Down the Road: My Personal Authentic Leadership Journey Essay

Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where arms and ammunition for armed forces of Pakistan are made and distri furthered to varied locations of the country, my leading timeline reflects that leading are moulded by the purgets they encountered and overcome to become who they are today. My business relationship begins with a father whose sole goal in life was to permit us the instruction that he k parvenue was vital to our aim to be made as role sit downs and leaders. Because education is non all about concur learning, my family paid special attention to educating us about morals and ethics.Via spiritual education, I found the virtue of macrocosm a good valet de chambre with a healthy belief system. To a leader you have to abide a strong foundation in values and how those values define our e in truth(prenominal) activity. Discussion Because of this emphasis on education, I found myself rase more drawn to furthering my own knowledge and uncovering my strengths and weakness es as a contri scarcelying member of society. I maxim my father as a role model who trustd his familys needs above his own.By moving out of his native village, he took the first steps towards providing his children with the outdo possible opportunities to get good standard education and develop high-pitched moral values and ethics in their personalities. As my father is rise up educated, he expected that his children too relieve oneself their full potential. Unfortunately, during my high computer program courses I performed poorly and was forced to spring even harder to improve myself. Upon stint college, I selected to be a class representative because I saw myself as having both(prenominal) good interaction skills as well as the aptitude for solving problems between individuals.This was the first time that I agnize that my goals to become a good leader were indeed possible and attainable. In hindsight, I see that this interaction was the basis for some lead traits (ht tp//www. stewart-associates. co. uk/ lead-models. aspx). For example, during conflicts I rose to the occasion and alleviated group stresses, persistently overcame dilemmas, cooperated with my bloke classmates in solving problems, was seen as a dependable role model for raze class men, and easily adapted to situations when demand.This initial experience began to give me the sureness that I needed to observe that I could success amply aid my fellow college students and being a strong representative of their requests and voices (http//www. buzzle. com/editorials/9-3-2004-58861. asp). It was only due to this sureness that I persistently applied for admission to several universities in Pakistan even though I had failed to obtain admission into any high be universities. To my parents, this was an embarrassment and the shame that they felt tore at my heart however though I was upset I realized I was not de-motivated.Instead, I adapted and improvised to the situation and selected to do my last family in college once again so as to receive higher marks. My self-restructuring stews paid off and I achieved higher marks than any mavin had expected from me. These apply efforts are once again the markings of a young leader and tail assembly be visually seen in the graph below Image taken from (http//images. google. com/imgres? imgurl=http//api. ning. com/files/pAqrWCqLQC2AgQvsxfBsUXwOyx42-xPKmO6TQFFNQ5tMD1CBzFkfU7rWUpMX6Siqa6k*LAJmr*e4wYGKq7zMGn6UmTHdk6fy/Leadershipmodel. gif.jpg&imgrefurl=http//mylinkingpowerforum. ning. com/xn/detail/u_3jluv5gj6mp9a&usg=__AwGvnrelt3BvpCbfy005kjVXiE4=&h=278&w=320&sz=13&hl=en& starting signal=10&um=1&tbnid=7oYMmH6hwuxfUM&tbnh=103&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dleaders%2Bmodel%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1) My hard work would never go to waste material and this renewed energy gave me the needed push to start my higher education at some good university. This effort ties in to the lead model reflected by T. McGregor (1906-1964) whic h specifies that theatre directors tend to make two different assumptions about military personnel nature.These surveys he explored in his theory X and theory Y where in theory Y he states that The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. (http//www. stewart-associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx) My effort had indeed paid off and my father was able to launch me to the UK for my higher education. It was hard, after starting the application process, Sept 11th occurred and the British embassy in Pakistan elected to close down its visa section for 6 months which forced me to postpone my studies until Oct 2002.In spite of this delay, my only repair was to kept up the anticipate and glide by my computer course, IELTS, and TOEFL studies until April of 2002. I study that this element of hope despite such hardships falls under the judgment of a required trait leadership because without hope you go away not feel the read to continue on i n pick ups, goals or objectives. enchantment research may micturate shown that there are no consistent traits which make a leader there is merit to the argument that a hope-less leader will not be a successful one (http//www. leadership-studies. com/documents/mgmt_standards. pdf).So here I was in April of 2002 in the UK, and excited to being a new life on my own but fully aware of the hardships that I would encounter faced with a different culture. This hotheaded difference would force me into getting a place to live, finding myself a avocation, and saving while I took time off from my college, Financial schooling Company (FTC). I was lucky to find a living place with my childhood friends who were very supportive and I excessively found a job at Burger King, a local fast food restaurant. I started my Associate Accounting Technician (AAT) qualification and completed this qualification by celestial latitude 2004.It was during this time that I also made several mistakes and suf fered from heavy losses, both on a socially and financially level. It was not easy adapting but I learnt from any mistakes that I made. I learnt how to deal my 5 friends (both jr. and older than me) living together and how to explain and assert myself when needed. I also learnt how to juggle the complexities associated with both working and going to school full time because in meet of 2003 I was forced to get a job at Sainsburys local store. After working for Sainsburys for sise months, I had an opportunity to step up as a supervisor and take on more responsibilities.During the interview process, I was the lucky candidate selected to become a supervisor. There were interviews held for this position and I was the successful candidate. This was very encouraging for me as my hard work and commitment to this job had paid off. The film directors checked my performance track record and they found me to be gross(a) fit for this role. I was taken aback when they decided that I would h ave to undergo more training prior to being able to get a shift by myself as manager. During this period, I completed a 3 month training only to find that upper counseling itself changed.So here I found a challenge when the new managers arrived at the branch they