MNGT2005 Leadership Experience Assignment Sample

• Subject Code : MNGT2005
• University : The University of Newcastle My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
• Subject Name : leadership

Leadership and Ethics

Table of Contents

Introduction.

Description of the Leadership Experience.

Evaluation of Leadership Experience.

Reflection on the experience.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Leadership and Ethics

The aim of the report is to reflect on my leadership experience that I faced when I was a manager at a coffee center which was known for its delicious food beverages and coffee, due to shift of the shop from one place to another. I have faced a lots of challenges and problems during my employment at coffee center where I used to work in past. As the owner was working on some other project, he has asked me to carry out the whole process of managing the work and employees at new place. It was a very big opportunity for me to stand out and prove myself as a leader. My role was to manage employees at the new place and if required, recruit new employees according to the conditions. This report will discuss about my leadership experience, in which identification and description of a relevant leadership experience will be carried out along with evaluation of my experience. It will also provide a reflection upon my experience.

Description of the Leadership Experience

According to me, a person is called leader when he actually works with the team despite of just ordering or commenting on the work of his teammates. Leadership is a skill which is developed through experiences and knowledge (Martin, Danzig, Wright, Flanary and Orr 2016). This skills are needed to be gained. It depends on various things like personality, attitude, experience and many more. Leadership involves influencing people with an aim of achieving certain set objectives. The achievement of organizational objectives is accomplished through use of effective skills in leadership. The leadership experience through which I have gone through has taught me a lot of things. The leadership experience that I will highlight in this essay is from my employment as a manager at coffee center when I have to perform the role of both manager as well as owner for some time.

Due to the shift of the shop to new location, the owner has asked me to manage the café and recruit people if required for new location. However, this opportunity was new for me but it was also a new experience for employees to accept me as a leader. Most of the employees are senior to me and they were very jealous and resistive about this decision of the owner (Laurs 2018). This was the time for me to prove myself and others that I am capable of leading the team and managing the team as effective as other leader can. The main problems at the new place was that, we have less staff members for which new members are needed to be recruited and other issue was that I have no knowledge about how to respond to the employee misbehave regarding my new role at the shop (Moore, Odom and Boyd 2017). However, most of the staff has not accepted me as a leader, I need to adopt more effective leadership style to change their mind about my capabilities. I have used different theories and principles to influence staff members so that my task get easy at the new shop location as a leader.

Evaluation of Leadership Experience

The leadership experience at coffee center was eye-opener to me, it shows the importance of leadership skills in individual’s life importance of leadership skills in the individual’s life. As a manager my work was to manage the staff member and comfort them will the new place. However, there was shift in my role where I have act as owner as well as manager due to which I become very arrogant and dominating. Before, this I used to ask employees calmly, to do their work but at this time of situation, I started ordering them and asking them to do their work as soon as possible. It was due to the new place and new role (Afsar, Badir and Kiani 2016). I was excited as well as nervous because the responsibility was too big and whatever happens, I will be responsible for that. Being an owner, it was also important for me to make sure that my coffee center becomes as famous as it was before. It was a new experience. I have also discussed about my new role with the staff member and also had a discussion on what to do and how to do. Majority were ready to work under my guidance as an owner but some of them were unhappy as they were senior and they have more experience than me. However, it was fine for me as, new opportunities brings new problems and challenges (Perryer, Celestine, Scott-Ladd and Leighton 2016).

For better working environment and better coordination, it is required that the whole staff member work together. For this, I used influence and motivational tactics so that everyone works as a team. A leader should develop the necessary power to influence behavior in an organization to a certain direction. In influencing behavior, an effective leader applies strategies or tactics that are meant to change the attitudes of the staff, their beliefs, values, and how they act. Effective managers apply soft tactics in their leadership that are friendly to their employees, are not coercive and other people perceive this tactics to be fair to them (Chaturvedi, Rizvi and Pasipanodya 2019). Some of the tactics applied by me as an effective managers include use of rational persuasion; it is where managers attempt to convince their juniors by applying logical arguments as well as introducing evidence that is based on facts.

I also apply inspirational appeal, which is attempting to create enthusiasm amongst the employees by attempting to appeal to the emotions, value system, and individual ideals of the employees in the coffee shop. Success of an influence tactic is based how the people who are the target of the tactic react, either by demonstrating compliance, being committed or resist in regards to the achievement of the objective. A leader who has power will effectively apply a number of influence tactics that leaders who have little or no power will not apply. The challenge to the leaders is assessing the best situation and the most effective influence tactic to apply to achieve the desired outcome (Chaturvedi, Rizvi and Pasipanodya 2019).

Changes in the internal and external environment of the business result in shifts in the demands and needs of employees. The change may be positive, meaning that it has a minimal impact on the employees and their needs. The change may also be negative, meaning that it attracts new demands and needs of the employees. Most of the contemporary theories of employee motivation mentioned in the above paragraph can also fit in this category of motivational theories (Perryer, Celestine, Scott-Ladd and Leighton 2016). However, the shop “coffee center” was shifted to new place it was required that the employees are motivated to give better performance. Motivation is an internal state which is responsible for making people to behave in specific ways so as to achieve certain goals and purposes. The outward manifestations are observable to people but motivation itself remains internal. The work place is one of the places where motivation is highly desirable. Coming up with effective ways to motivate the employees mostly poses as a major challenge for the employers. This is in spite of the fact that highly motivated employees are key to the success of the business (Perryer, Celestine, Scott-Ladd and Leighton 2016). People in the work place therefore need to be constantly motivated to ensure that work is done efficiently. However, the people making up the workforce differ greatly from each other and as such; any one single motivational tactic may not work universally. Every person has varying reasons for working and their desires differ to a large extent.

