Reflection on my Newly-emerged Insights on Authentic Leadership and Teaming
Undertaking this course has proved not only insightful but also has served as a tool to help me reflect on my leadership skills and abilities. Learning such as finding true north and leadership purpose have significantly helped me introspect myself as a leader. This reflection paper explores who I am as a leader, my leadership purpose, how to remain authentic, and insights from the course that I will use immediately as well as strategies I have to work on.
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Who I Am As a Leader
As a leader, I am always striving to enrich the lives of the people I lead and actively contribute to creating a more just and caring world. I have always possessed a natural desire to serve those I lead. I, therefore, focus primarily on the well-being and growth of those that I lead as well as society in general. Besides the deeply rooted desire to serve, I possess various qualities that underlie my approach to leadership. I am thoughtful, helpful, socially skillful, idealistic, inspirational, thorough, adaptive, responsive, persuasive, compassionate, trusting, enthusiastic, and flexible. Notably, these qualities hint that I am a relater. According to Lanka, Topakas, and Patterson (2020), relaters are idealistic, thoughtful, loyal, trusting, idealistic, responsive, cooperative, receptive, and helpful. As a relater, I like to include team member in the decision-making process. Moreover, I need an environment that emphasize meaningful relationships, risk-taking, and enhances the development of team members to give them a sense of purpose and unlock their potential.
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My Leadership Purpose
My leadership purpose is to serve as a leader by empowering and uplifting those I lead while ensuring meaningful work exceeding customers’ expectations. Notably, my leadership purpose is undergirded by the values and principles that I uphold. Values such as service, trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, meaningful work, loyalty, justice, kindness, honesty, fairness, growth, autonomy, and authenticity undergird my leadership purpose. These values ensure that I enhance not only the lives of those that I lead but also the society due to my social change mindset.
My leadership purpose says who I am and how I bring my unique qualities into my leadership, consequently helping me excel as a leader. According to By (2021), leadership purpose is about an individual’s values and what is most important to them. These values allow my leadership purpose to motivate me to work daily in something that matters to me and I am passionate about. Therefore, the above-stated leadership purpose serves as my beacon and has helped me achieve a deeper connection to my work and excel as a leader.
How I Can Remain Authentic as a Leader
I can remain authentic as a leader by finding my true north and staying on its course. A person’s true north is their orientation point, which helps them stay on track as a leader. True north is derived from a person’s most deeply held values, beliefs, and principles. It serves as an internal compass, unique to an individual; thus, it represents who a person is at their deepest level (Sherman & Cohn, 2018). Concurringly, Ulrich (2020) emphasizes that for one to become an authentic leader, he/she must discover and stay on the course of their true north throughout his/her life. My true north is undergirded by deeply held beliefs regarding leadership as well as values and principles that I deeply hold. I firmly believe that leadership is first about serving those around me and taking on challenges geared towards making the world a better place.
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Notably, the process of discovering my true north requires introspection to help me understand who I am as a leader at my most profound level. This should be followed by mindful practices to help a person remain true to themselves and their beliefs. Moreover, an individual should have a support system of people aligned with his/her true north (Ulrich, 2020). I can remain authentic as a leader by adhering to Ulrich (2020) counsel. It is worth noting that finding an individual’s true north is an ongoing process and, therefore, I will have to ensure lifetime commitment and learning. The most important thing is to remain true to myself.
Application of Insights from the Course
The course has impacted me with knowledge that will prove significantly valuable for honing my leadership ability. I have already commenced on the journey to discover my true north. I am currently in the introspection stage, where I seek to know myself better by determining the values, principles, and beliefs that undergird me as a leader. Finding my true north will help me better understand myself and remain authentic as a leader. According to Ulrich (2020), the cornerstone of authenticity in leadership is self-awareness. Self-awareness helps one discover their true north and remain in its course throughout his/her life. Notably, the authenticity derived from finding one’s true north does not license a person to become overly focused on self. Instead, it allows an individual to become aligned with his/her values and beliefs to lead effectively (Ulrich, 2020).
According to Ulrich, this is a process that needs work and commitment. Having already embarked on the journey towards finding my true north, I plan on making it a lifetime commitment that will help me remain authentic as a leader. A strategy that I will have to work on is complexity leadership. Notably, this requires one to develop mechanisms that will help address issues associated with the information age. As a leader, I am bound to work in complex systems. In this context, complex systems refer to social networks that incorporate interactive employees who are interconnected through collaborative relationships and dynamic ties such as shared goals and perspectives.
Uhl-Bien and Arena (2017) explain that complexity leadership combines administrative, adaptive, and action-centred leadership. Mastering complexity leadership will require time, but I am confident in my learning capabilities. Today’s world is characterized by new knowledge-based ddynamism that leads to new competition areas. As a leader, it is imperative to possess skills that can help an organization effectively the new kinds of distress resulting from the said rivalry areas (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017). Honing my complexity leadership competency will facilitate learning creative and adaptive approaches helpful in leading complex adaptive systems.
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