...Running head: Defining and Refining My Leadership Skills Defining and Refining My Leadership Skills Edith C. Wright Western Governor’s University Table of Contents Overview……………………………………………………………………….3 The 7 Habits……………………………………………………………………4 The 7 Habits Profile……………………………………………………………4 Leadership Strengths…………………………………………………………...6 Leadership Weaknesses and Changes………………………………………….8 My S.M.A.R.T. Goals……………………………………………………….....9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..10 References……………………………………………………………………..11 Overview While the most successful leaders will utilize practices from several different leadership theories, my leadership style is most in tandem with the Transformational Theory of Leadership. Transformational leaders are positive thinkers, motivators and foster moral awareness in their followers. According to Stephen Covey (Covey,1989) in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” people, especially leaders should look from the inside out and manage themselves before managing others. Since transformational leaders inspire, motivate and stimulate their followers, it is important for the leader to have self-awareness and insight into who he or she is and why they are the way they are. The 7 Habits of highly Effective People According to Stephen Covey, The 7 habits of highly effective people are (Daft, 2014): 1. Be proactive 2. Begin with the end in mind 3. Put first...
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...P.O. Box XXX Rivonia 2128 16 November 2009 UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) P.O. Box XXX UNISA 0003 Dear Sir/Madam Application for admission for the MBL programme I hereby express my deepest interest in enrolling for an MBA programme from your institution as I believe your institution will provide me with relevant and necessary knowledge base for the development of my career and the development of myself in general. I hold a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science from the then University of XXXX. After my graduation I could not find a job and ended up doing voluntary work at a small IT company based in Polokwane. When an opportunity from a financial services company based in Johannesburg availed itself at the beginning of 2004, I grasped it with both hands as I have always been fascinated by working with numbers and I believed this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to be exposed in the field of finance, which I believed would be immensely complemented by my computer and analytical knowledge and skills. I have ever since fallen more and more in love with the financial services sector. My computer and analytical knowledge and skills together with the mentoring I received from some of the top achievers in the country have helped me a lot in constantly providing quality work and gaining the trust and confidence in the market place. I have been involved in Private Equity; Corporate Finance; and Hedge Fund activities. My key career highlights...
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...Football helps them improve their speed, strength, hand-eye coordination and overall cardiovascular endurance. Football provides physical benefits including flexibility, lower the body fat and progressives muscle tones. This sport will also help them with showing them discipline, gives them many opportunities, and helps them with leadership. One reason why I would let my son play football is because football is a great resource that helps players with leadership. “For much of my playing career, most parents with young children who played football were most interested in my workout regimen and what supplements I was taking.” (Fujita) Playing football provides players with opportunities to develop skills in communication. “I found myself receiving e-mail after e-mail from people presumably motivated by keyword searches for “football, concussion, trauma, disease.” (Fujita) These abilities allow people to operate productively as leaders. Playing or coaching sports such as football, soccer and any other types of sport activities...
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...1. Introduction In the today’s fast moving and dynamic information age, Managers in organizations have a unique role to play with multiple and continuously evolving responsibilities. Managers must instill a high-performance mindset while creating a culture whose foundation promotes teamwork. In this context among many other important things communication skills of a manager has become increasingly more important than ever. Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School states that “Communication is the real work of leadership” To be a good communicator and an effective manager, a manager must sharpen his listening and presentation skills. By doing so will help the manager reach his goals and the company goals. Manager must realize and accept that clear communication is always a two-way process. It’s not enough to speak clearly; you have to make sure you’re being heard and understood. To facilitate this, use the following two-way communication primer. This document explains the importance of effective listing and presenting for a manager. Also the author sets an action plan to for improving his listening and presenting skills 2. Listening According to Daft (2012), Managers perform a wide variety of activities that fall within four primary management functions. One of the most important tools of manager communication is listening, both to employees and customer. Most managers should now recognize that important information flows from bottom up, not top down. Listening...
