A Leadership Portfolio: My Leadership Skills

A leadership portfolio reflects the activities, accomplishments, abilities, skills and experiences that have enhanced a person’s leadership development. Leadership portfolios can be used during resident interviews or when looking for an internship or permanent employment. Having a detailed and wells-structured portfolio when looking for a job is an added advantage for people seeking job positions at the leadership level. Major components of a leadership portfolio include personal statement on leadership and compilation of leadership experiences as well as reflective essays.

Part one of this paper reflects my statement on leadership, my key values as a leader and my expectation for the team I lead. Part two of the paper is a compilation of reflective essays on my leadership experiences. 

Part One Personal statement on leadership I define leadership as the act of motivating people towards accomplishing one common goal. In an organization setting, leadership involves using strategies to motivate and direct the employees to meet the needs and goals of the company.

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Effective leadership is dependent on the ability to inspire others, coaching the team members and managing the delivery of the company’s vision. It is also dependent on effective communication between the leader and the employees in the company. Since leadership is all changing the mindset of the workers through new ideas, a leader ought to communicate those ideas to the team or staff members in a manner that enhances their engagement in whatever the leaders wants them to do. When defining the term ‘leadership’ it is important to take into account the idea that leadership is closely linked to the performance and profitability of the business.

As such, I believe that the effectiveness of a leader is measured or determined by his or her ability to improve the performance of the company and meet the profit margin set by the company’s executives and stakeholders. 

A leader who fails to do is likely to be terminated. While there are some people who are naturally endowed to become leaders, others become effective leaders by learning and developing particular skills. Indeed, there many people who have managed to inspire others and persuade them to follow a certain course of action even without having a past leadership experience. This means that a person can still become a leader even if he or she was not born to be one. My position on this matter is that leaders are made, not born. An example of a leader who was not born to be a leader is Steve Jobs, who I identify myself with because of his incredible job at the Apple Company. When he started the company in the year 1976, he was later fired in the year 1985 for disagreeing with the chief executive officer concerning the company’s future direction. His termination came at a time when the organization was facing stiff competition in the market. However, he was rehired in the year 1997 as the CEO and through his leadership, Apple made remarkable improvements in terms of performance and profitability. He emerged not only as a charismatic leader but also an excellent communicator who proudly and openly shared with the employees, the vision and mission of the company. His communication skills helped him to motivate and inspire the workers towards achieving the goals of the organization. 

My excitement about leadership Throughout my school life from high school to college, I have always imagined myself being in leadership position because I viewed it as promising position that comes with great responsibility. Being a team leader at my workplace, I already know that playing a leadership role goes beyond achieving success with the team. It also involves taking responsibility of the resources available for the company. From my experience as a team leader, I am aware that leadership not only involves organizing, coordinating team members, and delegating duties but also involves motivating and inspiring the members.What makes me so excited about being a leader is that I have an opportunity of make decisions and inspire others at the workplace. Am also happy because, as leader, I am involved in developing and enforcing company policies and programs that relate to the workers. Being a leader has enabled me to explore my abilities in leading other people. In addition, it has helped me develop my professional career in my field of study. 

My leadership key values My key values as a team leader include trustworthiness, confidence, determination and honesty. These values have enabled me to lead my team effectively, whereby every team member is given an opportunity to contribute meaningfully. My confidence and determination as a leader have enabled me to be bold when pointing out mistakes and when directing the team members in what they should do. Whenever the team members feel uncertain of accomplishing goals, I confidently encourage and inspire them to keep on doing what is right until goals are achieved. Some of my major strengths include responsibility, achiever, problem-solving skills, and competitiveness. My leadership style is transformational leadership. As a transformational team leader, I create an inspiring vision for the team and motivate the team members to enhance their commitment in achieving the vision.The vision provides direction and set priorities for the team members. My ability to motivate and inspire the team members helps to deliver the vision of the group and that of the organization. 

As transformational team leader, I believe that team development through coaching and training is an important activity in team leadership. I always ensure that the team members acquire the knowledge and skill they require to carry out their duties and achieve the group’s vision. To achieve this, I coach my team members regularly to improve individual performance. My expectation for my team It is important to note that the relationship between a leader and the staff employees determines the performance and success of the organization. Similarly, the relationship between a team leader and the team members determine whether or not the team will be successful. For the team to be successful, there needs to be trust and openness between the team leader and the team members. My experience as a team leader has been quite challenging trying to mobilize the team members towards the vision of the team. 

Despite, this, am happy that I have led my team through various difficulties and pressures successfully. Therefore, I expect my team members to emulate my personal attributes of confidence and determination regardless of the situation. More importantly, I expect them to demonstrate honesty, openness and trustworthiness I whatever they do that is related to work. Part Two The reflections assignment highlighted my past and present experiences as a leader. It also highlighted my personal strengths as a leader and the areas for improvement to improve my leadership skills. The reflections assignment further highlights some of the challenges and opportunities I have experienced throughout my leadership role. Indeed, this assignment will help me develop my leadership skills as it will motivate and inspire me based on my past experiences in the leadership role. From the personality profile test, I was able to identify my personal attributes, life skills and values that have contributed to my excellence in my leadership role. 

The personal test results revealed that my major leadership attributes and values include confidence, honesty, integrity, delegation, empowerment, accountability and creativity. The personality profile assignment will assist me identify my most preferred leadership style that corresponds to my personal values and attributes. This particular assignment will help me develop my leadership skills as it identifies my most preferred leadership style which I will use to motivate and inspire my team members. 

My leadership style (transformational style) will also help to develop trust between me and the team members. This, in turn, will enable them to have confidence in me as their leader. In the context of organization management, Gap analysis is all about comparing the actual performance of the company with the desired performance. Failure to utilize available resources effectively results in substandard performance which is below the desired. The purpose of the Gap analysis is to identify gaps between the current allocation of available resources and the optimized allocation. This helps in identifying areas that need to be improved to achieve optimal resources utilization. The Gap analysis assignment will help me develop my leadership skill as it will enable me identify areas that I need to improve in order to lead my team more effectively. 

Furthermore, it will enable me to determine how the team is currently doing and what it hopes to achieve in the future. With this, I will be in a better position to develop strategies for improving the engagement and commitment of the team members towards achieving the vision and goals of the team. The leadership maxim assignment will help me develop my leadership skills by guiding my actions and decisions as a team leader. Having leadership maxims will also make me more a powerful and predictable team leader.  

Works cited

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