refused to promote me and official stated that I would need training for another 4 to 6 months. At that time, this became a very depressing situation for me. Even though I had passed all required tests for the position, it was under the managers end discretion to allow the advancement or not. Though I was disappointed, I did not lose hope and continued to struggle to my end goal. It took me another six weeks to prove myself as a good team leader who had the necessary capabilities to lead by example.That was a victorious moment for me when the store manager called me in the component and signed my promotion certificate. Due to my exposure at Sainsbury to various leadership models and techniques, I felt especially drawn t o the concept of the action focus on leadership structure. Via this model, I was introduced to the value of having a leader who performs activities and through these actions shows his or her employees the significance of balancing the needs of the employees with the requirements and expectations of the team. I came across many managers with different leadership styles e. g.manager or morning shift used to choose shop faced up and tidied while the one running the even out shift always focussed more on tills and customer value activities. For me, I saw that the true objective of an action plan is to efficaciously gauge what tasks must be accomplished in order for a project to be successfully completed. The leader of this situation is portrayed as a helicopter lightly gliding over the situation and having a positive overview of what is occurring through the project lifecycle. This allows for the task to been seen and directed to keep in line that bring in objectives are being met, and procedures are being adhered to.In the beginning I faced resistance from my own colleagues. They sometimes refused to do what I told them or argued and made lame excuses about why they could not accomplish a task. The reason for this behaviour was obvious. They felt that I who had been their co-worker just old age before was now their boss. The assignment of jobs from me made them clearly uncomfortable and they rebelled. I had to handle the situation very carefully by delegating the work as well as helping them, by assuring them that though I was a team leader I was also split up of the team.I could also see if there was endorse of gird and ensure that all deadlines are being met for the assignment (http//www. skagitwatershed. org/donclark/leader/leadcon. hypertext mark-up language). This elevated view allows for the leader to guide his employees while functions are being performed to complete the project. From a higher perspective, such a leader is enabled with the vital c omponent of perceive all aspects of the situation from the viewpoint of the task, the team, and the individual within the team. The team will see my commitment to the task assigned, and feel the same level of aim that I feel.This will allow the team to grow in their cohesion, drive for success, and gleam trust from each other. To an individual, this status allows for individual growth in their career objectives because they feel that their contribution is being acknowledged and is evident in the team circles. Feedback both for the leaders as well as from the leadership capacity allows for better commitments, respect, security, and change of direction if required. Key to this model is the evidence of plans being successfully outlined and modified if required (http//www.stewart-associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx). Such leaders are aware that sometimes change is necessary for a project to be successful. Some of my workers were habitually taking longer breaks, not twist up f or work and even stealing stock. Because of my strong leadership traits I able to convert many of them into giving up their bad habits and tone of voice that they could be good workers. This act of situational leadership enforced the concept that I needed to coach, direct, support, and delegate activities and behaviours for my co-workers (http//www.chimaeraconsulting. com/sitleader. htm). One supportive characteristic was my decisiveness was my decision to not take illegal action against one of my co-workers who my deputy manager disliked. I found myself faced with extra work and stress because of his anger, but because I was a strong believer in Thortons 3C leadership model (challenge, confidence, coaching) I felt that my personal challenge in this causa was to bear up under the difficulty and coach my employees into sharing my goals and decorous inspired by them (http//www.quickmba. com/mgmt/leadership/3c/). If I had given into the deputy managers illegal tactics I would destro y the confidence that they had begun to feel in my and my efforts to help them be successful. My self-confidence and ambition led me to try out employment in a company which also felt besides attuned, Dixons Plc. At Dixons, I was hired as a sales advisor, where within weeks I showed my employers my excellence in performance. They rewarded me with huge bonuses and commissions.They too believed in the Thortons 3Cs Leadership Model and challenged me to benchmark my progress and highlighted my strengths and how I could become even more successful. Enriched by this experience, I was only too happy to continue my learning in how to arrange credit agreements with the HFC bank and how to help oneself our customers with after sales services. This continued to build up my confidence because the ambitious goals that were set by my company were attainable and they showed me that I had the ability to reach the sales goals and quotas expected from me.Concluding Remarks My experiences have mol ded me from a worn out young man to an assertive one. Without the guide my father, my manager, and my exposure to the working humans and its expectations from me I would be unable to be the leader that I am today. I hope that by learning about new leadership techniques I may one day be able to progress into an even more experienced managerial role. I believe that my leadership traits and qualities have enriched my life and aided me in my attempts to overcome the hurdles and challenges impel my way.References Bass, Bernard (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Winter, 1990, 19-31. Bolden, R. , Gosling, J. , Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. A analyze OF LEADERSHIP THEORY AND COMPETENCY FRAMEWORKS (2003). Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. leadership-studies. com/documents/mgmt_standards. pdf Clark, Don. Concepts of Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. skagitwatershed. org/ donclark/leader/leadcon. htmlChimaera Consulting Limited (1999). Situational Leadership. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. chimaeraconsulting. com/sitleader. htm Thornton, Paul B. Be the Leader, Make the dispute Thornton, Thorntons 3-C Leadership Model. Website. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. quickmba. com/mgmt/leadership/3c/ Models and Theories. Website. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. stewart- associates. co. uk/leadership-models. aspx Leadership Qualities. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http//www. buzzle. com/editorials/9-3-2004-58861. asp