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]

 

Ethical Leadership and it’s Impact on Individual and Organisation.

“Ethical leadership, defining it as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [And] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behaviour can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17).”

This blog describes about ethical leadership and its benefits and how it affects individual and the organisation as a whole. Yukl (2006) defines ethical leader as, “the one who promotes honesty, and mirrors his or her actions with their values and beliefs”.

The responsibility of providing clarity towards the vision, proper direction and high standards of performance towards the organisational objective depends solely on the organisational leader or the management. However, it is the leader’s moral principles and integrity that provides credibility to the vision of the leader. If the leader’s lacks moral integrity, then the leader’s vision, however clear, credible and well crafted, is viewed with an uncertainty by the followers. This makes it tough for the leader to move the followers towards the organisational objective and hence the efficiency of the organisation is reduced (Mendonca, Kanungo M, Rabindra 2006).

Plinio (2009) assessed that three leadership theories associates to ethical leadership theory. According to Plinio (2009) the first leadership theory that relates to ethical leadership is transformational leadership theory. As one quality of transformational leadership involves being a role model with moral integrity for the followers and making them interested towards the objective, which correlates very well with ethical leadership. The second leadership theory that associates to ethical leadership is servant leadership, which describes the need to serve and take care of the needs of the followers. The third leadership theory that relates to ethical leadership is authentic leadership. This describes that the main aspect of ethical leadership i.e. a leader being true and working with the moral principles and integrity to give the followers a clear vision and direction (Plinio 2009).

Business researchers have found that ethical leadership as important to a firm’s ethical stand and the employee outcome is based on the ethical stance (Trevino et al., 2009). Business is as much about relationships as it is transactions. The challenge to go by ethics for an ethical leader is producing profitable goods with the best standards at the same time protecting and promoting the well-being of the employees in the organisations (Enderle, G 1987).

To describe the impact of ethical leadership on individuals and organisations is positive may be termed complex. This is because, certain ethical conduct in an organisation may not be ethical in another organisation (Mendonca, Kanungo M, Rabindra 2006). Hence, ethics must be followed according to the specific organisation. Then the impact of ethical leadership on individuals and organisations may be termed positive.

“A survey of human resource executives found that 67 per cent of the respondents observed that ethics would be more important for organizations in the future (Halcrow, 1987)” (Mendonca, Kanungo M, Rabindra 2006). Hence, in the long run, the leader in any organisation who does not follow ethics will find it tough to move the employees towards the organisational objective in this competitive world.

Ethical leadership starts with personal attitude, and values and actions of a person. Ethical leaders do not differ in actions from their words. This helps the employees to gain trust on the leaders and hence the organisation. Hence, ethical leadership has positive effects on the personal well-being, employee team and also the organisation as a whole.

Reference

Enderle, G 1987, ‘Some Perspective of Managerial Ethical Leadership’, Journal of Business Ethics, 6, (8), pp. 657-663, Available from Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&hid=105&sid=c88303af-1bc9-4f11-b6f5-f53f057ec06b%40sessionmgr114  [31^st December 2012]

Mendonca, Manuel Kanungo, Rabindra. (2006), Ethical leadership, [Online] Birmingham, GBR: Open University Press. Available from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coventry/docDetail.action [30th December 2012]

Plinio, AJ (2009), ‘Ethics and leadership’, International Journal of Disclosure & Governance, November, Available from Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=105&sid=c88303af-1bc9-4f11-b6f5-f53f057ec06b%40sessionmgr114  [31^st December 2012]

Trevino L.K, Brown M, Hartman L.P, (2009), ‘A Qualittative investigation of Perceived Executive Ethical Leadership: Perceptions from Indise and Outside the Executive Suite’, Human relations [online] 56(5), 5-34. Available from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/northouse5e/study/articles/pdfs/15-Trevino.pdf  [26th December 2012]

Yukl, G. A. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.