K SAI KIRAN

1710120021
Learnings from Leadership course

This course helped me in developing many skills which are necessary to become a good leader.
A good leader has the quality of handling difficult situations, has self-confidence and wisdom, it
persuade and influence people whom you lead. This subject helped me clear my understanding
and taught me how to handle people.

I personally was a person who didn’t knew how to modulate my responses, but this subject made
me understand that if you want to be good with a person, if you want to make your point clear
and straight, you should understand your qualities and act accordingly.

Leadership is an important element of the directing function of management. Wherever, there is

an organized group of people working towards a common goal, leadership becomes essential.
Leadership is the ability to build up confidence and zeal among people and to create an urge in
them to be led.

To be a successful leader, a manager must possess the qualities of foresight, drive, initiative,
self-confidence and personal integrity. Different situations may require different types of
leadership styles to handle the situation effectively. Leaders do set goals, organize, initiate
actions, co-ordinate, direct and motivate.

Leaders with drive demonstrate a passion to achieve results, the vigor to motivate others; they
demonstrate initiative and a desire to excel. It is essential for leaders to form effective teams, to
cooperate with others, and to work collegially. Leaders have to be open-minded, and be flexible
so that they can cooperate with those in their own organizations as well as in external groups.

Also a leader should possess humanity, which we describe as consideration for others, empathy,
compassion, magnanimity and the capacity for forgiveness, is essential to developing
followership. Without it, a person can be an effective boss, but never a good leader.

Humility has long been regarded as an essential quality for leaders. Without humility, it’s
impossible to learn from others or from one’s own mistakes. This dimension embraces a degree
of self-awareness, the capacity for reflection, and a sense of gratitude toward those who have
helped one learn or achieve success.

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Temperance allows leaders to be calm when others around them panic, to think things through,
and to act in the best long-term interests of the organization. It helps them avoid over-reacting to
short-term success or failure, and to assess both the risks and the rewards of alternative courses
of action.

Justice is a dimension of a leader that is central to followers’ decisions to accept an individual’s

leadership. This helps in incorporating fairness in procedures and results.

Courage, both mental and sometimes physical, is a requisite character dimension for leaders. It
includes preparedness to take risks, to challenge the status quo, to test uncharted waters, to speak
out against perceived wrongdoing. The necessary will power to take tough decisions is
considerably important to become a good leader.

Integrity is being transparent, honest and guiding your team towards success with strong moral
principles. It is essentially about wholeness, completeness, and soundness of leadership
character. It is most readily apparent in principles such as honesty, authenticity, transparency,
candor, and consistency, but it is also used to describe high moral standards.

Judgment plays a major role in defining an individual’s character. Each of the other dimensions
of character represents how people take decisions or judge something based on their inherent
qualities. How an individual’s character influences their actual behavior in a particular context
depends on their judgment.

Leaders can be Authoritative, Democratic and Laissez-faire who can be directive and allows no
participation in decision making, encouraging discussion and group decision making and give
complete freedom to the group respectively.

A leader can be contingent to the extent to which a leader’s style fits or matches characteristics
of the situation at hand. Leaders can have one dominant or natural leadership style that is
resistant to change. A leader’s style is described as either task-oriented or relationship-oriented
leaders are those who tend to accomplish the task by developing good relationships with
followers.

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A leader in different situations, uses different approaches with his/her charisma and motivation
to ease with the roadblocks, clarify the path and provide guidance and support to subordinates for
goal accomplishment.

Leaders establish a special relationship with a small group of their followers. These individuals
make up the in-group; they are trusted, get a disproportionate amount of the leader’s attention,
and are more likely to receive special privileges. Other followers fall into the out-group.

There is no single “best” style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant and that the
most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the maturity of the individual
or group them are attempting to lead/influence. That effective leadership varies, not only with the
person or group that is being influenced, but it will also depend on the task, job, or function that
needs to be accomplished.

The more traditional transactional leadership involves an exchange relationship between leaders
and followers, but transformational leadership is based more leaders’ shifting the values, beliefs
and needs of their followers.

I learnt that the assumptions about human nature or behavior are critical and how the leadership
style and motivation determines the type of leader we would become. Even though both Coach K
and Coach Knight were successful leaders, Coach K had qualities of relationship oriented
leadership while Coach Knight has autocratic style of leadership. This gives a thought to discuss
various styles of power, influence, and persuasion. Also this showed the personalities of two
leaders who were very different. It also showed that different leaders behave differently in
different situations.

A person becomes an authentic leader when he learns from his own experiences and stories. It is
very important in this session to revise what we learnt from the readings which was provided. It
is not only said but is true that "Leaders aren't born, they are made". It is clear that self-
awareness and ownership are crucial factors for the development. Journey of authentic leadership
begins with understanding the story of own life.

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There are 5 levels of leadership and not many people can reach the level 5. The level 5 talks
about people who have a perfect blend of humility and will. This level is not found in many, and
many people stop at level 4 itself.

The essential ingredient for taking a company to greatness is having a "Level 5" leader at the
management. An executive is one, whose extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with
intense professional will. Some leaders have the Level 5 characteristics within. For those leaders,
People comes first and then comes the Strategy. I understand that good transformations doesn’t
happen overnight or in one big leap.

Leader has to follow different leadership styles to perfectly handle different situations. It is not
easy, but to achieve the desired outcomes it becomes important to follow different leadership
styles in different situations. Taking the ownership of leading the team and developing our self
should be parallel.

It is not always easy to change leadership styles or to alter the way you assess a problem. Under
pressure, most executives fall back on the management style or approach that worked in the last
crisis they faced. But old approaches rarely work in new and demanding situations. One should
adopt to different styles of leadership at critical points in one’s career, depending on the
challenges at hand. One should be participative, when the team needs leader’s motivation in
achieving the completion of tasks. There are pitfalls in switching leadership styles, but flexibility
is necessary for realizing corporate and personal success.

Lack of communication will have a negative impact on the success of individuals or as a team.
Delegation of tasks by the leaders to the able, will help in easy implementation of tasks. Also,
importance of clear communication and strict adherence to the rules and regulations should be
considered. I learnt that the communication between the subordinates is of primary importance in
achieving a goal and focus more on opportunities rather than problems.