“Learning about yourself and about leadership, however, are not the same as leading. Deciding to be an exemplary leader is not the same as being one. Leading is doing. You need to make leading a daily habit. You need to do something every day to learn more about leading, and you need to put those lessons into practice every day” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 310). This quote from The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner perfectly sets the tone for my philosophy paper, and I placed it as I believe it has some crucial messages that may educate any individual who desires to become a leader, including myself. Leading is a daily ritual of sorts. It is the phenomenon of continuous acts of expanse with knowledge pertaining to leadership. Leaders often believe they have already achieved greatness because of the title they earned or because they already are in their head, but the actual truth of a great leader comes from the practices and habits learned over years of hard work and dedication. This is precisely what I have been doing these past three months in my leadership course—studying the art of leading. I have taken in knowledge, practices and have studied the differences between someone who claims to be a leader and one who is effective at leading; over the semester, I believe I have found the exact criteria needed to be an exemplary leader. Throughout this paper, I will discuss an effective leader, how I am becoming one myself, the ideals and philosophies of leadership, important lessons from my past, and more.
To some, leadership is just a word; to others, it brings a sense of meaningfulness, a set of standards they follow to better themselves. Can you truly become an effective leader if you believe the term leader is just another word, a title, nothing more? For me, an effective leader will always have pre-determined traits, extensive knowledge, and past experiences that provide and show the reasoning behind why they handle themselves as such a dependable leader. They have become this role model, and although in their mind, they may deny this, most times they are; to guide and lead others to unity with a common cause. Before exploring and diving into more detail about what effective leadership means to me, we should go over some of the key traits I believe a leader should possess before even considering becoming one. Most of these traits should already be a prerequisite if you are a decent person or hope to get a job in the business field. Loyalty, empathy, honesty, determination, respect, selflessness, integrity, and passion; are the traits that I believe every person should carry within when they become a leader. These traits may differ from person to person, and of course, there are many more not included here, but it gives you the general idea of the prerequisites for being an effective role model and leader. Now that we have discussed the traits, we can better understand leadership characteristics, which now allows me to dive deeper into what effective leadership means to me personally.
Having a vision is one of the main elements behind successful leadership, and to me, it is the true meaning of an effective leader. As Kouzes and Posner stated there is five practices of exemplary leadership, and for me I believe I would fit into the inspiring a shared vision section. Leaders with a vision build this foundation that will encompass the business but also need to be wary when providing that vision as they need to make it provoking enough so that others can and will want to follow. Using their years of knowledge to inspire, so that together a vision can be created that will guarantee success. Having a vision is about motivation and inspiration; you need others to see the end result, or it will be much harder to have any foundation. Vision is one of the most powerful tools that can be used. Having a vision is not just a statement but rather a goal that team members and staff can get behind with a common cause. Leaders need to provide a clear and powerful enough vision so the team can understand the goals and attach themselves to it without hesitation. The vision must also align with the company’s goals and the employees; it needs to share the organization’s values and be simplistic enough for everyone to understand. Choosing a vision is not always an easy decision, and because of this, it may take a toll or become challenging for new leaders, but over time it will come naturally. I believe, as a visionary, you need to respect all team members and guide them, showing why you are doing what you are about to do; they need to realize that your interest is also theirs. You can not only think about yourself with these decisions, as it will impact not only you but also those who believe in you. A vision is nothing without an end goal and a meaning; it is your job as a leader to take these challenges and turn them into a bright future. “In every personal-best leadership case, leaders talked about ideals. They expressed a desire to make dramatic changes in the business-as-usual environment. They reached for something grand, something magnificent, something never done before. Visions are about hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They are about a strong desire to achieve something beyond good, something great and extraordinary. They are ambitious. They are expressions of optimism” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 119).