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...always need to think out of the box and should understand the industrial needs for the success of his project. Will project management work in all companies? If not , identify those companies in which project management will not be applicable and defend your answer? Yes, Project management will work in all companies. But, it may vary based on the nature of the industry. For example small companies can have short-term projects whereas big companies like constructions may have long-term projects. 1.7 what attributes should a project manager have? Can an individual be trained to become a project manager? If a company were changing over a project management structure, would it be better to promote and train from within or hire from outside? The attributes of project manager in my view are:- a) Excellent communication skill b) Leadership ability. c) Broad thinking. d) Motivating Team. e) Good managerial and interpersonal skills. Etc. Project manager can definitely be trained but it is important to have a strong knowledge and personality to become an effective Project manager. Management education and discussions on various case studies will be helpful in sharpening individual’s skills. Today,...
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...I have always valued my master’s degree and wish to attain it from an institution which will assist in my development and understanding of complex business scenarios. Sydney being a global city which represents an important business hub and the financial centre of the Australian Economy has catapulted its business schools as the hub for business studies in the world today. I feel I have a good understanding of the theoretical concepts and aspects of business. But business is an applied science where we have to be able to apply what we have learnt from our books into real work. I am applying for the MBA program primarily to transcend my knowledge from the bachelor’s degree and the experience I have gained over the course of time to contribute in the field of management by gaining further skills and enhancing creativity. I also wish to learn the current trends and innovation in real life business environment. The other major advantage of an MBA degree is that such a program transcends academic disciplines and professional boundaries. The universal appeal and the multi disciplinary knowledge it tends to provide is unique. It is one of those rare program where people from varied academic and work areas can come together to learn collectively. My major attraction toward the MBA program at University of Technology Sydney is its emphasis on learning within and outside the classroom settings. At UTS where students from various part of the world come together, I have a great opportunity...
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...Task Two: Leadership Practices analysis Task Two: Leadership Practices analysis C200 Managing Organizations and Leading People C200 Managing Organizations and Leading People Table of Contents Section A1 | Leadership Style and Practices | | A1 A1a | Seven Habits Profile Seven Habits Profile and Reflection | | Section A2 | Evaluation of Leadership Practices | | A2a A2b A2c A2d | Leadership Strengths Leadership Weaknesses Theory Based Changes to Maximize Success SMART Goals | | Section B | Works Cited | | B1 | Reference Page | | February 5th 2016 Managing Organizations and Leading People TASK TWO: LEADERSHIPAND PRACTICES ANALYSIS A1. Leadership Style and Practices – Seven Habits Profile A1a. Seven Habits Profile Reflection In this paper I will reflect on my own leadership practices, starting with the results of my Seven Habits profile. Upon first viewing the results of the seven habits profile, the lowest scores caught my attention first. I saw that section 5, putting things first, was the lowest score at 10 points. I agree with the the seven habits profile, this is my biggest weakness when evaluated on the seven habits criteria. I can admit that sometimes I get lost in my work and forget about the things that really matter and the bigger picture. An article in People Management says that people who follow this habit well “recognize that not doing everything is okay. Evaluate...
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...you want to go in life. Writing down step by step instructions will break it down so your goal is not so overwhelming, keeps you focused and makes your goal feel easier to realize. Goal-setting can be the difference between success and failure. For your goals to be successful, you need to make your goal realistic, with the steps measurable and doable. By breaking it down you can see each piece, set manageable time frames that are measureable and identify potential barriers to overcome. By having a plan for your goal, and being able to complete each step individually, you will have many successes to be proud of on the way to your goal, thus keep you motivated and on track. A goals success and achievement begins with good time management and a good plan. Each step of the plan needs to have an established realistic time frame, and divided into manageable pieces. Plans are based on current information and knowledge. As time progresses, you will acquire new knowledge and information, which may cause you to reevaluate and change the plan. Just like the nursing process, if it is not working, or finds a better way, we reevaluate and make a new plan or change the one we have. You will be monitoring your progression, reevaluating and changing your plan all along the way. As you complete each step, it is important to celebrate your successes, as this will keep you motivated and proud of your accomplishments. An example of a long term personal goal for me is to be debt free by...
