Reflective Case Study: Assessing Leadership Capabilities

Introduction

Leadership is a dynamic process that keeps evolving constantly. It is a process that is viewed by many different individuals in different and distinctive ways as it exists not only in managers, directors, or chief executives but in every individual who has the ability to influence people directly or indirectly. This is important for an individual as their objectives and tasks may not always involve leading change within their work environment, instead adopting practices and using power influence can stimulate people in many ways. Therefore, the practice of power helps individuals having leadership qualities to gain trust by showing authenticity and interest as well as engaging people by presenting an influencing and inspirational objective to the followers or subordinates (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). Drawing on that, this case study provides a reflective discussion of my leadership qualities, self-assessment of my leadership capabilities with others including my team and colleagues, what leadership functions I have and have not been responsible for, and the self-assessment of my global mindset.

Discussion

Every field of the world and every department of life need a leader because there is always someone who leads and others follow. The definition of a leader, in my opinion, is an individual who takes responsibility for both their own work and the work of teammates, manages and guides a team, supports team members, and helps their teammates become the best version of themselves. Simply, it means empowering individuals to help them grow while letting them discover their qualities, strengths, and weaknesses they were not even aware of before. This makes them overcome their prejudice and any self-imposed limitations and also makes them realize their full potential in the working environment. More than anything else, diversity, equal opportunity, and responsibility are what make a perfect leader who can lead at the front foot in any organization or workforce.

Regardless of whether the concept of leadership is just a perceived notion or a real thing in the place of work, organizations whether big or small want to hire prospective leaders to foster the progress of their workforce. Moreover, speaking honestly, a leader is not only one who leads formally in the position of owner, executive, or manager of the corporation, an individual can be an informal leader within their team, squad, group, or department. Hence, the process of leadership can be referred to as a capability in an individual that brings a positive attitude onboard, manages and leads each day at work, gets done as much as possible along with his/her team members, and also empowers people so that they would perform at the maximum potential they can.

The leadership style I personally prefer is transformational leadership as it uses respect, trust, loyalty, and admiration as the basic and significant reasons for followership. It suggests that the process of leadership is driven by a mutual process between leaders and followers where each one would raise the other’s morale and intrinsic motivation to work towards a common goal (Ackoff, 1999). Based on the definition I have regarding a leader and his/her leadership qualities, I have self-reflected on my leadership notion and practices while gathering information from the team I work with, colleagues in my workforce, and self-assessment of the leadership functions I am entitled to perform as well as the functions I have not been responsible for.

Information Gathering Activities

To determine and evaluate my leadership capabilities in my workforce scenarios, I have gathered information from different assessment activities including collecting information from team, colleagues, self-assessment, and reflection regarding global mindset. This leadership self-assessment is collected through feedback, questions, and statements to identify strengths, promote self-awareness, enhance motivation, and determine opportunities for growth. Being a strong and prospective leader requires an individual to understand their weaknesses as well as strengths just as accurately as the individual assesses those of the team members that they lead (Ashford & DeRue, 2012). The self-assessment reflection, therefore, evaluates one’s performance and leadership style which help them to improve their skills as a leader and guide their members in the team more successfully. This reflective self-assessment practice is to explore my leadership capabilities as strengths as well as common teamworking problems as weaknesses to reflect on leadership roles, evaluate my own performance, measure professional development, and identify areas for improvement.

Team Leadership Self-Assessment

A team in the absence of leadership is like what a famous old saying states “When the blind leads the blind, both fall in the ditch”(Adair, 2007) highlighting the importance of a dedicated leader who can clearly see whether the team understands the vision or not. Based on the transformational leadership style and the definition I have instilled in my mind, I have inferred that I have had to fulfill both a responsibility and an obligation to the members of my team in order to create a productive atmosphere at the workplace. I have also realized that any number of interruptions, distractions, and unpleasant interactions between team members and the leader of the team could completely shut down a team member’s concentration. Moreover, any such occurrences of interruptions can shift a teammate’s focus from the task and the team’s vision to achieve a set goal or objective. I have found that the self-assessment does not only help in building, evaluating, and developing a team professionally but also helps in self-evaluation of the personal life to help understand an individual how to improve their relationships with those around them.