For the last ten years, I myself have had many leadership opportunities; before starting my leadership course, I actually thought that I was a decent leader, but now I realize, looking back, I did not even know what leadership was. I had qualities and traits that made me believe I was decent; I often provided positivity, creativeness, honesty, respect, enthusiasm, initiative, and a few more, but still felt I lacked in a bunch of areas too. I believe me being in a leadership role mostly started when I coached some soccer in my earlier days, but I would say I got most of my experience working. I used to work for a company called Global Experience Specialists, or in short GES. My job was essentially to set up tradeshows all around Edmonton. This could be at Northlands, Rexall, West Edmonton Mall, Shaw Conference, or any place else that needed a booth or two. At each new location, I usually would get a new group of temp workers to boss around; this is where most of my experience in leading came from. I do not think I did much to motivate them; I just told them what to do and left it at that. I usually felt my job was not there to inspire, as I would get a new group in a few days, so it felt pointless. Nevertheless, I was wrong. Sometimes the work method would be inadequate or take too much time. Maybe if I empathized more with their values and shared my vision with them, treating them like actual team members, I would have never had to resolve any issues. Yes, I respected them and tried to show initiative, but it was not authentic leadership, or what I believe to be true leadership now. That is in the past, though, and I have learned from experience, as I am still learning to this day. As I said earlier, I believe a true vision is the best way to be an effective leader, and from my own experience, I will need to practice it more among a few other qualities that I will explain and go into with further detail.
When you think of yourself as a leader and how you became one, you often do not question how you got there, it usually has been a long road of hard work and dedication, and you are already where you wanted to be, so why does it matter how you achieved the goal. I say this because I never really recollect any of the vital lessons I was taught growing up with leadership. I never truly thought about these experiences and identified any importance in them. Most of these lessons I forgot about I did take with me subconsciously so there was still value with them. Thinking about past experiences is always a weird subject for me. Often I do not know what to say or feel as there may be some form of judgment. Although, in leadership, any decision can also be a benefit, as it is learning from experience. Earlier, I wrote about some key traits that should be a prerequisite as a leader, and yes, I believe all the ones I listed should be prominent in any leadership role, especially how vision is the most critical trait to becoming an effective leader, but there is also more I have discovered while reminiscing and taking the time to delve deep inside myself and my past. In the last paragraph, I provided an example of how I took the initiative and some of my leadership qualities, but now I will discuss some of the lessons I have learned throughout my life that I was taught from following instead of being in charge as a leader, and show why these may have influenced what I consider the archetype of a leader to be. Three examples come to mind, two positives, one negative—each different.
Inclusivity and diversity issues are scenarios that affect every workplace, either small or large, and in most cases tend to be negative. The negative cases you hear about are rather heartbreaking, as they may affect that person for their entire life. For my first example, I will start with the negative experience, explaining what happened and what I learned from it. After this experience occurred it helped me understand inclusivity and diversity dynamics within a workplace better, it also taught me how to value an employee too. This occurrence also led me to believe leaders need to share the values of their employees, and not treat them as just another person to control. “Shared values are the foundation for building productive and genuine working relationships” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 60). To start, When I was younger, I had a rather ugly experience; I used to work at a McDonalds, now this place seemed great. It was close to my high school, close to home, and the money was excellent for a teenager with no responsibilities at least. For the first month or so, it seemed perfect. After working there for a bit, the staff eventually hired a person who was in his early thirties and immigrated from another country. The man, who we will call Seb, had only been in Canada for roughly two years before hired. Seb’s issue mostly took place whenever he was working with a particular manager who we will call Mike. Now Seb was not the best worker, sometimes he was slow or would mess up orders, but it was not entirely his fault, his English was not the best, and I could see that he was trying most times, even if he did mess up on occasion. Now when Seb and Mike worked together, there would often be some heat generated between the two, mostly with Mike, as Seb was very shy, quiet, and easy to boss around. If you said something to him, he usually would not argue it, and do what he is told, even if it seemed cruel or distasteful. Now Mike was usually a great guy, towards me at least, he was the one who hired me, and taught me everything I needed to know within the first couple of weeks, but I could kind of see his true colors whenever he worked with Seb. At first, Seb and Mike were okay, normally Mike would say some racial jokes, but light-heartedly, you could not tell if they were malicious intent, but the more Seb would annoy Mike or mess up either his work, the more frustrated and menacing Mike would get. This gradually escalated over three months. Eventually, Mike started threatening Seb, making fun of his English almost every