BUSI 1323 | Leadership in Organisations University of Greenwich

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University of Greenwich

BUSI 1323 – LEADERSHIP IN

ORGANISATIONS

STUDENT ID: anhdhgbh17012

WORD COUNT: 2167 words

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 8th July, 2019

VIETNAM 2019

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BUSI 1323 | Leadership in Organisations University of Greenwich
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Table of contents
Table of contents………………………………………………………….……02

Introduction……………………………………………………………………03

Stage 1: Reflection on previous experiences and role models……….…..…03

Stage 2: Reflection on group interactions…………………………………...05

Stage 3: Reflection on personal future leadership plan………………….….08

Conclusion……………………………………………………………….……..10

References……………………………………………………….……………..10

Appendix………………………....………………………………………...…..11

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Introduction

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Currently, the working environment offers bunch of diverse obstacles that dig out the
executive’s performance. Doubtless, high performance requires high level of leadership
characteristics with the power of self-driven. The nature of issues address such each individual
to have unique and strong abilities and qualifications. Therefore, this paper will describe deeper
illustration into 3 stages: Reflection on previous experiences and role models, reflection on real-
life group interaction and reflection on personal future leadership plan.

Stage 1: Reflection on previous experiences and role models

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How could I currently describe myself as a leader?

In reality, I refer myself as a person who will be the leader in most situations. First of all, I have
passion, which means I tend to be responsible to meet high quality and positive results. Being
motivated and inspired drives me to do the best. Second of all, my ambitious characteristic boost
me to aim myself and gain benefits from obstacles. That is why I am always ready to seek
opportunities to be better. Thirdly, I am highly organised which means I can keep deadlines
within strict detail orientations. Indeed, I consider myself as a ‘natural leader’ due to my
personal skills such as communication skills, management skills and multi-tasking skills. The
first time I was chosen to be the leader because my co-teammates always see me with ‘the
trustfulness’. From then till now, I always play the leader position when working in group.

Aside from leader, if I am a bystander, I will engage to the situation (which relates to my work).
Being an engaged bystander means I can give an observation for this emergency which insiders
cannot see and think. With this help, I can defuse the emergency or stable things directly. Indeed,
all roles play important influence to the decision and its consequence.

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Throughout 21 years, parents are always my noticeable role models, mostly my father. They are
the first leaders in my life and my family is the first place that I shaped my views of leadership
due to previous experience. As personal perspective, my father follows transformational
leadership style because the way he compel my future vision very optimistically and
enthusiastically (Hughes, 2014). Whereas he is Inspirational Motivation, I prefer myself as
Idealised Influence. Till now, positively I always try to become an independent business woman
who can be multi-tasking but still keep my satisfaction with job and my organisational
commitment. However, it also leads to some ‘bad’ personalities such as perfectionist, greedy
and conservative. Unquestionably, I will continue to improve my personal value, including hard
working, confidence and power and so on.

My previous experience being a leader

There is twice I played leader position. The first time is when I did group assignment and the
second time is when I planned my class’s camping trip. There are conflicts between my
teammates, mostly because of dissent. In order to overcome obstacles, I tend to influence and
persuade them by using 2 ways: Listening and being flexible. It is important to know that belief
and incorporation play significant role to build up a relationship. Thus, I played as an engaged
bystander, this action created the atmosphere of mutual trust and respect to all of my members.
Additionally, flexibility always solve problems. Thus, even my teammates are stubborn or not,
they were likely to follow my directions. That is why I handled my groups’ negotiations conflicts
very well.

As mentioned above, I consider myself as Idealised Influence in Transformational Leadership

style and I am kind of satisfied in present. Evaluating my leadership skills, I have high self–
concordance due to my positive affect, agreeableness and emotion recognition (Sheldon and
Linda, 2001). Personally, it is not too hard to guide the direction for the whole group. However,
there still includes some bad characteristics I need to change and some skills I should improve.
In fact, I put too much effort on my teammates which leads them to pressure. Besides, because
of trying to be perfectionist, I tend to focus on noticeable members that refers to the favouritism
and the injustice.