Furthermore, while being a leader of the prospective team thriving in its field, this notion comes into play that a leader is responsible and accountable for finding the right people for their team through their skills and knowledge and getting the right team of people performing at the highest levels possible (Connelly et al., 2000). While being a transformational leader for the team, I have analyzed that not every member of the team would be a top performer. However, every member of the group or team needs to meet the organization’s standards or team’s vision for performance in order to get better outcomes. In this regard, a leader needs to be coaching their people, developing their team, identifying performance issues, identifying areas for improvement, and dealing with consistent teamwork problems for better outcomes. Thus, it is the obligation of a leader in a team to inspire the group of people to follow them to reach the end destination of set goals for a better or excellent outcome (Daniel, 2018). However, if the leader does not have a clear vision of what truly the concept of excellence in performance is, the group or team would wander aimlessly like blinds and subsequently will fall into the ditch.

Colleague Assessment of Team Leadership Capabilities

Feedback from colleagues or team members provides an opportunity to express their feelings, emotions, thoughts, and opinions through the team’s collective intelligence. The shared experience of the colleagues primarily acts as the reflective practice for a leader to implement and do well the work he/she is expected to do as well as develop future plans for the team’s prospects (Hopkins-Thompson, 2000). Therefore, the feedback and guidance from my co-workers have helped me evaluate and develop my skills, abilities, performance, and behavior as a leader for development. Furthermore, the colleague assessment has provided me with the opportunity to assess each other’s strengths and weaknesses through the factors of communication, influence, vision, teamwork, and confidence that have further extended the area for improvement. The assessment from the peers or co-workers sought to determine the leadership skills that are needed to assess self-performance as well as the performance of the team so that areas of improvement and strengths can be identified. Moreover, I have identified during the assessment that a lot of problems occur with peers or teammates due to poor communication skills if a leader does not contact or communicate with his/her colleagues and each member of the team individually, it is exceptionally bad for the leader trying to achieve output at the end. Working with other team leaders in a dynamic environment, I have observed that people treat others like they want to be treated which sounds equitable at the surface, but the problem occurs when people being treated are different from the individual who treats them. I infer that an effective leadership practice is all about understanding how others communicate and present information so understanding can take place among peers and teammates.

Self-Assessment of Leadership Functions

As for the self-assessment of leadership capabilities and functions, I can refer myself to a leader who possesses transformational capabilities and is always ready to “extend their helping hand for their co-workers and subordinates with any difficulty” either through action, opinion, advice, or financial help (Northouse, 1999). Furthermore, this approach also reflects in my communication as I often give directions to my team members and try to establish contact with each colleague and teammate in a positive way. That is why I call my leadership style a transformational leadership style because this acts as a supportive as well as directive style for my co-workers and subordinates. This leadership function I perform is due to the reason my subordinates can see me as an individual of authority as well as ultimate help because when the staff relies on the leader the end results of the teamwork become more effective. However, discipline is the key to be observed among subordinates because no work and success can be structured without discipline and subordination in a team. In addition, colleagues’ feedback regarding the strong points, effectiveness, and quality of my work has further allowed me to be a useful and valuable individual with potential leadership capabilities for any organization or team.

Self-Assessment of Global Mindset

The global mindset assesses leadership capabilities as a dynamic and living entity that has its own personality, spoken and unspoken rules, blind spots, weaknesses, strengths, and even moods as well as a vision to drive results. The global mindset on which my definition of leadership is based begins with being self-aware about leadership capabilities as a dynamic entity. This entity has a personality that needs to work hard to intimately understand its weaknesses and strengths in order to develop a culture of respect for both myself as well as for my team. This dynamic personality driven by a strong sense of core values models ways in which their values and attitudes are congruent with their behavior which helps me to practice a stronger and higher level of professionalism in my leadership practice. Moreover, leadership begins with paying attention to self-care to help leaders understand their limits, identify tasks they can accomplish, and reasonably achieve common goals of the team with shared management in a finite period of time (Covey, 2020).