day, talking behind his back, and giving him the worst jobs, like cleaning the toilets. I eventually went to Seb and told him to speak with Mike’s superior; Seb declined as he did not want to get into trouble himself. Although I told him he did nothing wrong, he was too afraid to get fired. Luckily, or not so luckily, Mike confronted Seb for the last time during a work period where all three of us were on shift. Mike started using racial slurs towards Seb, insisting he would fire him if he did not fix his English. Seb still did not do anything, so I took matters into my own hands. Even though I liked Mike, I went to the McDonald’s district manager and reported him anonymously. The next day, he was fired. Mike did not know who caused him to get fired, but at first he thought it was Seb, and almost attacked him, but I told Mike that it was me, and after some vulgar words and a tantrum, he left. That was the last I ever saw of Mike. To this day, Seb should have said something earlier, as it is very disheartening to hear situations like this. As a visionary leader, you must listen and include all others into your vision, no matter race, sex, or beliefs. I believe if leaders empathized more with the person being attacked, fewer situations like this would happen. I know for me personally that I would include everyone in my vision, hoping that no one feels left out or excluded. Even though this conflict seemed difficult at first, and I did not think of it for a long time until now, I believe it affected my leadership ethic, in a way that was not visible to me before; it helped me maintain proper empathy for inclusivity. As a visionary leader, I take diversity issues seriously, and would not hesitate to help a fellow employee. Inclusivity is great, you get different views and different aspects of life helping you and your business to achieve the overall vision, creating trust and bonds between people which will only generate more success. “The most effective leadership situations are those in which each member of the team trusts the others. When trust is the norm, decisions are made efficiently and swiftly, innovation is higher, and profitability increases” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 198).
Now that the negative experience is out of the way, I will talk about my positive ones and how they positively affected me as a leader. You could say the negative experience gave me a more positive outlook, but it came from a villainous leader and an adverse scenario; these two both came from positives and leaders who were more aligned with a hero persona. As I said above, my negative experience helped me learn how to handle diversity and inclusivity issues while allowing me to see how important trust is within any work dynamic. The two positives helped me better understand why I valued the specific characteristics and traits needed for what I believe to be an effective leader. At first, it was hard for me to think of scenarios where I was a follower and explain why specific characteristics and visionary leaders resonated with me more, but after an astral projection one night while thinking, I believe I figured out why. These two situations that happened, although similar, took place years apart. The first one started when I was only eleven, maybe twelve and continues to this day. The second occurred just last year. When I was a kid, I often had difficulties talking to others; I was shy and way more introverted than I am now; I would consider myself even an extrovert today. Every day my mom had this goal to teach me something new or a different way to view the world and branch out of my shell. I believe this is one of the main reasons why I eventually, over time, became less shy and more confident. For the first leader from my positive experiences, it would go to my mom. She taught me valuable leadership lessons without me, even realizing it. Because of how she taught me to view the world and how to do what is right, she also taught me how to empathize with others, have determination to succeed, and how to communicate appropriately. These stories and lessons my mom taught provided me with lots of valuable information, as Kouzes and Posner said, “Through stories, leaders pass on lessons about shared values, define culture, and get others to work together” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 86). I believe communication may have had the most significant impact out of the three traits above, as it is one of the notable traits that indicate an excellent visionary leader. Communicating your vision with others and also allowing them to share theirs with you. Speaking about communication, it is only appropriate to provide a clear example of how my mom helped me increase my communication skills without me even realizing it. My mom helped me understand the value of listening, I did not question why she wanted to teach me these lessons or what was the reasoning behind the way she thought it could better me as an adult, but the more I think about the experiences she taught me while growing, the more I understand. Listening is part of communication, and I always listened to what she had to say. I followed and trusted her and eventually, over time, became more knowledgeable and confident because of the practices and values I learned. Without even knowing I would benefit from any of the lessons, I did them anyway. I am glad I did what she told me when I was younger and still to this day, as it helps me view the world differently and open my eyes to a lot more things. Maybe this is why I value a leader with a vision, and one that can empathize and listen to the dreams of others too. “The best leaders are great listeners. They listen carefully to what other people have to say and how they feel. They ask good (and often tough) questions, are open to ideas other than their own, and even lose arguments in support of the common good. Through intense listening, leaders get a sense of what people want, what they value, and what they dream about” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 108).
