Faculty of Business Administration

IPM programme

Human Resource Management: Leadership essay

Module: Human Resource Management

Date: 23 January, 2008
Student Names: Mehammedneja Kemal
Student number: 0701144
Teachers’ name: Anzalika Krastina, Tomi Huhtamäki
 I AM A LEADER
Am I? Or Could I be?
To answer these questions I think I have to evaluate my skills and competencies if I can describe
myself as already being a leader or need to learn to be a leader. I will start discussing the qualities,
skills and competencies one needs to have as a successful leader in general. Then to the end of my
essay I will asses myself against these defining factors to decide if I am already a leader or have got to
learn some of the skills I lack to be one. I limited the options to two because I believe leadership could
be learnt. There is no option to conclude as “I am not a leader”. Anyone can be a leader.

Leadership is a set of skills to be learnt. And learning these skills is a life time process in which a
person acquires all the skills he or she needs to be the best leader. The process begins from childhood.
As any kind of skill like ridding a bike or swimming, the best time to learn and best adapt the
leadership skills is childhood. For this reason I think parents, the society and culture one has been
brought up play a vital role in one’s destiny as a leader. A person who had parents that encourage their
children to freely express their thoughts and beliefs turns out to be a confident, proactive, and a good
public speaker. He would have been a shy, reactive, silent and submissive person otherwise.

I think those leaders we conventionally consider as “born leaders” are the ones who have been given all
the favorable conditions to speak out, choose their own preferences and exercise freedom since their
childhood. It is easy to be the best leaders for such kinds of people. This doesn’t mean that those who
did not have this suitable environment can not be leaders. They just have an extra task of learning some
of the skills they lack to be good leaders. It requires a great deal of effort and commitment to acquire
those skills. The main point is for them to believe it is possible to change and learn to acquire the skills.
They should develop the courage to break the shield that buries those leadership characters or skills and
come out to be successful leaders at some point of their lives.

The society and culture is another factor that determines one’s behavior to be in the best situation to
favor him/her to be a successful leader. This best situation is the case where one is equipped with all
the qualities needed in such a way that they have become his/her habit. A society that exercises
democracy, encouraging individuals to stand up for their beliefs and opinions is much better to produce
successful leaders than a society that does not exercise freedom of choice.
Whether a person is favored by his/her childhood background or not the point is he/she has to learn,
develop and habituate all the qualities, skills and competencies needed to become a leader. So what are
those qualities and identifying factors to be a successful leader?

A successful leadership is that which bases itself on understanding people. Whether it is in a small team
or a big organization understanding the followers is crucial. A leader has to make a delibrate effort to
know what motivates and what frustrates his/her people. For this reason the leader has to be a good
listener. Listening to what people have to say is the first and the most important step in understanding
them. The listening skill can be learned by practicing it. Naturally we tend to emphasize our own point
of views in an argument or a discussion by talking more and explaining. In order to be a good listener a
leader has to leave his/her ego behind. The other essential thing to note is to stop blaming others and
start appreciating and learn dealing with criticism. To be a good leader one has to start learning to listen
and overcome this natural tendency to want to be heard all the time. Because listening carefully to other
people will give us how they envision the subject in question. This is an extra advantage to have a
better strategy to convince people now that we know how they think.

“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. You can't blow an uncertain
trumpet.” Theodore M. Hesburgh. If there is no destination it is needless wandering around. A good
leader is one with a clear vision, one who tells his followers how much worth it is to work hard to reach
the specified destination. He/she should be able to visualize the final result and make it clear for the
followers that there is a better place to go to. In a way this is inspiring and motivating the people to get
them want to do what they have to do. Jack Welch, the long time Chairman and CEO of General
Electric, said “Create a vision and get out of the way”. In this respect the leader’s job is to give a
definite vision to the followers and not to meddle in their decision making process how to do the job. It
is a simple fact that human beings like to be left alone when it comes to the ways of handling tasks. It
builds a sense of trust and confidence in the working environment. I think once the leader has set the
final goal it is easier to work on how to achieve it. If we know which country or continent we want to
visit we know what kinds of shoes and clothes we need to take along with us and which kinds of
vaccinations we have to take in advance before we start our journey.

Our interpretations of situations determine the way we handle our day to day events happening around
us. The way we perceive such situations leads us to a conclusion that the event is pleasant to us or a
complete annoyance. But if we are always open minded and ready to explain situations in their positive
aspects it is better to find life easier. Such abilities in work places or group works are vital to build
smooth interpersonal relationships. A leader with such positive thinking attitude is what the modern
society needs. A positive thinking leader has a better ability to accept feedbacks from his followers and
bring a change to adapt to the situations at hand.

As it was mentioned in our leadership class “LEAD by example” should be the slogan of all the leaders
in the 21st century. If a leader wants his people to commit to their job, he/she should be committed to
the shared goals in the first place. The more committed the leader is the more committed the followers
will be. We are by far a long way ahead of the style of leadership where by leaders are just expected to
give orders and sit aside waiting for results from subordinates. It is a time of involvement that we live
in today. Putting group efforts together from all levels of organization in to solving the problem at hand
brings a more fruitful result.

