Leadership Experience Paper

Leadership is one of the most vital and topical notion for a successful person, therefore, the success of almost every person depends on the leadership skills and potential as noted on the pages of QualityEssay. I have analyzed the leadership skills in relation to servant leadership theory and skills approach. As a result, I found out my strengths and weaknesses. As to my advantages in leadership, they are the human qualities and the guidance and support for the followers. In contrast, the creativity and poor reaction to the conflict are my deficiencies. I am sure that practice will help me to cope with these weaknesses and transform them into my assets.

I was the leader in the group of five people. The setting of demonstrating my leadership skills is the university. The main task was to complete the group assignment and manage the group for ACC412 project. My fellow classmates were the followers of the project. There were five followers – participants of the project. The followers were similar to each other because they were assigned to the same course and participated in the same project. Therefore, I did not notice any drastic differences between them.

Two theories assisted me in demonstrating my leadership skills. The first one is skills approach. The theory asserts that a leader should possess three main groups of skills such as technical, human and conceptual. To start with, I have demonstrated technical skills, in particular, the proficiency in the project, the knowledge of basic concepts of the group work such as unity and support as well as computer skills such as the knowledge with different programs. For example, I supported the follower, who was too shy to express her opinion. What is more, I have illustrated human skills related to trust, support and guidance. These skills showed how I can work with the people, understand their needs and encourage them to lead and share their ideas. Thus, I have prepared some games and activities to unite the group first since I think that before doing some project or performing the tasks, the group should be formed and united. Then, we moved to the main task of this project. I have done some tests on the personality of my followers to understand who will work better both in pairs and small groups. In my view, I coped with this task very well because I managed to work with people of different characters and emotional levels as well as levels of participation. I failed to demonstrate the conceptual skills such as creative thinking and managing conflicts inside the group. I was too shy and I did not control the conflicts in the team. Moreover, I did not suggest any creative tasks. Perhaps the shyness and the lack of ability to adapt to different positive and negative situations prevented me from demonstrating these skills.

The idea of the second theory is to serve the followers and assist them in becoming the leaders. I have demonstrated such servant characteristics as the adaptation to people`s needs and suggestions (by brainstorming activities), the support and trust. For instance, I supported the followers, who could not formulate thesis well enough. I have To fulfill this task, I have had face-to-face discussions, the activities to share my power etc. The only skill I failed to demonstrate in my view was the culture of trust due to my shyness and fear of public speaking. In general, I believe that I was an effective leader in terms of these two theories. The first and second theories helped me to analyze my performance as a leader. According to these two theories, I should have been more creative and open with the followers. My shyness and timidity, as well as the fear, served as obstacles to demonstrate my leadership potential. Another time, I will try to be more creative and confident in leading others. I should fight my fear of public speaking art.

After analyzing my leadership experience, I think that my strengths as a leader are the technical and human skills. I can manage people of diverse characters and adapt to changes in the group. Furthermore, I have good skills in assistance, guide, and support for those, who are willing to become leaders. In opposition, the weaknesses include the lack of creativity and the lack of readiness to act quickly if the conflict occurs. I think that I would excel at leading the situations where the human factor plays a paramount role. Based on my weaknesses, I am convinced that I would struggle to lead the situations that involve creativity and conflicts. I am going to work better on my lacks in leadership skills in particular conceptual skills. I would like to increase the level of my creativity and conflict resistance; I should learn how to react faster and more effectively to the negative situations and some sudden events in the team. I am going to improve these aspects of leadership by attending special courses or seminars, lectures on the topic of leadership. However, the most useful thing, in this case, would be to practice. Practice makes it perfect. Only in real situations, I will try to learn how I should act.

To summarize, the leadership experience involved five people, who were my followers, my classmates from the same project. I have applied two theories to analyze my leadership abilities – the skills theory and the servant theory. The skills theory assisted in illustration of my skills and abilities as a leader of the team. The servant theory motivated me to serve others to become leaders in their personal and professional lives. Having analyzed my leadership experience, I found out that my strengths are adaptability and good human skills, the support, and guidance of my followers. Meanwhile, the weaknesses turned out to be the creativity and reaction to conflict situations, I am going to improve my weak sides by practice.