The second positive experience also includes elements of communication, but it also incorporates some other traits. Last year I had the opportunity to model for a fashion line, and I quickly jumped at the chance due to my obsession with clothing. The aesthetic of streetwear and the plenteous amount of options to choose from when deciding on a wardrobe always fascinated me, and gave enjoyment; I also just loved spending my money on clothes. So I had to jump at the opportunity the second I got offered. Before even getting to be in the fashion show, I had to do plenty of background work that caused mental and physical stress. I had to do a lot of research and learning on the environment and what I needed to do to achieve success so I could envision myself where I wanted to be. “Envisioning the future requires you to connect with your deepest feelings. You have to find something that is so important that you are willing to put in the time, suffer the inevitable setbacks, and make the necessary sacrifices” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 104). After a few weeks of testing my patience and resilience, I got the confirmation that I would be getting the official job. Now, this was not your type of monthly paid full-time salary job, it was a two-week gig, with hardly any pay. You were going for the experience and the other benefits that could come with it. Once I arrived for the first week, I was taught multiple lessons almost every day. I had to sit and listen for hours on end, studying other’s performance, and getting taught many different techniques on what I needed to do, and how the industry was run. The lessons I was taught were from multiple people, all in the leadership roles, each one influenced me differently, but in unique ways. As I said earlier my mom was the sole example for my first positive experience, this second one had me learning and listening through communication from a bunch of different people, and each of them I respected fully as they also were showing and providing the same hard work and dedication I did to get there, and that I was still continuously doing. While practicing I underwent long twelve to fourteen-hour days, I had the determination to succeed, so I kept at it. “As necessary as enhancing self-determination is, it’s insufficient. Without the knowledge, skills, information, and resources to do a job expertly, and without feeling competent to execute skillfully the choices required, people feel overwhelmed and disabled. Even if they have the resources and skills, there may be times when people do not have confidence that they are allowed to use them or that they will be backed up if things do not go as well as expected. There may be times when they just lack the self-confidence to do what they know they need to do” (Kouzes and Posner, 2017, p. 233). Kouzes and Posner speak of determination as enhancing one’s self, and the prerequisites needed to succeed, I believe because of the leaders I met while getting taught lessons about and for the fashion industry I was able to learn efficiently. I had the resources already provided, which helped me immensely, giving me self-confidence, and eventually, the self-determination I knew I needed if I wanted to succeed.
To evaluate my current leadership skills was not very difficult for me because I know myself pretty well. I already have spoken about many existing leadership skills I possess, like creativeness and enthusiasm, and some I believe an effective leader should have, but I will only evaluate the ones I learned with my three experiences to make things not too complicated. I will also briefly reflect how I am a visionary leader, as it is my main goal for effective leadership. The skills and traits I will be evaluating and assessing will be my inclusivity and diversity growth, how trust is crucial, communication skills, determination, and vision. Starting with inclusivity and diversity, I would say that I am fairly decent at that as a leader. I explained thoroughly about it above and gave some ideas about why and how I believed in it as a person. I think it is necessary to be diverse as a leader because of all the opportunities that come with it; it also makes you a better person, not just a better leader. Growth is an essential aspect of diversity, as you need to grow as an individual and allow yourself to view others’ perspectives. To identify my score for diversity and inclusivity, I would give myself a solid (6.5/10). I believe I am decent at it as a leader, but I often exclude others on occasion and may find myself targeting someone if their viewpoint differs from my own. I usually tend to be very inclusive, but there are scenarios where my personal judgment gets the better of me. When I discussed the situation with Seb, and Mike I believe I have a very high scoring regards to that type of diversity, or inclusivity, but when using it for other methods, I may not be as good, such as including others into my overall vision, which is how I landed on the 6.5. “When there is greater gender and racial and ethnic diversity in leadership, there is not one majority group to which everyone needs to conform. Each leader is more likely to maintain his or her individuality and be less likely to blindly follow the group if he or she disagrees. Moreover, diverse leaders look through at the world through their different cultural lenses which lead those types of groups to create better solutions” (Ladders Contributor, 2018).