Another approach I had made to become effective leader was ingratiation tactics. Ingratiation is another tactic applied by effective leaders and it involves the act of ensuring other people are in good mood before a leader attempts to influence the people. Ingratiation is at times regarded as flattery but it works if well applied. Personal appeal is also an effective approach that is applied by leaders, it involves the application of reference to friendship, and loyalty before a leader makes any request.

Reflection on The Experience

Being a leader I was good in some situation and worst in another situation. Ineffective leaders apply ineffective tactics to influence people towards achieving organizational goals and objectives (Afsar, Badir and Kiani 2016). Ineffective leaders apply hard tactics that exert pressure on their staff, work in generating resistance and the tactics are regarded as being unfair. I was arrogant and was acting like a boss. Some of the hard tactics that I used to convene the staff member includes, use of pressure, where a leader applies demands, threats, frequent checks on what others are doing or persistently reminds staff on what to do, with intent of influencing the target to acting in a certain way. I should have used other approaches to resolve the conflicts in the shop like participating with my team to carry out the work at the new place, giving them free hand, and managing them as a friend. Moreover, consultation should be provided to them for positive results. Consultation is also an important tactic applied by effective manager and it involves inviting of other people in the organization into participating in the decision-making, planning, and in the creation and implementation of changes in the shop (Bal, Arikan and Çalişkan 2016).

The staff in the organization should feel they are part of the decision-making and consultation is crucial in achieving this. Lots of problems will be solved at my work place if I have used the experience of my senior employee for management purpose at the new location. I was dominating and was a self-centered leader. I never asked for anyone’s opinion about the decision regarding the role change of staff members and management change. If I had made approaches for recommendations of staff member and asked for the opinions of other members regarding the change that I had made in the shop, it would come out in better and efficient way without hearting anyone ego and feelings. Engagement with my staff member and involving them in decision making had given me better and positive results (Bal, Arikan and Çalişkan 2016).

However, the workplace environment also influences the performance of the workforce. Creating a harmonious workplace environment is therefore one of the ways through which employee productivity can be raised since this demonstrates that the inputs of the employees are valued and appreciated by the organization. For positive response for the employee, I should have used communication as a tool. My dominating nature has also created restriction. Communication is the cornerstone of all successful relationships and in the organization, communication takes place between and among the various individuals (MacLellan 2017). The tone and language used to carry out communication plays a monumental role in motivating individual employees. When a superior uses motivating language, it results in increased efficiency in his/her management of the subordinates. A leader’s effectiveness is directly related to his capability to motivate his followers by use of word. In addition to this, the engagement level of the employees in the organization is a factor of communication (MacLellan 2017).

Conclusion on Leadership and Ethics

It can be concluded that report has reflected on my leadership experience that I faced when I was a manager at a coffee center which was known for its delicious food beverages and coffee, due to shift of the shop from one place to another. I have used theories and methods to change my leadership style so that staff member work with me smoothly and efficiently. However, there were many situation where I can get better result if I had used different approaches and practices. Apart from this, the report will demonstrate identification and description of a relevant leadership experience out along with evaluation of my experience as a manager at coffee center. It will also demonstrate reflection on my experience in which different approaches are identified for various situation and approaches that had resulted in better outcome.

References for Leadership and Ethics

Afsar, B., Badir, Y. and Kiani, U.S. 2016. Linking spiritual leadership and employee pro-environmental behavior: The influence of workplace spirituality, intrinsic motivation, and environmental passion. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, pp.79-88.

Bal, E.A., Arikan, S.Ç. and Çalişkan, S.C. 2016. Personality, values and career concerns as individual antecedents of workplace influence tactics. Global Media Journal: Turkish Edition, 7(13), pp.63-85.

Bergner, S., Kanape, A. and Rybnicek, R. 2019. Taking an interest in taking the lead: The influence of vocational interests, leadership experience and success on the motivation to lead. Applied Psychology, 68(1), pp.202-219.

Chaturvedi, S., Rizvi, I.A. and Pasipanodya, E.T. 2019. How can leaders make their followers to commit to the organization? The importance of influence tactics. Global Business Review, 20(6), pp.1462-1474.

Kragt, D. and Guenter, H. 2018. "Why and when leadership training predicts effectiveness: The role of leader identity and leadership experience". Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39 (3), pp. 406-418

Laurs, D.E. 2018. Perceived Impact of PASS Leadership Experience on Student Leaders' Transferable Skills Development. Journal of Peer Learning, 11(3), pp.27-40.

MacLellan, A.M. 2017. Contagious motivation in the workplace: An examination of how leaders' motivation can impact the motivation of their subordinates. Retrieved from http://t.library2.smu.ca/handle/01/27167#.XwPyoSgzZPY

Martin, G.E., Danzig, A.B., Wright, W.F., Flanary, R.A. and Orr, M.T. 2016. School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience. London: Routledge.

Moore, L.L., Odom, S.F. and Boyd, B.L. 2017. The team leadership summit: Culminating the leadership experience. Journal of Leadership Education, 16(3), pp.1-8.

Perryer, C., Celestine, N.A., Scott-Ladd, B. and Leighton, C. 2016. Enhancing workplace motivation through gamification: Transferrable lessons from pedagogy. The International Journal of Management Education, 14(3), pp.327-335.

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