Question

Compare and contrast the six leadership strengths for the future. Discuss your strengths and how they match these leadership strengths. Explore a potential plan to enhance areas that you identify as weak.

Answer 1

Leaders are available to provide guidance and required resources to the followers when it is required. Leadership is generally defined as the manner in which the leader engages with his fellow workers in accomplishing a job. It is thus the potential to influence and direct the efforts of the coworkers towards leading and controlling. Leaders are primary enablers of performance. They are accountable for performance and growth.

Future leadership strengths:

1. The leader comes into the team first as a player and then as a captain of the team. So the skill sets possessed by the leader is unquestionable by his team members.

2. Competency when raised a notch higher when required by the leader may prove to be a vital/decisive factor in differentiation or having the competitive edge.

3. It is extremely important that the leader's competencies are adored by team members so that they have due respect for him/her.

4. A leader who is found to be weak in competencies may manage for a while, but issues are not lost by swiping under the carpet, and may surface with explosion during long run.

5. Ability to delegate and step in to assist where required

6. Ability to communicate the vision of the organization in a manner that the team members feel aligned to work for the organization basking on their strengths

Leader is the cohesive force that binds the team together – If a leader is able to maintain his composure at all times irrespective of whether the team has achieved the desired outcome or not and take failures as lessons for the future he is doing a tremendous work in motivating others in the organization. If the desired outcome is achieved, the credit should be given to the team and there should be celebrations. And in case the desired outcome is not achieved, it should be considered as a learning experience and the leader should have the humility to shoulder the big part of the blame for failure. Such a leader would have a highly motivated team willing to perform and go the extra mile.

My leadership style would be most effective while working in Process driven organizations, where the team has a standard set of predefined process steps on which they need to deliver. And in organizations where there are not set process and creativity is of utmost importance – my leadership style would not that effective as I may not give the full freedom to the team members to embark on their creativity and would insist that they follow the parameters set be me and not think out of the box while out of the box thinking generating new ideas would be more beneficial for the organization.

I would consider the following as my strengths in being a leader

1. Positive attitude

2. Confidence

3. Commitment

4. Honesty and trustworthiness

And the below as my weakness while leading a team

1. Not trusting employees in a manner to provide them avenues to explore their creativity

2. Excessive connectivity being around 24/7

3. My need to be liked preventing me from taking hard decisions

4. Perfectionist attitude