Essential Lessons about Leadership

Portfolio of Leadership Modules
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Portfolio of Leadership Modules
A leader is a person who influences or inspires followers to accomplish set goals or objectives. Indeed, the individual guides and empowers others to follow a specific path that maximizes the expected outcomes. There exist various leadership styles, namely transformational, situational, transactional, democratic, bureaucratic, laissez-faire, and autocratic. For instance, transformational leadership entails the followers developing respect and trust for their leader, which makes them motivated to achieve established organizational goals. The portfolio summarizes essential lessons that one has obtained from the five leadership modules covered so far.
Daniel Goleman, a renowned American psychologist, affirms that effective leaders have a high level of emotional intelligence. In particular, emotional intelligence entails the ability of an individual to understand and manage his or her emotions since one knows that they influence the people around him or her (Goleman, 2004). Individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence know what they are feeling and their emotions and understand how their emotions influence others. Based on Goleman (2004), emotional intelligence has five primary elements that include self-regulation, empathy, self-awareness, social skill, and motivation. Individuals with high levels of self-awareness know how their feelings impact them, others, and their performance at work. For instance, a person with self-awareness understands that working under tight deadlines has detrimental effects and carefully plans his or her time to get the work done on time. Self-regulation entails an individual’s ability to redirect or control his or her moods and impulses when making judgments. In addition, motivation is the drive to pursue goals with persistence and energy that goes beyond money. Empathy is the skill of treating others based on their emotional reactions. Social skills involve proficiency in building and managing relationships to get rapport for accomplishing various things. Besides, I am a self-aware, self-regulated, and empathetic person who is motivated to give outstanding results by having a conducive environment. For instance, I understand that when individuals lose their loved ones, they need a break from work to avoid possible conflicts.
Followership is the individuals’ ability to meet goals as directed by their leaders. The path-goal theory prioritizes the interaction between followers’ characteristics, leaders’ styles, and the leader-follower work setting (Holsinger, 2017). The expectancy theory states that a follower’s behaviors and actions emanate from the conscious decisions made after valuing various options. The five main types of followership are pragmatist, alienated, conformist, exemplary, and passive (Kelley, 1988). Exemplary followers have high levels of independent critical thinking and active engagement. Conformist followers are dependent uncritical thinkers and have high active engagement. Notably, I am a conformist follower who is always actively engaged in meeting set goals and objectives. Passive followers are dependent uncritical thinkers and low in active engagement. Alienated followers are low in active engagement and highly independent critical thinkers. Pragmatist followers have an average level of engagement and critical thinking (Kelley, 1988). In particular, understanding followership is critical to effective leadership. Leaders should be aware of followership styles so that they can be able to control their followers’ actions and behaviors without conflict. As discussed above, each type of follower has distinct characteristics. When a leader knows that, it becomes easy to have tasks accomplished. Emotional intelligence can be used to shift team members’ followership styles. For example, an alienated follower can be turned into a pragmatist one by encouraging the individual to actively engage in team and social activities. My conformist personality makes me outstanding at work since I do my best to achieve the best results. When faced with challenges that I cannot handle, I share with my colleagues, and we help each other out and overcome them.
Situational leadership entails selecting the most appropriate style of leadership for specific individuals. Notably, situational leaders depict two primary types of behaviors, namely supportive and directive. The varying levels of supportive and directive behaviors lead to four leadership styles: delegating, coaching, directing, and supporting (EPM, 2018). My personality in situational leadership is supportive. I always support people around me. At times, being supportive and empathetic entails listening to individuals who have problems and helping them to address these issues. I understand that everyone needs help at some point in life. On th...