Self-Reflection Essay Example

For me, leadership has been a continually changing concept. Right from a very tender age, I have encountered different kinds of people that have greatly influenced my definition of leadership. As a leader, I have always aspired to inspire and empower other people through encouragement, providing them with the right tools and also cultivating a vision that involves everyone. This, in essence, has seen my paradigm on leadership evolve and also enabled me to seek to challenge myself and develop as a leader constantly. This being said, the core intent of this self-reflection essay is to discuss my leadership strengths as a relationship-oriented leader as well as the areas I intend to grow in in the future.

Growing up, I have always believed that the leadership style that best supports my plan is the relationship-oriented style of leadership. Being this kind of a leader, I have maintained the sincere desire to know my team members in any given situation. This includes identifying their most emotional traits so that I am in a position to help them as a team, and help them overcome any overwhelming tasks. Besides, both my leadership strengths and weaknesses are apparent after taking the required assessments that have always required me to become transparent. I believe that I am now a leader continually learning and growing into the leader I envision in the future. Similarly, my action plan for accomplishing my future leadership goals are specific and measurable. For this reason, I intend to use my plan to achieve my future goals as a relationship-oriented leader and also, to continually assess my progress through a specific comprehensive plan.

Another very significant strength in my leadership is that I have an open-door policy which for the longest time, has enabled me to communicate my values. Drawn from this premise, I fell that for every team member to be in a position to operate successfully, they ought to be on the same page with everyone else and should also have the desired drive to accomplish the set goals. Although I firmly uphold my traits as a relationship-oriented leader, I ensure to practice transformational leadership when interacting with people. In this regard, I primarily focus on peoples cultures and learning experiences. Additionally, practicing this style of leadership has fostered in me the desire to transform the priorities and the values of my team members and also motivating them to perform beyond their expectation and to reach some apparently impossible goals.

With regard to my current profession, both of these leadership styles are effective in my profession, and I intend to continue put them to use as long as they are successful. In the words of the renowned scholar Bass, I believe that, as a transformational leader, I should seek new ways of working and also refrain from reacting to the circumstances, but instead attempt to shape and create them. I also make use of both the relationship oriented and transformational leadership strategies when appropriate to increase effort by raising mental awareness about the outcome. Although this is one of the areas that I consider to be among my weaknesses, I believe that by increasing self- consciousness and investing in a team member, his or her success is heightened. My leader-member relationship allows both leadership styles to be of use. It is dependent on the members and the desired outcome.