Leadership in a Global Environment Key Lessons Practice

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Key Lessons

There were specific chapters in the course, Leadership in a Global Environment, that presented many key

lessons and learning opportunities. Chapter one discussed the nature and importance of leadership. I have

learned that the most fundamental characteristic of any organization is leadership, and leaders shape

organizations, communities and entire societies. The present condition of the world is due to past

leadership. The meaning of leadership was clearly defined to me in this chapter as “The ability to inspire

confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals.” I now

understand the differences between management and leadership. Leadership has characteristics of

creativity, effectiveness, transformation and adaptability while managers maintain, implement and

provide consistent and predictable results.

There are many different roles of a leader including, figurehead, spokesperson, negotiator, coach, team

builder, etc. I have also learned some people have similar influence as a leader and are referred to as

Emergent leaders. I believe I act as an emergent leader in my current role, since I do not have direct

reports but I am able to solely influence and exert leadership on other groups during specific projects and

tasks. With the perspective of my past leadership experience, I can relate to the standard satisfactions and

frustrations of being a leader. I now realize that these satisfactions and frustrations are shared by other

leaders. Working in multiple roles as a leader and a follower, this chapter also gave good input on the

ranking levels of different types of followers. An effective leader needs good followers. This first chapter

changed my overall perspective of leadership in reference to scope and impact.

Chapter twelve also consisted of key important lessons and discussed communication and conflict, which

were the most meaningful topics in the course for me. This chapter taught me the key aspects of speaking

and writing in reference to powerful communication. Being credible, presenting conclusions with data

and writing crisply and clearly are some of many aspects I learned to be a powerful communicator. I also

learned being a powerful communicator consists of nonverbal aspects such as perfect posture, eye contact

and time consideration all support my effectiveness. I knew the importance of listening before this lecture

but this chapter really broke it down further and put certain things into context. For instance, the

difference between speaking and listening rates really hit home with me since I have experienced this

routinely in my career. Knowing the difference between listening and speaking rates, I now try to involve

my listeners to minimize time for wandering.

Another aspect of communication effectiveness is cultural barriers, which was another opportunity of

learning for me. I learned simple steps to overcome cultural barriers such as challenging my assumptions,

using straightforward language and being sensitive to differences in nonverbal communications. I also

learned a tremendous amount about conflict management styles. I consider my conflict style as mostly

accommodative with satisfying others concerns without considering my own. Having reviewed this

material I plan to incorporate more sharing and collaborative styles characteristics, which lead to

compromise and the incorporation of my input. A final key learning from this chapter was some of the

valid reasons for picking a fight or creating a conflict. Picking a fight that is significant, noble and fair are

some of the important reasons for creating a conflict. This chapter is most important to me since it relates

to everyday aspects of my career and supports my advance. This chapter gave me key understanding on

the tools to be an effective powerful communicator and how to approach conflict. I believe these tools

will help me advance my career and lead to greater opportunities. Being able to effectively communicate

an agenda or project successfully promotes success and drives achievement with progress. Being a

powerful communicator will support my ambitions to be a superintendent of maintenance at my current

company.

Important Learnings

One of the most important learnings from this class was learning about the types of followers and the

employee contribution study. Chapter one included an in-depth breakdown of the different levels of

followers from isolates being the least engaged to Diehards being the most engaged. The contribution

study also opened my eyes to the analysis of employee contribution. I was surprised to see the results that

only 30% of employees are typically contributing to an organization. The reading “Coping with

Hitchhiker and Couch Potatoes on Teams” provided key information about the characteristics of these

people and offered suggestions to handle these situations. This chapter is one of the most important

learnings for me since I am accustomed to dealing with large organizations consisting of hundreds of

employees with low engagement. During my career, I experienced less than 30% of the employees were

engaged, which did not support a productive work environment. I believe this low engagement was due to

unsupported corporate driven projects and employee complacency. I plan to incorporate the learnings

from this chapter in my career to drive engagement and improve employee contributions.

Another important key learning for me was how to be a transformational leader and how transformation

takes place. Transformation leaders have high emotional intelligence, create a vision, practice

empowerment and think innovatively to drive change. A leader has several options to create

transformation such as raising awareness, people fulfillment, commitment to greatness, building trust, etc.

These are just some of the actions to use in becoming a transformational leader. My ultimate goal is to

advance in my career and I strongly believe advancement is linked to past success. Being able to create

change and drive productivity would support the goal of advancement and lead to my professional

development as a leader. This specific topic provided me with the insight and tools I need to achieve my

career goals.

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Key Lessons There were specific chapters in the course, Leadership in a Global Environment, that presented many key lessons and learning opportunities. Chapter one discussed the nature and importance of leadership. I have learned that the most fundamental characteristic of any organization is leadership, and leaders shape organizations, communities and entire societies. The present condition of the world is due to past leadership. The meaning of leadership was clearly defined to me in this chapter as “The ability to inspire confidence and support among the people who are needed to achieve organizational goals.” I now understand the differences between management and leadership. Leadership has characteristics of creativity, effectiveness, transformation and adaptability while managers maintain, implement and provide consistent and predictable results. There are many different roles of a leader including, figurehead, spokesperson, negotiator, coach, team builder, etc. I have also learned some people have similar influence as a leader and are referred to as Emergent leaders. I believe I act as an emergent leader in my current role, since I do not have direct reports but I am able ...
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Tags: global environment roles of a leader growth and development Leadership roles and management Communication and Conflict