“When your team trusts you as a leader, it increases commitment to team goals. Communication improves, and ideas flow more freely, increasing creativity and productivity. Perhaps most important, in the hands of a trusted leader, employees are more comfortable with change and more willing to embrace a new vision” (Behance, 2014). Speaking briefly about trust, I think that this quote demonstrates everything you need to say about it within a work environment. Communication and trust are similar in a bunch of areas, so I will not go too in-depth, but I believe trusting is just as important as any other leadership trait. Right now, I would say that my skills in trustworthiness are exceptional, as I feel it is best, to be honest in most situations. Lying may always have some benefits, but it is also risky, and has major repercussions. I believe overall being trustworthy on its own can single-handedly carry a leadership team. For my current ratings for trust, I would say I am an 8/10, but hopefully one day can be a 10, as I think it is very important to build a team around trust as it can turn an uncoordinated team into something exceptional.
Next, I will speak a bit about my communication skills. I would say my communication is definitely a strong point for me today; before, when I was younger, not so much, due to being an introvert, I probably would have even said back then I was a 5, maybe even a 4 on the rating scale. Because of all the experiences I have faced through life and the lessons I was taught, I could confidently say I am a (9/10) for communication. I often can communicate appropriately to others, but I feel that is only half of what communication offers; the other half is listening to the needs of others too, which I have also been able to develop decently well, which is how I landed on the 9. For an example of how I use my communication skills right now, I would say I use my leadership communication skills in my group projects in my current classes. Still, I have had a lot of experience with communication throughout my life in different ways. These experiences come from listening to others leading and leading others around when I am in the spotlight, and I shared some of those experiences in my examples above.
Moving onto determination, I mostly focused on this leadership trait when I explained the pursuit of my job as a model in the fashion industry, but it is also apparent in many other parts of my life. Trying to get the job and succeed, there was much adversity there I needed to face. Because me wanting it so bad, I was determined to get it regardless of all the mental fatigue. Determination, I believe, is vital in leadership as it is a quality that drives you to get what you want; it gives you the persistence to continuously aim for the top, which is what every leader should strive for. I would not say determination is my best trait because sometimes, if I feel overwhelmed, that determination will gradually fall off, but I am somewhere a little bit above better than average. If I were to rate myself, I would say I am roughly a (7/10). Determination has helped me out, though not only in my modeling aspirations but also in life in many scenarios, like hoping to build a better life for myself. I had self-determination within to go back to school and learn to better my future, and now I am here doing it, so I believe if I put my mind to it efficiently, like when I wanted to be in the fashion industry, I can overcome difficulties, and keep on persisting.
Lastly, for what I believe to be an effective leader, vision. Vision is essential to me because, without a vision, there is nothing guiding others towards what the end goal is. You want to accomplish your objectives as a leader, and the best way to have support from others is to provide a clear and powerful vision. Visionary leaders do not only incorporate their own vision, as they also listen to others. I thoroughly explained visionary leaders above, so I will not go into significant detail as I do not seem redundant. Still, overall, having a vision is the best practice to learn as a leadership quality, as it will improve your performance and the performance of those around you too. As a visionary leader, I would say it is my weakest trait being discussed, as I do not have much practice with it at the moment. I would say I am a (5/10), but I hope to eventually grasp what it means to be a true visionary eventually. I landed on this rating because I do understand the concepts of a visionary leader, so with more practice, I believe I could be adequate, but right now, without the proper practice and only the knowledge, I cannot seem to give myself any higher, as I believe that would be false.
In recent paragraphs, I rated some of my leadership traits; now, I will create an action plan for the scores I did not do so well and evaluate them with the SMART framework. The SMART framework has five specific roles to follow, and I will analyze each trait by the specific letter within the SMART goal setting framework; we will call them SMART goals. For determination, communication, and trust, I feel my scores are already decently high, so I will only focus on the two I perceive to be my weakest links: vision and diversity. Vision is what I value the most, and have vocalized how I believe it is the best trait to have for effective leadership, so it should only be necessary that I try to improve. Above I said I would rate myself a (5/10) because I have not had enough experience with it, but if I create an action plan going step by step, I could eventually see it rising. First, for specific, I need to make sure my goals are tangible. Saying what I want to achieve here should be my first goal, and that is to have more practice using my vision to influence others to follow. I have studied and have pertained knowledge about visionary leaders, but I still have not been able to use it in a work environment yet. To achieve this goal, I will evaluate whether I can see myself improving. If I get the opportunities to use my vision, I could measure it by asking to see if others believe in the future I have provided and see themselves having their vision the same as mine. This goal is roughly attainable, it is a bit challenging to hit where I want to be because of how much hard work must go into practicing and creating an appropriate vision, but I believe I can still get where I need to be with hard work and determination. Achieving this goal is very relevant to me as it is the main reasoning behind what I believe to be an effective leader, which is valuable to me and worthwhile to achieve. To motivate me to achieve this goal, I would like to hit where I need to be within the next five years; hitting that goal may even only improve one or two points, but any improvement is better than none.