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The positive side and potential opportunities

Currently, flexibility is the ability which I do value most because being flexible means I still
can learn, change and adapt new things. In fact, my business role model is Steve Jobs, the
founder of Apple, who is seen as one of the most iconic transformational leadership model. He
had great passion for perfection and simplicity. Indeed, Steve Jobs had got engraved into his
subordinates who were working at Apple. He tended to influence and control human’s mind to
think more creative and unique. That is why Apple is the stable pioneer in its tough mobile-
sector industry. Basing on the example of my role model, I set myself 3 personal development
goals to be better leader, including: Enhancing personal productivity, eliminating stress and
getting along with others.

Stage 2: Reflection on group interactions

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The interaction with team members

This course required all students in class to engage the challenge of the project. Indeed, all
students must brainstorm their own experience and engagement at Greenwich. As a team, me
and other 6 members, including Tien, Linh, Khanh, Trong, Trung and Thao were working on
academic/ feedback/ study support aspects. This project aims to fulfil one main goal: Identifying
this aspects’ issues and recommending solutions. In order to negotiate with others, we discussed
after classes and online through Facebook Messenger. I am the leader and have the most
influence to the decision making process. According to Dr Meredith Belbin, there is a
phenomenon called Apollo Syndrome. This term refers to a team that involves individuals
whom spend exclusive time just to debate and shape other’s perspective, negatively (Belbin,
1981). Luckily, my team did not follow this phenomenon. Indeed, all members have respect to
each other’s perspective.

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In order to interact with other members, we personally aware of each individual strengths and
weaknesses. Evaluating of members during working process, all members had good attitude and
they all knew the way to encourage and inspire the others. Hoang Anh, Tien, Linh and Thao are
four members who have high level of self-awareness. However, there are still some passive
members who played bystander role, including Trong, Trung and Khanh. As personal overview,
they are also the members who are ‘second fiddle’ in my group, but they has great willingness
to represent themselves as a positive member. Being the leader means I must take
responsibilities to keep tasks on track, but literally, Tien is the one who always voice her ideas
first. As a part of the team, it seems that sometimes a few teammates could not understand all
theories and required tasks. In this aspect, Linh and Thao did a great job when they guided again
in a very conscientious way. Personally, I did never hesitate to ask others’ thinking, interest and
motivation while discussing and negotiating. Therefore, I know the way to find the common
opinion for everyone in my group.

Group’s interests and motivations

As observed by Sainsbury and Walker (2009), the interaction and collaboration between two-
sides self in a group refers to the efficiency and productivity of each individual’s motivation and
interest. From the beginning, we started by ‘learning’ each other in order to find personal
perspectives, skills and abilities. It led to the shaping group’s point of view, indeed.
Additionally, friendly conversation helped sharing ideas and interests easily. That is the reason
why divergences does not a matter. Generally, our group spent almost time to work individually
to avoid conflicts. Therefore, each participant could contribute and gain experience comfortably.

During working process, all team members, including me, have same common interests and
motivations. We tended to follow assignment requirements which involves pointing out issues
in academic/ study and feedback aspects and recommending suitable solutions. Due to used
strategy, there was no conflict between our interests. Discussing about personal interest and
motivation, I aimed to enhance both my personal hard skills and soft skills. Specifically, I want
to improve my leadership skills via applying some theories. Others just wanted to meet
assignment and project’s requirements.

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Personal development goals

As mentioned above, I aim to enhance personal productivity, eliminate stress and get along with
others. During teamwork time, I did practice to be a better leader. Specifically, in order to get
better performance, I set plan and also make to-do lists for members in my group. Thus, all team
mates can stick to working process whereas they are attend or not. Besides, to-do lists help me
pay attention to work and its positive side. Hence, there was less stress than usual to me and
working on this project seem kind of fluent. Through team meeting and online discussion, I had
chance to get along to other teammates.

Considering about other members, most members tended to improve their personal KSAs
(knowledge, skill and ability). That is the reason why during working process, Tien, Thao and
Linh have an outstanding contribution to group’s performance. There is no doubt when saying
that all these members’ KSAs has been improved a lot after this course. On the other hand, even
being a leader, I still could not figure out others’ personal development goals, including Trong,
Khanh and Trung. Thus, it is hard for us to help them develop themselves. However, till now,
our project seems kind of successful.