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...My Leadership SMART Goal Megan Borrayo NR 447- RN Collaborative Healthcare Professor Amanda Denno When creating my leadership SMART goal, I assessed what I as a leader would like to focus on in the future as a potential manager and educator. According to Institute of Medicine’s quality initiative, there are five initiatives including patient-centered care and working in interdisciplinary and/or interprofessional teams. Of these, recognition of the importance of interprofessional teamwork has proven to be very important for me. For my SMART goal, I chose to focus on interprofessional communication as a means for enhanced patient care and quality. This goal will be specific to all those dealing with the patients care, from doctors all the way to Certified Nursing Assistants. This includes all specialties that are consulted to work with the patient (physical/occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychiatry, etc.). My GOAL is to improve communication within the team and with the patient by providing bedside rounding once per shift. This gives a chance for questions to be answered, both from staff and patient, concerns, and opportunities for suggestions on improvement of patient care. This will take place within the unit at the bedside of the patient. By educating staff of the importance of communication within the team and with the patient, hopefully, staff will be willing and helpful to assist in making shift-by-shift bedside rounding a norm within the unit. Daily bedside...
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...Sarah E. Al-Falahy BSA-2B MWF 7:40-8:40am “Your life doesn’t just ‘happen.’ Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.”—Stephen Covey Life is full of wonders and complexities. Every day we live adds twist and color to our existence. In the lyrics of Francis Magalona’s song entitled Kaleidoscope World, “Every color, every hue, is represented by me and you…” which somewhat relates to why people uniquely responds to certain circumstances. Though unique, I believe that there are ways that may actually work and be effective for all. One of those ways is contained in what my Management teacher assigned us to read, Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” The book is really about knowing and nurturing the fundamental truths in your life and making them accessible to you at all times to the point where it’s easy to draw solutions to problems from them, making you a much more effective person in all aspects of life. Habit 1: Be Proactive (Principles of Personal Vision) There’s a lot of things that are happening everyday and minority of it concerns us. Based on...
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...da Vinci Principles “Tutta la nostra conocenza ha le su origini nelle nostre percezioni.” Da Vinci’s quote translated to English means “all our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” When using the da Vinci principles to observe and monitor business it is important to understand the the basis for business thought. All business leaders use techniques to operate and innovate in their business; some following a method like ones outlined Gelb in How to Think like Leonardo di Vinci others sometimes stumble upon one by accident. When looking at decision makers processes it is always interesting to see how it occurs, often times leaders that I have worked with use da Vinci’s ideas without knowing. Many companies are moving quickly in the current business climate to keep ahead of the curve. CivicPlus, a government web development firm based in Manhattan, Kansas, is trying not only to grow at a rapid rate but also stay ahead of the ever changing web technology curve. This company was named to the Inc Magazine 500/5000 fastest growing companies and works daily to innovate and find a better way to serve clients and do business. Unknowingly CivicPlus uses many of the da Vinci principles, and we will examine ways they currently use and ways they could improve their processes based upon the principles. Before looking at how CivicPlus uses these principles to advance their business we must have a basic understanding of what the seven principles are and how they can be applied. These...