Finally, I have realized during the self-assessment that the practice of leadership, I offer to my team just not only teaches them how to be an effective leader in their workplace but also expects each team member to model what leadership capabilities should they possess and how leadership actually looks like on daily basis even outside of the work environment. Considering what function integrity has to play in a team, I make sure people around me including my colleagues and teammates naturally trust me with more complex responsibilities of the tasks as I keep my word for every task and practice leadership with shared management while maintaining authenticity and awareness in the team. I know from personal experience after assessing myself on the global mindset of leadership capabilities that the sense of trust and responsibility for a leader creates credibility which helps people grow in leading their team towards achieving common team goals.

Findings of Information Gathering Activities

At the beginning of the assessment activities, I have come to realize that I had a low tolerance level for complaints and issues related to teamwork. With time and working constantly on myself, I have developed the capability of enduring complaints as I have understood that these complaints and issues are not easy problems which is why teammates used to consult me for having a professional outlook. If these problems were easy, why would the team members need a highly talented leader and come to consult me over teamwork issues. Upon realizing the importance of endurance level for building a team, I have now developed a high tolerance level for such issues and complaints because ignorance in such issues related to teamwork on the part of the leader as well as team members can drag the performance of the entire team down. The resolution of issues would make sure for the leader that everyone in the team is maximizing their potential in the best possible way as accepting the role of a leader is like accepting the responsibility and accountability that the team can perform at the highest levels possible (Amagoh, 2009).

Critical Analysis of the Findings

Altogether, the analysis covered the information-gathering activities from a group of entities including members of the team and colleagues through assessments have evaluated that the leaders are often responsible for the management of a group of individuals brought together as one functioning team to achieve a common goal and end result. The role of the leaders involves assigning tasks to the members of the team, inspiring their followers to achieve a common goal of the team, monitoring the progress of the projects or tasks, motivating them to work as one functioning group, guiding people, and successfully accomplishing team-related objectives. However, the analysis has determined that all these capabilities require skills such as motivation, effective communication, and problem-solving. Team members who work under prospective, competent, and determined leaders can develop a combination of strengths and positive behavioral patterns that are needed to achieve a particular goal. On the other hand, team members who serve under lazy and non-competent who are good doers but not good motivators and trainers end up failing to achieve their goals.

Reflections

Self-reflective assessments in leadership pose as an effective means to carve out time for reviewing oneself as a leader so that one can examine their current level of capabilities, leadership skills, behavioral patterns, weaknesses, strengths, and the way they influence others. This allows continuous and careful observations, self-evaluations, self-awareness, assessment of positive qualities alongside weaknesses, and analysis of behavioral patterns based on flexible and respectful responses (Reardon et al., 2019). Inferring this to reflect on leadership capabilities that begin with self-management and being self-aware, I have gauged that a leader needs to work hard to intimately model ways in order to develop a culture of respect in the workplace and understand their strengths as well as weaknesses to be a prospective leader. Moreover, they need to carve out integrate ways in which a leader’s personal and professional values are congruent with their behavior and also list out flexible responses to improve how to influence others.

Recommendations

Drawing on the self-assessment of the leadership capabilities through the information gathering activities from team members, colleagues, and self-reflection of global mindset regarding leadership practice, I would recommend that effective communication skills can help leaders settle the issues and teamwork problems that might appear during tasks. Communication skills help a leader to find joint solutions for the members as well as for better team outcomes which lead to potential prospects. Moreover, considering substantial amounts of scholarly articles, practicing leadership skills, establishing trustful relations in a team, and acquiring experience from the well-versed and professional leaders of other teams or organizations would be the potential recommendations a leader can make to help their team work with a clear focus on the task.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the self-assessment of leadership capabilities has reflected that leadership is the art to know how to build a group of people that is well-versed in self-confidence so that team can perform and achieve more than its capability. For the comprehensive vision of what I can offer as a leader to my colleagues and team members, this self-assessment provides me with an opportunity to reflect on my inclination to readiness to help, communicate with each individual in the team, pay attention to the smallest and meticulous details in the tasks, establish friendly relations in the team, and cooperate with colleagues as well as teammates. After reflecting on my self-assessment of my leadership capabilities, recommendations including a substantial review of the scholarly literature related to leadership, the practice of effective communication skills, and recommendations for the establishment of professional relations with professional leaders are made.

References

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