Now for my diversity and inclusivity SMART goals, I believe I landed on a higher score than my vision trait for several reasons, and the main one being I have had an experience related to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. I landed on the (6.5/10) because I understand the dynamics of what is needed due to real-life experience, but I also have room where I need growth and can see myself improving in critical areas. So diversity and inclusivity are issues that do not only affect workplaces but affect you almost everywhere you look, online, at the mall, out at the park; issues like this always pop up regardless. It is just human nature. Some diversity issues such as racism are much nastier than an inclusivity issue at work, but each will still impact the individual targeted, so everyone needs to be aware. Following the SMART goal framework, for the first letter S, to achieve this goal, since I have already had experiences from it, just learning off of those. Using my past knowledge and my own personal values to help out in the scenarios. I had the issue with Seb and Mike, and I believe I did what I needed to do, even if it took me a little longer than it should have. I find those scenarios awkward, and it is probably the area where I could see myself needing a bit more growth. Inclusivity is where I would say I have more strength; often, I try to include everyone, no matter where they are from or their views and values. That is just who I am. In specific scenarios, I may be blinded and not see that I am doing wrong, but I know that I can improve, as I can see myself becoming better at it just by writing this paper. For how measurable this goal is, I would say I can defiantly see success in my future, a lot faster than the vision trait too. Whereas vision takes a lot of practice and knowledge, diversity and inclusivity are things that you can learn on your own that come from within, so if you try to create a cohesive and diverse work setting, you can easily measure and attain those goals. It is also attainable since I am already starting to expand my mindset with inclusivity and diversity; there may be some barriers when I try to stop the conflict, as I find those issues awkward, but I am personally an open-minded individual, so I welcome all. Diversity and inclusivity issues are among the one of, if not the most, that affect workplaces with negative experiences; I think even today, this is more relevant than ever. I think trying to improve in this aspect is very important, as it is right for my values, and can see it improving every experience I have within a team. Since I already see improvement in myself, I could say that I will gradually become better within the next two to three years, which I can see as a very realistic time frame, as I have and am still learning.
My personal practice will continue to develop long after this course is done, and because of this, my leadership style will grow as well. Each leader has their own way of exploring potential leadership techniques, so each leader will take unique paths. Which is why I cannot see a predetermined route for me, I know areas where I need to improve, and areas where I am already starting to excel at, if I continue down this path of growth eventually I will get where I want to be. This development of being unique does not make only some leaders adequate but instead explores different leadership methods for individual leadership styles. Not every leader is universally able; this is where broadening out comes into play. A leader will develop themselves over years of routine, some taking longer than others to achieve what they believe is an effective leader. So, as I continue to grow and learn from experience, I will become the leader whom I want to be, so this journey of becoming an effective leader has only just begun.
References
The Leadership Challenge Sixth Edition: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations: James M. Kouzes, Barry Posner, Brian Holsopple. (2017).
Ladders Contributor. (2018, November 12). The value of diversity in leadership roles. Ladders | Business News & Career Advice; Ladders. https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/the-value-of-diversity-in-leadership-roles
Behance, I. (2014, September 29). The Most Important Skill for Great Leaders? Trustworthiness. Adobe 99U. https://99u.adobe.com/articles/32883/the-most-important-skill-for-great-leaders-trustworthiness#:~:text=When%20your%20team%20trusts%20you,freely%2C%20increasing%20creativity%20and%20productivity.&text=%E2%80%9CWhen%20your%20team%20doesn’t,agree%20that%20trust%20is%20good
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