University of

Greenwich

ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION COVER SHEET

SUBJECT CODE: BUSI1323

SUBJECT TITLE: Leadership in Organization

PROGRAMME: Bachelors of Arts (Hons) in Business Management

STUDENT’S UOG ID: 001082328

LECTURER’S NAME: Ms. Fadillah

LEARNING CENTRE: SEGi COLLEGE KUALA LUMPUR

SUBMISSION DATE: 23/4/2020

1.1 Step1

In now days of high-efficiency, fast-paced and competitive society, the leadership environment has
undergone tremendous changes. In my opinion, one must lead oneself before leading others, so that
one can become a reasonable leader.

I would consider myself a follower as well as a leader. The so-called leadership is to have a clear
cognition of their own ability to understand their own shortcomings and learn to ask for advice
modestly. “When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers”, we should also
learn to absorb useful advice and follow a better direction (K.Pratt, 2017). At the same time, it is
more important to know what is right and what is wrong to lead yourself in a positive direction.
Today's society, the demand for talents is becoming more and more diversified. From
communication to information technology, we are being tested in different ways. In order to confront
the different challenges, we need more outstanding leaders to seize the opportunities and lead us to
glory.

In my previous part-time job, I met a supervisor whose leadership behavior has always inspired me,
and I will follow his example to become a better leader. First of all, at work, he would not be
condescending to his subordinates. Instead, he would stand at the same level and convey tasks to
subordinates. In addition, he would think that all people's ideas are worthy of respect. He thought
although he is the leader, it does not mean that he is always right. When he has mistaken or areas that
he is not familiar; he will humbly accept questions and correct them. Ewest (2018) described
prosocial leadership emphasize the improvement of life and mutual benefit that are valued for all the
individuals. In this way, many subordinates will think that the leader is a very open-minded person.
Thus, they will get along better in a working environment with mutual respect, which will naturally
reduce many unnecessary conflicts between colleagues. This makes me break my original perception
of leadership, which is not closely related to the position or even equivalent.

1.2 Step 2

In my memory, I had a very deep experience. As the leader of the band, I led my group members to
participate the competition held by the school. I need to arrange the repertoire and practice for the
band. In order to achieve democratic leadership, votes were used for every important decision, such
as the selection of songs and the style of performance. At first, this democratic voting system worked
out well for the band.

However, various differences appeared during the exercise. Some members thought it was too
difficult and lacked confidence to complete it, so they wanted to simplify it. However, time was
pressed and the leader did not agree with them. As a result, in the middle of several exercises, the
members are in a negative mood to practice. Later, I realized that everyone was in the wrong mood,
but I wanted to finish the task efficiently, so I communicated with each member and understood their
ideas. During the next practice, I finished the practice ahead of time and asked all the members to
have a rest and bought snacks to appease them. The members also had new conversation and began
to help each other. Finally, we finished the performance.

Zenger (2015) explained responsible leadership is about making sustainable business decisions that
take into account the interests of all stakeholders. In that experience as a leader, I was not very clear
about the responsibility of a leader. I thought it was just to fulfill the responsibility of arranging
tasks, but I neglected the feelings of members. I was just only care about the team's goals; blindly
pursue the completion of the task. I should be more considerate of the members' difficulties and give
them advices and provide assistances. In terms of communication with members, I am also
inadequate. I should not only to understand the ideas and needs of members, but I also need to make
members understand and help each other. However, in that previous experience, it was desirable to
vote on some important decisions so that everyone felt involved and they could be value to the team.

1.3 Step 3

In my opinion, excellent leadership should be embodied in the following aspects:

The first is personal quality. A leader must have a macro perspective and vision, and be able to
inspire and lead his subordinates to the right direction. Because Good moral character and positive
values can let more followers respect. Second are wisdom, strong professional level, organization
and coordination ability, communication ability and adaptability are the basic conditions for leaders
to deal with challenges. Third is high EQ, the performance of leadership is the quality and quantity
of followers. A leader should have strong emotional communication skills, not only understand the
feelings of subordinates, but also know when to communicate emotions. There should also be trust
for subordinates because every team’s cooperation is based on trust. When a trusting environment is
established, subordinates can feel their own value reflected, so as to treat work more positively
(Grossman,2019).

2.0 Stage 2

2.1 Step 4

The strength of a team is far greater than the strength of one person. The essence of teamwork is
common dedication (Goyette, 2016). In this group activity, my two members all made great efforts to
accomplish the group goal. When discussing the arrangement of group activities, our leader will send
the task to the WhatsApp chat group composed of two team members, and each member will express
his or her own opinions on the topic one after another. Then, the group leader will make decisions
according to the members' recognition. For instance, in this group activity, we were asked to choose
an area in which the University of Greenwich needed to improve and give suggestions. For a team to
be effective, everyone needs to understand and agree on the common mission, and then put it above
their own personal goals. In the discussion to determine which area is our common goal, the group
leader adopted a relatively democratic approach, in order to let each member have a high degree of
participation. According to the leader's instructions, each member chooses the topic area they want to
discuss and then shares the topic in the chat group. The leader chooses the topic with common
inclination as the target of our group activity.