As Joseph Rost states it in his book Leadership For The 21st Century, University of San Diego (1991),
the contemporary leadership is characterized by multi-directional influence between the leader and his
followers. In this aspect I think modern leaders should have the skills to influence people and the
readiness to be influenced by people. Only with such appropriate attitude and quality is a leader in
today’s society can successfully achieve set objectives and goals. A shared leadership responsibility
and mutually benefiting changes are appreciated and finally lead to a group success.

“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have
trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They
understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it,
but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” Peter
Drucker. Responsibility is an important factor that a leader bears in a leadership process. A responsible
leader is one that knows he /she is accountable to both the success or failure of his/her team. Thus
works hard all the time in harmony with his members towards success avoiding failures. When the
leader is taking responsibilities for tasks the followers are also inspired by his example. They will not
be resistant to take responsibilities or being accountable to what they decide to do. They know that the
leader is a prepared to share success prizes and failure blames as well, that he/she is not the kind of
person who tries to keep hands clean by all means.
Sometimes there are cases where we happen to realize we are stuck at some point in the process of
accomplishing a task or solving a problem. We re-check the ways and methods we have followed to
have come this far from the very beginning and everything seems perfect. But the task doesn’t go any
further from where it has stopped. In such situations we need flexibility. Even a member of the group
might have been suggesting we needed to change our approach towards solving the problem in
question. As a natural reaction we don’t usually appreciate such dramatic changes we keep trying to
make what we have started right. In a way we try to prove ourselves right, that we haven’t made a
mistake. But it is a necessary quality for a leader to be flexible in such situations. Then completely
forget and try a different approach. As long as we have an open mind and are ready to accept new ideas
and approaches there are always better alternatives to cross the river and reach the promise land.

The performance of the leader is the collective measure of his/her leadership competencies and
attitudes. So the intelligence, creativity, talents, knowledge and technical skills of a person are not
enough to make him/her a good leader. A good leader has to have the attitudes that make him interact
and perform well in a group of people. The leader’s attitude is the important factor to be accepted by
the followers. A leader with a good attitude is one who respects the values and opinions of his/her
people. Such a good attitude helps build a friendly environment and smooth interpersonal relationships.
A working environment with such ease and comfort is always a better place to be in and provide
extraordinary results for the benefit of all the involved bodies.

I will go back to the questions in the beginning of the essay now. But first of all I think I have to
reformulate the questions in to one general and analytical question. “Do I have the qualities, skills and
competencies that I stated and discussed above?”

If I have some of these important factors then it means I am a leader but still with a room for
improvement. I guess no successful leader of our time had all those qualities at once. It is not a world
of perfection that we are leaving in. Rather it is a world of learning and improving towards perfection.

Fortunately the fact that I was the team leader of one of the tender game teams makes it a perfect
timing to evaluate myself to answer this question now. I have exercised and learnt a lot as a team leader
for the past two months or so. I even discovered some characters and abilities that I have never
imagined I had.
I always knew I am a good team player because I am very friendly and an easy-to-work with person. I
always get along easily with different kinds of people because I am a listener rather than a talker. It has
always been easy for me to understand people and react positively towards what people have to say and
do. My explanation for this is that I believe human beings are generally good creatures. Whatever bad
things a person does I know there is always a good explanation that convinced him/her to do it. The
reason might not be enough or acceptable by others but it was enough for his level of reasoning. At
least for the state of the mood the person was in at the time of his/her bad actions. I am also a flexible
person to adapt to changes easily. I can easily blend into new situations and environments even if they
require giving up some of the norms I am used to.

Speaking in public or even in front of a small group of people such as our IPM class room has always
been one of the things I had problem with. This might be linked to lack of confidence and being
nervous out of the fear that I might say something wrong. But I began to realize what if I did. There is
nothing wrong with being wrong. There is always room for correction and improvement. And of course
I have improved it enormously during my IPM study with all the presentations that I had to make along
the way. I learnt that the main secret is to prepare well and know about the subject matter before hand.
However I still have a lot to improve in that area. The other flaw that I always had is coming out of
arguments positively. I always try to avoid arguments thinking that they are never useful. Sometimes I
even give up while I know I have the better solution. This is one other thing I happened to witness it as
a positive exercise during the tender game meetings.

In conclusion what I am trying to state is that I have some and lack some of the qualities, competencies
and skills to be a good leader. I have also proved I can learn and improve some of those skills I lacked
during the past five months of my IPM study. The main point worth noting here is I believe in myself
that I can bring the changes I need in me. I know it is not an easy task rather it is a difficult and long
process to learn the skills and make them my own habits. So I can definitely say, not just for the sake of
saying but because I believe it from the bottom of my heart, that I AM A LEADER.