The word leadership assigns and unimaginable task upon one person who has been chosen to be the head of a group. It is the act of steering a group of people who share qualities or ambitions towards a common goal. This person is called a leader. Somebody who knows how to handle people and in the process nurtures and brings out the best of those under his command in order to produce desired results. These are all definitions that come to mind once a person hears the term leadership. It is a term that is thrown about so lightly between offices and employees today and yet very little understood by the people who use the term.
When I first came to this leadership class, I had only the most common definition,such as any of those in the aforementioned statement, in my mind. I thought that becoming and being a leader was something that could easily be successfully undertaken. After all, how hard could it be to motivate and lead people when you all work in the same job or, in this case, attend the same class?
The answer, as I later found out, was that leadership is not something that can be taught in a series of classes. Rather, leadership is something that is found deep within a person. It is an inner strength that only comes to fore when it becomes highly necessary for somebody to step up to the plate and actually take charge. The results produced by the group comes from the vision of that one person. The leader who crafted the direction and outcome of the project through the help of his team members.
Traits Of An Effective Leader
It was because of this realization that I discovered the true importance of this Leadership class. Through the lessons and exercises, I came to the realization that leaders come in two types. Those who are born and those who are made. The kind of leader you are, whether born or made, is not as important though, as to how to come to establish yourself to be the leader of the pack or group. Indeed, one can be assigned to a leadership role and be destined to fail. All because one failed to master the true elements that must be developed and honed within a leader.
A true leader has qualities that has its roots not only in his knowledge and skill of a certain area or field of expertise, but also in knowing the various skills of his team members and how he can best harness that in order to insure that each team member shall fully contribute to the success of any project.
While class slowly progressed, I began to understand the various elements that made for an effective leader. Terms such as leadership, trust, competence, collaboration, and contribution, became all to familiar to me as we struggled to unite and work with one another during group projects. In the end, I came to understand that the word Team was actually the culmination of the aforementioned terms as effectively implemented by the team leader.
Leadership
During one of our group tasks in class, I was given the task of leading our group. Our group was composed of an equal number of men and women whom, shall we say, each had their own idea of what thing they wanted to do within the group. A sentiment which, if left unchecked, could have spelled disaster for our group. I found myself needing to rein in their ideas of self importance by earning their trust as leader. I am one person who is not highly confident of my leadership skills. Perhaps because I had always been more at home in the role of subordinate rather than leader. But this time, I knew that the success of the group depended upon how I would lead the team. So I worked very hard to establish myself as a trustworthy leader of the group. There was a lot of skepticism during the early part of the group project because this was the first project that I had been assigned to lead. I was untested and this made them jittery. But as I gained their trust, they themselves helped me to build and establish my self confidence in terms of my leadership skills.
Competence and Trust
One reason why I preferred to be a team member instead of a leader was because I lacked confidence in my ability to convey my thoughts and ideas in a workable form to a group of people. In previous cases, I would know that the leader of the group was doing something wrong but I chose to keep silent rather than say my piece because I had no idea how to put my words into terms that would be easily understood by others. Through this class I learned that being a true leader is not limited to how well you can speak. Rather, it all depends upon how you can translate your words into action. It is this coherence between my words and actions that helped me to explain to others in terms that required no words. When I saw a team mate implementing my orders, but not in the way I felt I had specified, I would take time out to show him exactly what I meant, without actually saying he was wrong, nor undermining his self confidence. By doing things this way, the team seemed to hear my words and understand my meaning in ways I never imagined possible.
I will have to admit though that there were times during our project when I felt like I was in over my head leadership and project wise. I was afraid of coming across as incompetent and losing the trust and confidence of my group members. If they had any inkling that I had even an ounce of incompetence in me, everything we had worked for could possibly fall like a house of cards. Which is why I had to quickly learn how to do things and understand things about our project which seemed unclear to me at the time. Anything that I felt I could not overcome, I made sure to assign to a more experienced and competent team member.
Collaboration
Through our collaborative efforts, I found that our team become more successful in our undertaking. However, I never let any of them develop too much of an aura of self importance. I made sure to make them understand that each team member, no matter how menial the task assigned, was a vital and integral part of the team’s success.
My leadership skills, as this project came to make me realize, had always been lying dormant within me. Therefore, our project proved to be not only a classroom exercise in leadership, but a journey towards self discovery as well. I had abilities that were untapped up to that point because I had always chosen the road more familiar to me, that of being a team member / subordinate. Now that I had found my voice as a leader, I knew I had to develop the skill and work on the shortcomings that I faced due to either fear or lack of knowledge and understanding.
My Shortcomings
Part of my shortcoming as a leader was that I often froze and got rattled once my leadership was questioned. Of all my shortcomings, this was the one part of m ability that concerned me the most because the integrity and cohesion of my team depended upon it. I need to learn to stick to the decisions I make because I truly believe that I am right rather than constantly coming to a compromise with the group which proves to waste time and energy during the completion of the project. I now finally understand that all leaders will find their decisions challenged by certain team members because it makes for a healthy competition within the group. However, by allowing the competition to prosper and remain loud enough to affect the work of the group, I ended up sacrificing the development of our group. Indeed, I have to insure that as a leader, I always push my members to show me the best that they can be and accomplish more than they think they can, without allowing them to drown me out or outshine my abilities and skills as a leader. Healthy competition is one thing, but I have to learn to not allow the members to challenge my leadership for any reason whatsoever.
How I Plan To Improve Upon My Leadership Abilities
The next time I find myself in such a situation, I will make sure to handle the erring team member by making him realize that although we value his contribution to the team, we are all in the same boat and it is our duty to bring out the potential in every team member. It is not our task to try and outshine one another simply for the sake of self-importance, envy, or jealousy. I must make it very clear to every team member in the future that if we do not cooperate with one another and learn to merge our ideas into one workable unit, we will all be setting up ourselves, both individually and as a team, to failure.
Conclusion
In the end, I finally understood that many are called to become leaders, and everyone who is called has the potential to become a highly effective leader even though you don’t think you have it in you. People skills is what matters in a leader and that is what I will always keep in mind when I undertake my future leadership roles.