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...Cindy Following on from our recent discussion, I appreciate your openness about the current situation and for the opportunity to justify the importance of Human Resources (HR) as a value added function, especially as we move towards a new corporate structure. If correctly aligned to the business strategy, HR is critical in ensuring the success of the transition. Under Arnold’s leadership, the focus was to operate as a “one family company”, with HR was responsible for organising expensive leadership programs and sales conferences. There is a lot more to the role of HR than what the Board understands. Let me explain – 1. Using your knowledge of HR strategy, provide a rationale for the contribution of HR to the change process in this corporate context. With the impact of globalisation and the need to remain competitive, companies have had to reassess various departmental activities to meet new organisational objectives (Lawler & Mohrman, 2003). A new strategic role for HR is one of these changes. Cabrera & Bonache (as cited in Lengnick-Hall et al., 2009) argued that Human Resource Management (HRM) practices are an essential part of a company’s corporate business strategy. Combining business strategy and people management together creates a new set of responsibilities, a bigger challenge for HRM and an increase in HR deliverables (Conner & Ulrich, 1996). Therefore, HR professionals must concentrate more on HR strategy, and move away from the traditional...
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...life management. In this book, Covey presents seven principles for developing effectiveness in our private and public lives. By developing these habits, one moves from being dependent on other people to being and acting independently. Then we learn how to move to the more advanced state of interdependence and successful Cooperation. As a part of the seven habits, Covey introduced important and powerful techniques of time management under the habit of "Put First Things First." It is necessary to understand (and Practice) all seven habits so that the tools of time management can be learned and practiced in their natural setting. What follows is a basic overview of these ideas presented so you can take better advantage of this tool you hold in your hands. Covey does not claim to invent the seven habits of highly effective people but rather claims to have discovered them and have a simple language for articulating them. Counter Argument Though the term self-help can refer to any case whereby an individual or a group (support group) betters themselves economically, intellectually or emotionally, the connotations of the phrase have come to apply particularly to psychological or psychotherapeutic nostrums, often purveyed through the popular genre of the "self-help" book. Sometimes writers refer to a "self-help movement", though this movement exists independently from self-help books. Another counter argument is the question of whether the information needs of those engaged...
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...where you find your place in the world, where some find lifelong friends, and many find what they love in life. With all of the new technological advancements going on around us, it seems that with all that change, education is also evolving. Back when only high class men attended universities, the middle class moderate never had a chance to get a higher education. Things like, “How quickly do i want to achieve my degree?” And “What do i want to major in?” Were not topics of conversation, but that is not the case in this modern world. Now a days, there are hundreds of Vocational “training” schools popping up what seems to be everyday. They are career specific schools, with little or no emphasis on the humanities. They are broadcast frequently on our television commercials with catchy slogans and songs, “Get your degree online in less than 10 months” and “Don’t wait! call now for a quick, easy and affordable college degree!” Are all of these readily accessible “training schools” really helping our society flourish? Or are they having a negative effect on the future of our country? But I must debate that college is a place of development, and should not be a school of fast paced training programs. Unlike the fast track schools, a traditional form of study that dates back to the twentieth century, a liberal arts education, which focuses on the development of an individual, that is willing to grow in all aspects of life, from stretching their minds to sharpening their intellects...
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...expectations for the quality of writing produced by learners at the undergraduate level. I believe how well you state something is integral to the soundness of the content you are conveying; the two are intertwined. Imprecise or ungrammatical writing signals lack of conceptual crispness. "Good thinking" and "bad writing" usually do not coexist. In the workplace, excellent writing gets people's attention. Good writing signals leadership potential. Good writing is hard work. Each of you has had training in writing, and some of you know what the principles are. Putting them in practice is the challenge. If I had to boil down into a single thought or phrase what I think is most essential to effective writing, it would be this: attention to detail. Think precision. Precision is both a process and a product. Be sure your grasp of the English language is complete and correct. Here is an example of a common misuse of a word: "In today's discussion, we are going to hone in on the early weeks of the Civil War." The word "hone" means sharpen, as in sharpening a knife. It is the wrong word to use in the context above. A correct, metaphoric use of "hone" would be this one: "Today we are going to hone our pronunciation skills." In the first sentence, the correct word in place of "hone" is "home"--" . . . we are going to home in on the early weeks of the Civil War." If you have the slightest doubt about the appropriateness of a word for the context in which you are using it, look up...
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