“This I Believe” Essay
| Subject: | 🧓🏼 Personal Experience |
| Type: | Personal Narrative Essay |
| Pages: | 4 |
| Word count: | 889 |
| Topics: | 💪 Personal Strengths, Growth Mindset, Leadership, Self Reflection, 🔥 Motivation |
essay ASAP?
“The point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, and to use yourself completely-all your gifts, skills and energies-to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming.”
-Warren Bennis
A leader is a person who motivates individuals or groups of individuals towards attaining some goals. A leader goes first and leads his/her people by setting a good example that can be emulated by the followers. A leader sets a realistic and achievable goal and sees the goal as an accomplishment and does not waver until the goal is achieved. A leader is thus a person who is change-oriented. Leadership, therefore, is a person’s ability to influence and motivate the followers and to enhance effectiveness and success of the set goals.
A believe that a leader without a vision is like sailing a boat without navigation. Therefore, in my journey of becoming a leader, I realized the need for setting a vision. My vision is to deal with any obstacles that can affect my work and that of my followers as well as to inspire and motivate the team to pursue excellence at the workplace. Although as a leader I have the responsibility of setting the goal, this goal cannot solely be attained by me. To realize the vision of an organization, there is the need for cooperation and collective visualization of the goal (Carton, Murphy & Clark, 2014).
To manifest my vision, I commit myself wholly to the work life. While experience, patience, commitment, and knowledge are the driving factors towards good leadership (Carton, Murphy, & Clark, 2014), I believe that the achievement of my vision is precipitated by the skill to negotiate and work cooperatively and interdependently with the team members. Teamwork is essential to the growth and prosperity of an organization (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015). Personal and organizational obstacles facing the members can have detrimental effects on the organization. Consequently, I have to engage the members in decision making. Being part of the decision making the members develop the feeling that they are an integral body of the organization. Through my skills and experience, I seek to listen and solve any problems that a team member may be facing. In the process, the team members are motivated and pursue excellence. The effective cooperation between the followers and me is key to the realization of the goal.
Leaders are made and not born (Han, 2017). This assertion is meaningful to those aspiring to be leaders. To lead others, I realized, I must begin by leading myself first. As I expect my followers to commit to doing their jobs efficiently, I must lead by ensuring that I complete my tasks. I must be proficient in my tasks. That way, I will be able to insist on proficiency and efficiency among those that I lead. Secondly, I become myself through developing a sense of responsibility towards my followers (Maxwell, 2007). I develop relevant character traits that are necessary for the accomplishment of professional responsibilities. Thirdly, is ensuring that there is effective communication. Keeping the team members informed enhances sharing of information. Fourthly, is caring for the wellbeing of members. Finally is recognizing personal abilities and pursuing self-improvement.
Selflessness and a strong character also form the basis for the achievement of the vision (Carton, Murphy, & Clark, 2014). The achievement of the wellbeing of the employees must be taken into consideration while seeking to achieve the vision. The members want somebody to look up to. A person they can depend on to articulate their views and be their voice. For this reason, as a leader, I have to demonstrate a strong character by treating the team members the way I would like to be treated. I have to ensure that there is trust between myself and the team members.
As a leader, I am enjoying the entire process of becoming. I love what I do, know, and understand who I lead. I also know my duties and responsibilities as well as those that I lead. I know what they expect from me as their leader hence I lead as an example. The process of becoming has taught me to encourage, to self-motivate and to set a good example for the members to emulate. The golden rules always apply in that I treat and perceive my colleagues the way I would like to be perceived and treated if I were one. I endeavor to recognize the talents of the team members, nurture them and lead the best players in the right direction. I also set personal rules such as being passionate, elimination of fear, taking risks, dream and achieve and perceiving success in everything worth attempting. Leadership calls for time management, being trustworthy, not making excuses, decisiveness, advocating for the others, and avoiding deceitfulness (Kouzes & Posner, 2014). The process of becoming does not only focus on the finish line but chiefly what happens before reaching the finishing line. It feels good to influence people with different personalities to achieve a common goal. It is also satisfying to be the part of nurturing seemingly small talents to more significant talents among the employees. Equipping the team members with the necessary skills, knowledge, attitude, and experience is essential to the accomplishment of goals as their leader.
- Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), 6-14.
- Carton, A. M., Murphy, C., & Clark, J. R. (2014). A (blurry) vision of the future: How leaderrhetoric about ultimate goals influences performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(6), 1544-1570.
- Han, H. (2017). Making leaders. Lamp, The, 74(8), 16.
- Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2014). The student leadership challenge: Five practices for becoming an exemplary leader. John Wiley & Sons.
- Maxwell, J. C. (2007). The 21 indispensable qualities of a leader: Becoming the person others will want to follow. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Offered for reference purposes only.