Module 5: Reading Essay

Prompt #1:  What is the leadership paradox (2 points)? Give some reasons why you
think a leader can encounter difficulty in newly formed teams or groups using a
participative management system (3 points).  What skills, behaviors, and personality
traits are common to transformational leaders (3 points)? How does this leadership style
affect their team (2 points), and how are those results different than those of a
transactional leadership style (2 points)? Also, describe some of your own experiences
with transformational (3 points) versus transactional leadership (3 points).  
The leadership paradox is the internal struggle leaders have to surrender ego and lead
people. It is a window into the vulnerability required to accept feedback and grow into
the leader a team needs. I recently experienced a living example of leading a newly
formed team using participative leadership. I recently opened a new store with 30 new
partners. Only 1 of those partners had previous experience opening a new store and 5
of the partners had experience in the business. I did not experience many issues with
my newly formed team due to performing the best hiring of my career and taking a great
approach to creating culture and effective communication among the team right from
the beginning. I brought the companies mission and values to life immediately from the
beginning and held the partners accountable from day 1. I acted as a transformation
leader and made a living effort to connect with every partner and understand their place
in life and examined how I can influence their participation in the company. I truly
wanted to connect with each partner and understand their place in life. My goal was to
understand where they are in their life and subtly incorporate the company mission and
values to enhance their place in the world. I did not want to take anything from them,
only add to their beautiful existence. We recently acquired a new district manager. He
is different from the previous manager. He takes time to know us and understand what
we need to be successful. I appreciate his efforts to know me and listen to my ideas.
This makes me feel valued and heard vs my previous DM. I am appreciate the listening
and feeling heard, it makes me want to achieve results and bring others along for the
journey.

Prompt #2:  Discuss some (at least two) of the strategies for encouraging participative
management in the workforce (4 points), and how to implement each of these strategies
(4 points). What has been your own experience, and what are your perspectives,
regarding participative management in organizations (4 points)? 
Participative management is simple. Use your team to get results. This is exactly my
practice in this time. I set goals for my team and give them autonomy to achieve the
goals in their own manner. I delegate tasks and let them work. They need to
understand what the goal is and then decide how they want to reach the goal. I hold
weekly meetings with my team to reenforce best practices and take input from my team.
I want to understand their experiences and support them through their growth. I
encourage connections and having the tough conversation with includes creating
accountability and creating vulnerability as a leader. I believe this is the most
responsive leadership style for me and I will continue to lead through participative
leadership. I love teaching my team how to be vulnerable and learning what they need
to be effective leaders. Opening a new store has been an experience. I am building
culture while establishing best practices and helping an entire leadership team step into
their power. I am currently in the process of opening another new store and helping the
store manager for that store understand my process. I went from last in the district in
metrics to #1 in 4 months and I am ready to tackle the next project.