative CEOs such as Howard Schultz Starbucks, who embodied their companies’ ethical fundamentals and maintained their actions in harmony with corporate social responsibility, I found leaders ready to do things right even when they were inaccessible or maximized short-term returns. Through that journey, I learned that for transformational leadership to be effective, one must be honest with the organizational mission and have the courage to choose the virtuous path regardless of the pressure.
Additionally, the (seminars) and leadership theories discussed in the literature gave me a better understanding of how to make the leadership theories work. In the period of reflections, discussions and active learning components like case debates, I was able to move beyond only rote knowledge consumption, and I was able to empower personal solid insights that I will carry forward. The perception of these close, captivating views of those human aspects of leadership has afforded me a lot more confidence to excel in leadership roles that are undoubtedly characterized by a challenging human component.
Future Application and Development Plan
Empowered with exposure to transitions and situation leadership models and the critical insights of interactional skills, I am more than prepared to apply the theory practically. Moving forward as a project manager, I plan to mobilize my team by defining a compelling vision explaining how our initiative will inspire innovations that raise the bar for customers’ experience. I will also deliberately examine my team’s structure and tailor my leadership style – encouraging and tutoring some team members, assigning tasks to others, and giving more directions where needed. One of the core developments I would strive to achieve will be intentionally enhancing my understanding of cross-cultural issues and my ability to work with different cultural groupings. Due to the diverse geographical spread of teams across the globe in the business sector, I have to familiarize myself with cognitive flexibility, cross-cultural communication, and conflict resolutions and minimize unconscious biases. As a beginning arrangement, I must be more conscious about inviting cultural perspectives when making decisions that impact the organization.
Moreover, developing creativity and innovation as a distinctive element of transformational quality and my path to personal growth is an important objective. I plan to bring forth methods such as question-storming regularly, where we all share different points of view and look at our work from various perspectives. Along with that, I will be able to develop my thinking by constantly contacting new sources of inspiration. Steadfast ethical leadership that creates trust is greatly needed to cope with the unpredictable, volatile context. To institutionalize the quality of ethical decision-making as the primary value, the team aims to develop the principles and set an environment where members are free to discuss openly before reaching an agreement. Establishing a formalized ethical framework will help guard against using the wrong rationalizations when confronted with thin ethical lines or the so-called ethics shocks. Ultimately, I hope to unite the strategic vision and inspiration with skilful assessments and face-to-face communications. I hope to achieve the highest leadership skills and impact by Using an integrated strategy coupled with the unbroken dedication to continual development.
Conclusion
My leadership class this semester provided monumental enlightenment and growth and emboldened me when it comes to leadership ideals. At the heart of the transformational base lies the principle of mutual realization through the sharing of similar visions and development of teams, along with situational adaptations and adapting leadership styles to meet individual development needs. However, I also have come to experience a profound development of the human and interpersonal features characteristic of authentic leadership outcomes. Abilities like emotional intelligence, ethical reasoning, and cultural amicability are as crucial as conceptual knowledge. As for the future, I am ready to link theory and practice, producing a concrete development plan on topics such as fostering creativity, dealing with diversity and making ethical decisions.
References List
Farahnak, L.R., Ehrhart, M.G., Torres, E.M. and Aarons, G.A., 2020. Transformational leadership and leader attitudes influence subordinate attitudes and implementation success. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 27(1), pp.98-111. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051818824529
Cavaliere, L. P. L., Singh, B., Kumar, M. J., Koti, K., Chakravarthi, M. K., Arun, S., … & Singh, S. 2021. Achieving United Nations Goals Throughout the Youth Leadership. Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry, 12(3). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Balbir-Singh-10/publication/353202261_Achieving_United_Nations_Goals_Throughout_the_Youth_Leadership/links/61827088eef53e51e1216635/Achieving-United-Nations-Goals-Throughout-the-Youth-Leadership.pdf
Pearson, A.H., 2022. Situational Leadership Theory: Do Followers Have a Preference? (Doctoral dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University). https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5fcb6e0a-a749-4da8-9b5e-4d032b5fc017/content
Rijo, M.B., 2024. Unraveling change: the most prominent factors for successful change (Doctoral dissertation). https://repositorio.ucp.pt/bitstream/10400.14/44747/1/203541065.pdf
Siangchokyoo, N., Klinger, R.L. and Campion, E.D., 2020. Follower transformation as the linchpin of transformational leadership theory: A systematic review and future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1), p.101341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101341
write