Leadership and Management: A Personal Perspective Paper Example

Introduction

Leadership defines the action of heading persons in an organization with the objective of attaining a defined objective. Organizational leaders achieve their objectives by influencing the behaviors of employees in different ways. Moreover, a leader sets a clear vision in an organization, motivates the staff, guides the personnel through their work procedures and also boosts the workers' morale. Other examples of leadership roles include solving conflicts, setting organization's vision, recruiting and training new employees. Today, leadership is considered to be an important role in promoting employees' performance and productivity. As such, good leaders set clear visions for their staff and then encourages them to embrace the desired future of the organization. Management, on the other hand, means the deployment as well as manipulation of human, financial, technological and natural resources in an organization. Proper management is imperative for all organizations because it helps in arranging the factors of production, gathers and organizes essential resources and then integrates the resources in an effective way to achieve the organizational goals. The primary focus of this research is will be to ascertain whether my personal strengths and areas of growth align with various leadership and management roles essential for an organization.

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Assessment of Personal Goals and Strengths

Based on a personal evaluation, my primary strengths in relation to working with other people include the ability to motivate others, the capability to solve conflicts, as well as potential to develop a clear and attainable vision. Arguably, the personal strengths I possess are better aligned with the leadership roles in an organization rather than the management roles. Moreover, this is because when functioning in an organization, I am highly efficient in motivating all personnel under my leadership to execute their roles. According to Ajayi (2012), motivation, when used in an organization, is a force that encourages as well as promotes all employees to cooperate in executing various organizational functions. I achieve motivation through providing guidance to others with a goal to boost their motivation when working in organizations. Also, I possess good conflict solving capabilities, which is efficient in solving conflicts between different workers under my leadership in an organization. Solving conflicts on time is imperative in ensuring that the operations of organizations run seamlessly without unnecessary interruptions (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2011). Ultimately, the development of a clear vision is among the most imperative leadership roles in an organization. The role aligns with my strength to develop a well-defined vision that is easy to execute in achieve the desired goals.

Identification of the Desired Area of Growth

Motivation is the area of growth that I would like to promote to be more efficient when taking a leadership position in an organization. Additionally, this is because employees' motivation is an imperative aspect that promotes the performance of a department or an entire organization (Ghaffari, Burgoyne, & Nazri, 2017). The presence of a motivated workforce means that an organization has a highly productive staff. Subsequently, this is imperative in ensuring that the organization's goals are achieved. In addition, the motivation of employees is also an undertaking that needs to be performed on a regular basis to maintain the productivity of all personnel in an organization. In this case, I need to understand the various strategies through which personnel in an organization can be motivated based on different working environments. For instance, some of the motivation tactics that can be used on the personnel in an organization could include offering incentives such as salary bonus, free training, promotion and public recognition among others. Understanding such motivation tactics will enable me to ascertain the right motivation strategy to use for different individuals in an organization. Lastly, the growth in knowledge of motivation will enable me to know how it can be used to improve the employees' commitment, satisfaction, efficiency and development in an organization.

External Factors That Could Affect Leadership in Social Work

In this context, external factors are influences that are outside the business environment that could affect individuals in a leadership position. When leading social work, the first external factor that could affect my leadership is technology. In this case, the technology could be in form of new information and technology (IT) devices in the market like digital data managers and hand-held planners among others. The second external social factor that could affect my leadership in social work is cultural diversity at the workplace. In this case, as a leader, I should learn to identify and understand the different cultures of clients that my organization would interact with under my leadership. That is in terms of their racial, cultural, religious and social backgrounds.

Explanation of How the Identified External Factors Could Affect My Work as a Leader

Today, technology changes at a remarkably fast rate and it can result in drastic changes in a workplace environment (Arthur, 2009). For instance, the emergence of a new technology can ease the collection and recording of data when executing social work. To better adapt to such technological changes in the market, as a social work leader, I should perform regular technological research to always be updated on technological trend in the market. The knowledge of people's culture is important when working as a leader in social work because it would help me to understand the norms and expectations of different clients in the working environment. Subsequently, this would help in avoiding conflicts with such clients when performing social work. Also, understanding the culture of different people can be done by performing a comprehensive research on the targeted location before social work can be performed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, leadership defines the action of heading persons in an organization with the objective of attaining a defined objective. Contrary, management is the deployment as well as the manipulation of human, financial, technological and natural resources in an organization. My strengths when working with other people include the ability to motivate others, the capability to solve conflicts, as well as the potential to develop a clear and attainable vision. From the personal evaluation, the personal strengths I possess are better aligned with the leadership roles in an organization rather than the management roles. However, I feel that I would need to improve my motivation skill to be better in my leadership skills when working with personnel in an organization in the future. Learning how to motivate workers better will allow me to understand the various strategies through which personnel in an organization can be motivated based on different working environments. The knowledge will also allow me to ascertain the right motivation strategy to use for different individuals in an organization. Ultimately, technology and cultural diversity of clients are two of the primary external factors that can affect my roles when working as a leader in social work with my organization.

References

Ajayi, A. (2012). Motivation as a Tool for productivity in Edo State Civil Service. Munich: GRIN Verlag.

Arthur, W. B. (2009). The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Cloke, K., & Goldsmith, J. (2011). Resolving Conflicts at Work: Eight Strategies for Everyone on the Job. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Ghaffari, S., Burgoyne, J., & Nazri, M. (2017). The Influence of Motivation on Job Performance: A Case Study at Universiti Technologia Malaysia. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 11(4), 92-99.