My Vision on Leadership

 

My vision on leadership

This report is a reflective report of my experience in CULC and my vision on leadership. This also includes and describes how my leadership style was demonstrated while working in a team by drawing conclusions from the feedback from my team members. Gary Yukl (2006) defines leadership as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Sagepub 2007).

As I have worked as a production trainee in a team in BMW India, this gave me the first exposure to work in a team. This experience gave me the exposure to understand how to work efficiently in a team. This also gave me the opportunity to learn certain leadership qualities by observing those skills and qualities from my team leader who was awarded for his excellence in the organisation. During my work experience, my perception towards leadership was just task oriented.

In the last ten weeks, during my second term of my MBA in Global Business, I have had many discussions on leadership and many opportunities to work as a team leader leading a team of four or five. These discussions and opportunities made me understand the different approaches, styles, methods and even leader behaviours. This made me understand that the perception of leadership can different for each individual. My vision of leadership after my academic experience on leadership combined with my work experience, I understood that the needs of the subordinates and the team mates must also be taken care and also a team leader must give way for innovation in the team and at the same time be task oriented.

From all the past experiences I have had, I understand that leadership is inspiring and motivating the team members and also the ability of integrating the skills of different team members and driving these integrated skills towards the achievement of the goal. During the last ten weeks, I had the opportunity to work in a team under differ circumstances. For instance, during the week 3’s Lego tower building activity, week 4’s fishbowl activity and discussions about various leaders.

From these activities I learnt how to work under pressure in a tea, also within the given time. After each of these activities we received peer feedbacks. From my peer feedback, I understood that I was a democratic leader since my leadership style motivated my team mates since I had a humanistic approach and also encouraged them to be more involved in the activity.

 

My ideal role model would be Ratan Tata. He has built a stupendous business empire and also has a glorious vision of life. Instead of merely concentrating on multiplying his wealth, by pursuing a very thriving trade say a car manufacture, Ratan Tata diversified his interests covering the entire gamut of human life. His business acumen had a human face. The man, who manufactured the most expensive cars, also took care to manufacture a car within the reach of a common man. He also manufactures salt, coffee and many other consumer products and also into services to cater for the common man.

My vision in life is to make life better for millions of people in the world. With this objective in view, I will acquire knowledge which will generate wealth and which ultimately be used for the amelioration of the common man. Hence, Ratan Tata is my ideal role model since I follow the same kind of idea of catering to the common people.

 

Reference

Sagepub (2007), Leadership-What is it? [Online] Available from http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/15104_Rowe_Chapter_01.pdf [29th December 2012]