However, it may happen a scenario that the results are not like my expectations. My leadership
style might be not useful and feasible in the situation. Or, during the action process of improving
personal development goals, I may make mistakes and conflicts. Thus, it is no doubt if members
can feel confused and disrespectful. In these cases, as a transformational leader, there are two
possible tactics. The first one is to modify my goals to some other things which are more related
to the whole groups’ adaptability and objectives. The second way is to enhance all members’
personal development goals at the same time.

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Stage 3: Reflection on personal future leadership plan

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Vision of future dream leadership kind

As personal self-assessment above, I call myself as an Idealised Influence and always want to
become a successful transformational leader. Therefore, to fulfil myself, I need to improve three
other ‘I’, including: Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individualised
Consideration (Hughes, 2014). Indeed, it is related to my three personal development goals.
During teamwork process, I had chance to enhance Inspirational Motivation and Individualised
Consideration. Specifically, I changed the way to talk to my teammates more encouragingly and
enthusiastically. Besides, being confident help other members to have more motivation to meet
group’s objectives. Moreover, because all members study in a same course, I had a chance to
discuss and coach them easily and directly. I could find the most suitable treatment to each
member due to his/ her particular abilities, needs and inspiration. However, I could not improve
my Intellectual Stimulation. The topic scope is kind of narrow; therefore, it seems hard to
explore individual’s view to look at an issue and think from diversified angles.

Journal entities

This table above illustrates all works we have done in five classes. In specific, I was the leader
in every working group time. In order to let everybody pay their attention, the first ten minutes
always is used for individual work. It means that each person must read the case; therefore, they
can give their own opinion afterwards. In the first three topic, we had chance to study about
transformational and transactional leadership styles. That is when I figured out my personal
leadership style. In the two last ones, there are some new styles that are shared leadership,
contingency model and House’s Path Goal theory. After these five main topics, I had chance to
understand more specific about my own style and also found some new ways to improve my
KSAs and reduce personal obstacles.

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Teamwork diaries and team members’ assessment

These two tables following describe our working group activities and each member’s
contribution and their evaluation as well. In short, all members did great work while there was
no one miss the deadline. Our work went kind of fluent. As personal opinion, the reason for this
‘success’ is due to the awareness of each member’s strengths and weaknesses and we also knew
how to give tasks for each of them.

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Conclusion

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In summary, leadership always is seen as an integral part of every aspect in the daily life.
Doubtless, everyone can be the leader of his own life, from families to workplaces. After
studying BUSI 1323 course, it can be concluded that everyone must know the way to be the
leader of his own life. Their success is definitely depended on their personal leadership style,
indeed.

References

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Hughes, T. A., (2014), “Idealized, Inspirational, and Intellectual Leaders in the Social Sector:
Transformational Leadership and the Kravis Prize”, CMC Senior Theses, page 906, available
from: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/906/.

Belbin, M., (1981), “Management Teams – Why They Succeed or Fail”, ISBN: 0-7506-0253-
8, available from: https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/apollo.htm.

Sheldon, K. and Linda, H., (2001), “Self-concordance, goal attainment, and the pursuit of
happiness: Can there be an upward spiral?”, Journal of personality and social psychology, vol.
80, no. 1, pp.152-165, available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12134962_Self
-concordance_goal_attainment_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness_Can_there_be_an_upward_
spiral.

Sainsbury, E and Walker, R. (2009), “Motivation, learning and group work – the effect of
friendship on collaboration”, Motivating Science Undergraduates: Ideas and Interventions,
UniServe Science Proceedings, pp.118-124, available from: https://openjournals.library.sydney
.edu.au/index.php/IISME/article/viewFile/6213/6861

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Appendix

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Presentation slides

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Journal entities

Figure 1: Journal working dairies

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Teamwork diaries

Figure 2: Teamwork diaries

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Team members’ assessment

Figure 3: Team members’ assessment

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