Theme 5: My vision of leadership

Figure 1: Walt Disney, A transformational leader. Source: (Victorstuff 2013).

My definition of leadership is “leadership is evaluating the business’s need, leading a visionary and strategic way of molding people into a self-inspired and committed individual to achieve the objectives set by the management” (Yukl, 2010:26).

My Vision

My vision “I want to be a transformational leader with the emotional intelligence of visionary leadership and responsive to change to achieve and sustain the goal set by the organization” (Mullins 2010).

In my opinion, there is no best leadership style been discovered so far. Every successful leader has their unique strength and critical success factors (CSF) to succeed. My strategy will be to absorb some of the best practices and combine it to become my own effective leadership style. My model of leadership is incorporated with each other (Mullins 2010).

Figure 2: Transformational leadership model. Source: (transformationallead 2012).

I would like to lead using transformational leadership (Figure 2), where I will focus on influencing my followers through charisma, enhance team model through inspiration, stimulate innovation and creativity and consideration on people’s need and differences (transformationallead 2012).

Table 1: Transformational leadership skills assessment. (transformationallead 2012).

The table above illustrates the leadership skills I have based on the transformational leadership style. Based on transformational leadership, I would like to emphasize on visionary leadership which really inspires me. Although it is a practice of “envisioning the future”, I would like to develop it further as a leadership style by itself. This is why I am incorporating “Emotional intelligence” by Daniel Goleman to the transformational style. Visionary leadership style is needed when the business requires a new development. Visionary leaders know how to move people towards the innovative, experimental ideas and endeavor calculated risks to get to their aspired vision (Goleman 2015).

The Kurt Lewin 3-stage model of change will explain on managing the resistance to change. I will stress especially on the third phase since it is the stage where the changes are made to be permanent and a sustaining plan is established. It will be also the internalisation period of the business cycle (Mindtools 2016).

Figure 3: Steve Jobs on leadership Source: (Quotesgram 2013).

 My Inspiration

My inspirational leader will be none other than the late Steve Jobs, honoring his accomplishment as an innovator, his passion for perfection and his focused vision ahead for the future. The ex-CEO of Apple’s visionary leadership caused him to co-found the company Apple in 1976, rescued the company from bankruptcy in 1997 and since then he made the company as world’s most valuable company. Along his leadership journey, he has helped to transform seven industries; personal computers, tablet computing, phones, music, retail stores, digital publishing and animated movies. Therefore he is also a transformational leader belong to the list of America’s great innovators Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Walt Disney. I would like to share my favourite quote from Steve Jobs “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do” Apple’s “Think Different” commercial 1997 (Isaacson 2012).

 What have I learned from this MBA program?

In the past semester and after doing the four blogs on various aspects of leadership, I have been exposed to many leadership styles as well as understand the significance and the impact of it positively and negatively. I can relate this experience to my current profession and try to improve my leadership style and quality (Culckrishnan 2016).

I am currently at a senior executive level and my next progress will be stepping into the managerial level. In my organization, when a senior executive is identified as a potential leader for the company, the person will be selected to join the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) instructor program in the South East Asia headquarters office. This is a six months course emphasizing on leadership skills and manufacturing analytical and technical competency. The course is conducted by the WCM regional coordinator. At the end of the program, the participants are required to present a real time project based on the plant they are working in and will be audited by a panel of WCM specialist. This WCM instructor course is well recognized in my organization and it is a compulsory program for an operation manager. My plan is to get selected for this course and develop to be an effective leader with strong manufacturing competency skills (Saint Gobain 2016).

Figure 4: Typefinder Personality type test result. Source: (truity.com 2016).

The Typefinder personality test is a scientifically validated personality type test based on the original 16 types created by Isabel Briggs Myers. The figure above shows the results of my personality test. After going through the results, I found that I am an extrovert in managing energy, an intuitive in processing information and a thinker when dealing with personal values (truity.com 2016). I have discovered that I have the commander and visionary personality. A person with these traits is defined as open-minded and unconventional, visionaries want to analyze, understand and influence other people, conceptualize new solutions and enjoy developing long-range plans to accomplish their vision (truity.com 2016). Seeing this result, I can confidently say that I have traits of a leader and I belong to the management level group.

Although I have basic leadership qualities, by the time I complete my MBA program I would have gained my knowledge in leadership in the business of global management. I still have a long way to accomplishing as a transformational leader but I will never stop chasing my dream, and I will end here with Steve Jobs’s quote “You did the impossible because you didn’t realize it was impossible” (Isaacson 2012).

 

Video 1: Steve Jobs giving a speech in Stanford University convocation (Stanford 2008).

In this video, he shares three inspiring stories about his life to the graduating student at Stanford University.

Reference list

1. Burns, J.M. (2003) Transforming Leadership. New York: Grove Press3.
2. Culckrishnan, (2016) ‘culckrishnan blogs’ [online] available from < https://culckrishnan.wordpress.com/ > [14 July 2016]

3.Goleman, D. (2015) ‘What Makes a Leader’. Harvard Business Review [online] 11 September. available from < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WICq_Pj8ZUk&feature=youtu.be> [18 July 2016]

4. Isaacson, W. (2012) The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

[online] available from < https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs > [14 July 2016]

5. Kouzes, J.M. and Posner, B.Z. (2012) ‘When Leaders are at Their Best’. in The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations. 5^thedn. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 9-40.
6. Mindtools (2016) Lewin’s Change Management Model

Understanding the Three Stages of Change  [online] available from                                            < https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_94.htm > [12 July 2016]

7. Mullins, L.J. (2010) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 9th edn, England: Pearson Higher Education
8. Quotesgram, (2013) Leadership Quotes By Steve Jobs [online] available from < http://quotesgram.com/leadership-quotes-by-steve-jobs/ > [14 July 2016]
9. Saint Gobain, (2016) WCM PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION [online] available from < https://www.saint-gobain-experience.com/en/content/wcm-program-implementation > [14 July 2016]

 

 

10.Stanford, (2008) ‘Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address’. [online]      available from < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc > [18 July 2016]

11. Transformationallead, (2012) Transformational Leadership: Encompassing the 4 I’s

 [online] available from < http://transformationallead.blogspot.my/ > [14 July 2016]

12. Truity, (2016) Typefinder Personality Test [online] available from < http://www.truity.com/personality-test/test-results/2930930 > [14 July 2016]
13. Victorstuff, (2013) 100 Best Success Quotes [online] available from < http://victorstuff.com/100-best-success-quotes > [14 July 2016]
14. Wiley, J. (2016) THE FIVE PRACTICES OF EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP® MODEL

[online] available from < http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/About-section-Our-Approach.aspx > [14 July 2016]

15. Yukl, G. (2010) ‘Introduction: The Nature of Leadership’. in Leadership in Organizations. 7th edn. New York: Pearson, 19-42.
16. 16personalities, (2016) FREE PERSONALITY TEST [online] available from < https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test > [14 July 2016]