Blueprint Professional & Personal Growth Part II Essay

Barker, R. A. (1997). How can we train leaders if we do not know what leadership is? Human Relations, 50(4), 343-362. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/231429531?accountid=458

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

Kellerman, B. (2008). Followership How followers are creating change and changing leaders. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press

In followership there needs to be a leader that inspires and bonds followers together as a unit moving in one direction. Today’s leader has to be more than someone that was placed in a position of authority, a person with a title and a higher salary level. A real leader is found when the behaviors and attitudes of their

This course has provided me with a multitude of tools, and it has definitely taught me to put careful thought into every situation as it pertains to change; whether it relates to work, school, or things that are going on in my personal life. These tools are both important and necessary in order to become an effective manager in the future.

An effective leader must have a plan for success. This includes a personal plan of growth as well as a professional plan for improvement. This paper will attempt to highlight my personal strengths and weaknesses as leader, identify the areas needed for improvement, and identify the leadership skills and practices that I will use to become an effective leader. This paper will also give an outline of the goals that I consider a priority and a timeline for this development. The overall result will be an inclusive leadership plan of development that I will use to grow myself as well as any organization that I work for in the future.

The contents and assignment in this course has helped me understand the various theories of leadership and how different leadership styles can have a negative or positive effect on followers and organizations. The leadership theories helped me understand the concept of leadership better because it educates me on the different leadership options that are available. Leadership and followership is not based on specific characteristics. Leaders must draw from things and approaches to find the right style. A follower’s attitude determines the way a leader leads. According to Johnson (2011) “Being a good follower means ensuring your boss is supported, but only if he is making optimum decisions”.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze available followership literature to identify established and acceptable definitions and attributes of followership. The idea and theory of followership has been around for centuries. Aristotle once said, “Who would learn to lead must, as men say, first of all learn to obey” (Aristotle, 1895). Since the mid-1900s researchers conducted specific studies on followership, beginning with E. P. Hollander and Wilse Webb’s study “Leadership, Followership, and Friendship: An Analysis of Peer Nominations” where they assess the validity of peer nominations (1953). Interest in the study of followership increased in the 1980s and 90s. However, followership became an independent field when Robert Kelly and Ira Chaleff each published books with followership in their titles (Crossman & Crossman, 2011). Kelly’s The Power of Followership: How to Create Leaders People Want to Follow and Followers Who Lead Themselves and Chaleff’s The Courageous Follower: Standing up to and for our Leaders are foundational works inspiring practically every subsequent study. From here followership literature can be categorized into two defining groups descriptive, studies that identify actual behaviors, and prescriptive, studies that identify ideal behaviors (Crossman & Crossman, 2011). This research combines both descriptive and prescriptive descriptions of followership and arrays them along Jon Howell and Dan Costley’s

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

The study in to the area of followership has been overshadowed by leadership for many years, and continues to lack in research studies to examine this important topic. American culture may be partly responsible for “follower” having a negative connotation. Sayings like “always a leader, never a follower” help to reinforce this idea. Leaders are looked upon as an elite class, while followers are viewed as people who did not achieve.

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

Chapter one portrays the importance on followers and provides some insight and labels different types of followers. Riggio et al (2008), provides examples on the various styles of individuals as followers, for instance, the sheep, the yes-people, the alienated, the pragmatics, and the star followers. Furthermore, these classes of followers provide a better understanding to leaders on why one performs in an organization.

Introduction Self-awareness reflection 1. 2. 3. 4. Plan 1. 2. 3. Impact of stage 1 assignments in my career Overcoming barriers Plan for development Personal development reflection Key learning moment Implications that followed Professional development reflection 1 1 1 1 3 3 4 4 5 5 5 6

Effective leadership entails exercising the appropriate leadership style and understanding an organization’s strategy, people, and the environment. In today’s competitive environment, leaders not only have to understand business and the organizational strategy, they should also know how to strategically manage people. Effective leaders are cognizant of their leadership strengths and weaknesses, and promote leader-team information exchange to better understand team members’ strengths and weaknesses. An assessment of the team’s capabilities, can have a direct impact on the organization’s overall performance (Kunnanatt, 2016). Nonetheless, it has become clear that there is no one size fit all leadership

Effective followership is an essential component of effective leadership in that, without good followers, the leader’s work is difficult and cumbersome. The role of the follower is many times understated. As illustrated by Kelley (1998), “effective followers are thinkers; energetic and assertive, self-starters, independent problem solvers, and carry out their tasks with these characteristics (p. 143). Effective followers also are characterized by their ability to perform tasks with little supervision, their intelligence, and ability to think for themselves. We are all followers, even those who consider themselves leaders; so to encourage this effectiveness in others; we must be role models for those under us, so that they may also be effective at following. Chaleff (2009) observed that “all important social accomplishments require complex