2.2 Step 5

Leaders are responsible for setting a clear and convincing direction (DiFranza, 2019). Mental health
was chosen as the topic we choose to discuss because it is important to promote mental health
knowledge among students. Influenced by friends or classmates, modern young people are under
pressure, and they do not know how to handle these negative emotions, and even cannot properly
deal with this kind of distress that bring different degrees of harm to themselves. Therefore, I want to
know more about this knowledge and scientific countermeasures. During the project, I became very
interested in the construction of mental health services. Thus, I read relevant materials and learned
from the successful cases of other schools to imagine more novel services for students who need
help. In addition, through the understanding of psychological knowledge, I found that there are few
examples of the implementation of psychodrama, so I hope that this activity can be better developed
in our university. In the process of team members' cooperation, I found that I still had many
shortcomings. For example, my English is not very good, so when I express some ideas, I cannot
express my ideas accurately, which will lead to misunderstanding of other members and delay a lot
of time. I proposed to the leader that I should improve my expression skills, so I served as the
introduction part when the group presentation. Through this exercise, I have built up more
confidence to express myself, and some local members will give me advice and help. Hence, I have
no longer felt nervous when making a speech, and speak out my own ideas bravely. Additionally, I
have understood more about teamwork that people can hone our skills at work. We should not be
timid because of our own shortcomings. We should be clear about our responsibilities and confident
in the our strength that can bring to the team (McQuerrey, 2019).

2.3 Step 6

In order to achieve the outstanding character that a leader should have, finishing on time with good
quality is considered to be the first step to establish a good personality. When I received the task
arrangement from the leader, I would try my best to look up materials, look for knowledge that could
be applied to the topic, and finish the task on time. Communication among members can make work
more efficient (Bass,2018). Therefore, good communication skills are also needed to be developed
for leaders. When discussing problems with team members, I always patiently understand their ideas
first, then describe my own views, and analyze the pros and cons with them. For instance, when we
discussed which member combines the slides completed for all team members, each member was
discussing their assigned task in the discussion group, in order to exclude the members with fewer
tasks than each member to deal with this task. We adopted this fair and reasonable allocation
method, which is easy for each member to accept. In this way, our pleasant communication will
reduce many unnecessary conflicts and we can complete the task together in a positive atmosphere.
Team members were also actively cooperated with each other and helped each other in difficulties
(Kinsey,2019).

3.0 Stage 3

From the experience of team projects and the results of the theoretical part of the course, I found that
I still have many deficiencies to improve. If I want to become a leader, I should start from improving
myself. Based on the initial development goal, I hope I can grow in practice, not only to improve my
professional knowledge, but also to learn from people around me. Through teamwork with team
members, I understand more clearly that the power of a team is great, and members can remedy for
each other and give play to greater creativity by supporting each other.

According to the behavioral theory, the success of leaders is not innate; he or she depends on the
acquired learning behavior to shape. So in order to develop leadership, I still need to keep learning
and improving myself. The effective realization of leadership is judged by the influence on the
behavior style of the leader, which implicated this depend on the followers recognition on the
personality and quality of the leader and working style. In behavioral theory, Human-oriented
leadership is to effectively coordinate problems among team members (Mulholland, 2019). Leaders
should start from individual members. As exemplary words and deeds, leaders play unique
leadership all the time, such as respect, recognition, encouragement, etc. If I have the opportunity to
be a leader, I would act to become a good example to the team members to guides them and inspire
their potentiality. Also, I would be positively believing their abilities and understand their position.
The fundamental is to make good relationship with the team members, so that the relationship of the
leader and the follower can be positive and stable, which can realize effective management in team.
Task-oriented leaders is the better practice of behavioral theory, leaders will clarify the goals of the
team to adjust from the task processing when there are problems in the team (Cherry, 2019). This
practice is to minimize the time consuming of the team to complete the task by prioritizing the task,
which is significant method for the leader to focus on complete the task.

In general, I think leadership should be defined by practical actions. The leader's behavior determines
how to influence the team. I also hope that I can focus more on practice to play my value in the team.
Reference

Bass, A., 2018. Why Is Team Communication Important When in Teams?. [online] Career Trend.
Available at: <https://careertrend.com/why-is-team-communication-important-when-in-teams-
4233172.html> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

Cherry, K., 2019. Why Do Some People Become Great Leaders?. [online] Verywell Mind. Available
at: <https://www.verywellmind.com/leadership-theories-2795323> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

DiFranza, A., 2019. How to Become a More Effective Leader. [online] Northeastern University
Graduate Programs. Available at: <https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/how-to-become-
effective-leader/> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

Ewest, T. (2018), "The prosocial leadership development process as a means to prepare the next
generation of organizational leaders", On the Horizon, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 225-
237. https://doi.org/10.1108/OTH-02-2018-0010

Grossman, D., 2019. Trust in the Workplace: 6 Steps to Building Trust with Employees. [online]
Yourthoughtpartner.com. Available at:
<https://www.yourthoughtpartner.com/blog/bid/59619/leaders-follow-these-6-steps-to-build-
trust-with-employees-improve-how-you-re-perceived> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

K. Pratt, M., 2017. What is leadership? - Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] SearchCIO. Available
at: <https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/leadership> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

Kinsey, A., 2019. Importance of Team Communication Skills. [online] Small Business - Chron.com.
Available at: <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-team-communication-skills-
3079.html> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

Mulholland, B., 2019. Behavioral Theory of Leadership: How to Be a Better Leader | Process Street
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<https://www.process.st/behavioral-theory-of-leadership/> [Accessed 20 April 2021].

Zenger, J., 2015. Taking Responsibility Is The Highest Mark Of Great Leaders. [online] Forbes.
Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2015/07/16/taking-responsibility-is-the-
highest-mark-of-great-leaders/?sh=228acf0b48f2> [Accessed 20 April 2021].
Appendix

Appendix 1: Entry Journals