My vision of leadership undoubtedly emulates how I would like to be led, which is to be inspiring, motivating, empowering and impactful. I believe forming strong interpersonal relationships with employees and exhibiting high levels of morale in all course of action are effective ways to ignite positive changes within employees. Adding to that, I aspire to be a leader that embraces diversity in my workplace, as the benefits of doing so are numerous, and would work towards forming a harmonious work environment. Although my vision does not conform to just one type of leadership, the transformational leadership style closely resembles these aspects of which I aim to conquer as it essentially instills a sense of ownership in subordinates to reach a goal (Naile and Selesho 2014). As explained in my previous blog; Blog 3, this style of leadership entails being a good role model that generates trust of subordinates, presenting a clear vision that motivates followers, empowering subordinates and having genuine concerns for their well-being (Jiang, Zhao and Ni 2017).
A leader of inspiration to me is CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet. The 88-year old billionaire leader places great importance in motivating employees through various measures such as including specific names of employees and their achievements in the company’s annual report (Christou 2017). Buffet encourages managers such as Tony Nicely, CEO of Geico, to work independently, treating them as equal owners of the company. Geico, a division of Berkshire under the management of Nicely, had an underwriting profit of USD2.4 billion in 2018 through the effective empowerment provided by Buffet (Kim and Chilinsky 2018). Despite being highly successful, he always practices transparency gaining him the trust of many, an attribute I wish to gain. For instance, in 2014, Buffet admitted to stakeholders that he made a huge blunder by investing in Tesco, costing the company a USD444 million loss (Kollewe 2015). Besides that, Buffet is also heavily committed in “The Giving Pledge”, a campaign for the wealthy to donate to charities, donating up to USD3.4 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock in 2018 (Bach 2018).
As we oftentimes are unable to evaluate the impact of our actions, it is thus important to gain feedback from those working close to us to gain a deeper understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. Feedback obtained from my peers on my leadership skills were skewed towards the positive end, providing reassurance to my leadership progress, shown in Graph 1. However, there is still room for vast improvements in all aspects as my vision of leadership heavily relies on being a good role model to subordinates. Kouzes and Posner’s 5 Practices of Exemplary Practices is a useful model that can guide me towards being a better leader through five core practices; Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart, as shown in Figure 1 (The Leadership Challenge 2019).
The results from 16Personalities website show that my personality is of “The Defender” type, seen in Figure 2. This test was an eye opener as although there were many traits known to me, there were also ones I was not aware of. In a leadership point of view, traits of this personality are ideal in forming close interpersonal relationships with people and providing support whenever needed. Besides that, being loyal, hardworking and enthusiastic are also strengths of this personality that form great dedication in an organizational setting. There were however weaknesses that calls for improvements in certain areas. For instance, my constant need to achieve perfection and strong sense of responsibility often lead to an overload of work, which may in turn affect my performance as a leader. This test further confirmed my overly altruistic nature which sometimes results in overworking myself as I feel the need to alleviate the burden of others. It is hence vital for me as a leader to develop a trusting relationship within members of an organization that would enable giving employees a certain degree of autonomy and responsibility, as practiced by Warren Buffet.
As I progress through this MBA course, there are a number of l skills that I wish to develop and enhance. For instance, improving creative thinking and problem-solving through various group assignments required in this course as I believe this skill is essential when faced with an ever-changing and challenging business environment. I would also like to be more open to accepting constructive criticism from colleagues, employees and classmates and work towards refining my capabilities. Aside from that, I aim to increase my self confidence by participating more in class activities, including debates and presentations, as this is an important attribute for all leaders to have.
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References
16Personalities (n.d.) Personality Type [online] available from < https://www.16personalities.com/#> [5 March 2019]
Bach, N. (2018) ‘Warren Buffet Just Made His Largest Donation to Date’. Fortune [online] 17 June. available from <http://fortune.com/2018/07/17/warren-buffett-giving-pledge-donation-2018/> [5 March 2019]
Christou, L. (2017) ‘Warren Buffett leadership style : Risky ,but clearly successful’. COMPELO [online] 19 June. available from < https://www.compelo.com/warren-buffett-leadership-style> [5 March 2019]
Jiang, W., Zhao, X. and Ni, J. (2017) ‘The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Employee Sustainable Performance : The Mediating Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior’ Management Strategies and Innovations for Sustainable Construction [online] .available from <https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/9/1567> [5 March 2019 ]
Kim, M. and Chiglinsky, K. (2019) ‘Buffet Praises Geico’s $50 Billion Man Who Quietly Stepped Down’. Bloomberg [online] 23 February. available from <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-23/buffett-praises-geico-s-50-billion-man-who-quietly-stepped-down> [5 March 2019]
Kollewe, J. (2015) ‘ Warren Buffett admits ‘thumbs-sucking’ over Tesco cost him $444m’.The Guardian [online] 1 March. available from <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/01/warren-buffett-admits-thumb-sucking-over-tesco-cost-him-444m> [5 March 2019]
Naile, I. and Selesho, .J.M. (2014) ‘ The Role of Leadership in Employee Motivation ‘ Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences [online] 5 (3). available from <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c24c/0b4f588b1048a41c226dd9463d944e196f81.pdf> [5 March 2019]
Nguyen, S. (2017) Workplace Psychology [online] available <https://workplacepsychology.net/2017/07/02/book-review-the-leadership-challenge-6th-edition/> [5 March 2019]
The Leadership Challenge (2019) The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership [online] available from < http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/About-section-Our-Approach.aspx> [5 March 2019]
CULC Saranya 
Hi Sara, great work. You mentioned that you want to improve creative thinking and problem solving skills. In your opinion why this skills are a necessity to leaders?
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Hi Prashanth, thanks for your comment. I believe creativity and problem solving skills are essential as the world in which we live in changes constantly. As such, it is necessary for leaders to not only be aware of the environmental and internal challenges posed to an organization, but must also effectively apply both these skills to remain competitive. A leader who has good creative and problem solving skills can also motivate subordinates to develop these skills too.
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Great sharing Sara. In your opinion, what is the best approach to develop a more trusting relationship with your subordinates?
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Hi Fong, thank you for the comment. I believe a leader can establish trust with his subordinates by first making the effort to get to know them on a personal level. A leader should also always demonstrate passion towards achieving organizational goals, be transparent, be willing to share knowledge and to always be consistent in keeping promises. A leader should also understand that trust is a two-way effort and should also trust employees capabilities and decision-making skills that will encourage them to grow.
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Well written blog! which one of the strengths that you would like to work on it more ?
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Hi Jeremy, I would definitely want to be a more enthusiastic leader as this will provide a more positive outlook and belief in what the organization can achieve. I believe this would further motivate employees to strive to achieve organizational goals. I aim to enhance this strength by being more committed in my current workplace goals, be more optimistic and not let any failure demotivate me.
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Hi Sara, great sharing! Warren Buffet also inspire me so much, he is the most successful investor in the world. I believe that you able to meet your achivement in the future!
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Thank you for your kind words, Amy. I believe leaders such as Warren Buffet are able to inspire us to achieve set goals. As he places great importance on employee empowerment and transparency, I believe we too should learn to practice these in our workplace.
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Hi Sara, excellent sharing! What was your first impression on your 16 personality results?
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Hi Piaree, thanks for your comment. My first impression of the results was of awe as not only was it an accurate description of my personality, but it highlighted characteristics that were not known to me . I also found it interesting to discover that my altruistic nature can sometimes get the better of me. I thus aim to improve weaknesses to become a more well-rounded leader.
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