My Experience in Transformational Leadership - Essay Example

In the work environment especially when I was a military commandant, I managed to transform the military structure into that which shows a high level of dynamism. I expressed both transformational and laissez-faire type of leadership to manage the senior and junior employees. In the military, we had various departments and departmental heads that are responsible for monitoring and maintenance of various activities within and without the camp. Therefore, the delegation of duties in relation to areas of specialization became paramount in all departments so as to achieve teamwork and proper coordination among the military officers. Also, I believed in giving less guidance to the subordinates and tried to achieve the set objectives and control activities with less obvious means. Besides, I believed that people can work well when they had been left alone to respond to their tasks and responsibilities in their best way possible. Given that the military has its guidance, rules and regulations which are given unto the army officers during training, I was giving the officers freedom to make decisions, other leaders to provide tools and the necessary resources which are needed to meet the organizational set objectives. Also, as more of the powers to make decisions were given to the followers, yet as a leader, I was responsible for the teams' decision and actions and made a decision which ensures that the entire military camp remains, speak one voice and operate in one accord. It thus shows that other officers knew what they are supposed to do but a little guidance is given unto them when they seem to be losing trajection. However, there were some challenges which were arising as I deploy the Laissez Faire type of leadership to administer the operations of the National Military. They include other leaders having a perception that I was not involved in the operations which others especially the followers were doing as per the freedom of decision making was concerned. At times, the roles were not properly designed, and I used to blame members of the team for not achieving the set objectives. However, given that in the military people work as a team, my leadership proved to be successful, and I had achieved the set goals of the employees as a commandant. For example, I successfully led the National War against the Iraq terrorist Saddam Hussein and managed to accomplish the rescue missions against the abductions and piracy in both sea and air.

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However, after the experience got in the military and the drawbacks which I did experience before, I decided to find more about leadership and how I can improve it so as to use the past solve the present and future problems. Through research and conversations, I had with other leaders; I can affirm that I had had a growth and a change in perceptions of leadership. Growth in leadership had enabled be to adopt the transformational type of leadership. These came after I had retired from the military and join the public sector. I was employed as the Minister of Internal Defense and Industry. It forced me to abandon the YES SIR slogan in the military since it couldn't work in the corporate world where different ideologies and propositions are put in place before indulging in the decision-making process. By adopting the transformational leadership style, I managed to experience performance beyond expectations. The main motivation behind the performance was strong indulgence in the creation of inspiring visions for the future of the nation, motivating the employees to buy into achieving the set goals, objectives and visions, managing the delivery of the visions and building a stronger trust based relationship with other people. It thus enabled the organization to build the model of integrity and fairness, every department to set clear goals and objectives facilitate effective service delivery to the public. In addition, it is a policy that made the employees decision-making higher standards and has high expectations for a better future. These made the ministry to be productive hence achievement of higher performance in the organization and improvement in service delivery to the people. It also enable the government to achieve a greater milestone in the security sector hence decision-making development of the country due to an improvement in the tourists and investors' confidence hence investments.

Transformational leadership is the type of leadership that had given me enough skills which I properly employ to motivate the employees and have encouraged me to work had to ensure that the organizational activities are achieved as a team. It did remind me of Mc Gregorys theory Y and X leadership styles. Through comparisons and the knowledge I borrowed from theory Y, I had managed to overcome the challenges emanating from political, economic and technological environments. It did enable me to believe that the effort in work is as natural as work and play, employees should express their need to achieve the set objectives without threat and punishment, commitment is a function of reward associated with employees assignment and people often seek and accept responsibility without coercion or undue influence. These coupled with the traits of transformation have enabled me to overcome various challenges which were affecting the normal operations of the government offices. It also did help me to inspire and incorporate different ideologies of people so as to meet the vision as scheduled either in the short run and long run.

In life I have realised that leadership indeed needs a high level of democracy. The Democratic leadership is essential in various department of an organization since it demands mutual respects among the interacting parties. When I indulge in the promotion of goods for Wal-Mart as a marketing manager at my later age, democratic leadership coupled with participatory leadership did prove to be quite essential since it involves collaboration between the leaders and the people in which we were guiding. It is the style of leadership which enabled me to define the responsibility of each other staff members within the marketing department of the organization. It also empowers me to ensure that the employees own and have power for decision making hence influencing the activities of an organization. Besides, the style of leadership makes me to be in a position to distribute or delegate responsibilities, empower the group members, and aids in the group decision making process hence leading to the creation of job satisfaction to the employees in various departments in an organization. It can thus shows that this type of leadership is useful during the decision-making process and quite essential for the implementation of the integrate project. Through this, the implementation and decision-making process which needs technical analysis was very catalysed. Besides, due to the knowledge I had in accounting for management and combined with the skills given by this leadership style, I could be in a position to make decisions which are catalyzes relevant to the situation at hand since I was basing the decision on tools of analysis such as the Net Present value of the project, the Internal rate of return and the payback period of the project before they are being accepted for implementations.

However, in some circumstances, employees or people can think that being democratic is a weakness of a leader. I noted this when one of the employee mentioned that I dont believe on what I am doing and the decisions I make depends on what I hear from what others say or comment. I therefore decided to incorporate the bureaucratic leadership style in the whole management and administrative departments. In this case, it is a type of leadership which I use to incorporate the chain of command, fixed official duties, technical expertise, written communication and hierarchy of authority. I applied the system of rules of management and decision making in all aspects of work. Given that the type of leadership deprives creativity and innovativeness of employees, its usage coupled with Democratic leadership proved to be the best combination for the development of Wal-Mart retail store. The laws and regulations which I had developed to control the leaders and other employees have enabled me to work for the company and have catalyzes the process of achieving the set objectives.

Currently, I can be in a position to testify that my leadership qualities have been changing over time with the situation and circumstances. It enables me to realize that leadership should be a dynamic agenda and should be alternating depending on the situations and factors which arise in the entire industry. With an appropriate leadership, the organization must have to achieve the set visions, missions and goals either in the short or long run. When my leadership styles are compared with other leaders who have led in the past or are presently in leadership positions, there is colossal differences and similarities which emanate from the way they treat employees and other subordinates in their work environments. When the ancient leader's qualities and leadership styles are taken into consideration, then these distinctions and similarities can be brought to light. For example, when Nelson Mandela was fighting for the end of Apartheid which is a system which was advocating for the end of supremacy that segregated people in terms of color, denial or the use of resources, freedom of speech and expression and denial of the right of full citizenship, he demonstrated a de...