During the leadership forum, the managers we had and heard from were both participative/democratic managers - managers who practice the Democratic Leadership Style. They also practice the transformational leadership style. These resemble the leadership styles of the well-known managers like Jan-Willem Rambouts, Oprah Winfrey, Aliko Dangote, Chimamanda Adichie, Jamie Grace Collins, etc. I admire.
Democratic and charismatic managers portray highness in openness, a great degree of intellectual curiosity, and preference for a diversity of ideas. They have visions, can articulate them and are imaginative too. Openness to feedback and ideas from their team is very common with them. They are very sensitive to both environmental constraints and follower needs, are more than willing to experiment, and have preferences for trying out new things to achieve results. In essence, they blend laissez-faire and autocratic leadership styles to find a middle ground. The major benefit here is improved employee morale as they feel valued and respected. Here, all team members can go creative and share their innovative and creative ideas with the rest of the team for team evaluation and analysis through discussions, etc. However, as its process can take some quality time to sort through, working with this leadership style could be problematic and unproductive in those instances when decisions must be made rapidly.
The managers we were privileged to learn from during our leadership forum had some experiential insights to share in this leadership style which they both happen to practice quite often. Mr. Christophe van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, one of them managers, shared how creativity and trust in the workplace are the most important aspects of work for him. To him, always having to abide by set rules and strategies is not the most ideal technique for workplace successes. In his opinion, it is in fact quite a pity that some organizations still do so, since if you want to be successful you need to be creative. “The most famous leaders in the world are all very creative and visionary” he said. He added that trust between employees and employers is very pivotal when it comes to creativity in the workplace. The manager should be able to trust his employees and vice versa for effective creativity to take place. As a manager, one mustn’t just punish an attempt, he/she should try to explain why it was not a perfect idea. Let the employees learn from their trials and let yourself as the manager learn from them as well. (McDermott, 2017) (LearningFM, 2017) (Robbins, DeCenzo, & Coulter, 2017) (vanPottelsberghedelaPotterie, 2018)
The transactional and transformational leadership style of our leadership forum managers came to a full limelight when they spoke at length about how they manage and are keen towards change. They enthusiastically spoke about how they, as leaders, create a vision for their employees and communicate it often. They consistently identify the need for change and then become the agents for that change through inspiration and motivation which they do using diverse techniques. This leadership style will typically improve employee morale and promote inclusion within the group. The transformational leader is a role model for his/her employees and strives to understand their strengths and weaknesses in order to enable them to be their best. Mrs. Jo De Lange, another one of the managers present at our leadership forum, spoke about how she motivates her employees by giving them a set-apart period of time to do things they love, as she is convinced that this can help make them to in turn become and stay committed to work. Also, every now and then, she makes them try out new, different and unusual things, using a test and learn approach, hoping that it will make them see new approaches that they might grow to like and implement in the future. In contrast to transactional leaders that maintain the status quo, transformational leaders inspire their employees to change in order to meet the strategic goals of the organization. However, transformational leadership style develops from the transactional leadership style, so they aren’t exactly opposites of each other. (McDermott, 2017) (LearningFM, 2017) (Robbins, DeCenzo, & Coulter, 2017) (DeLange, 2018) (vanPottelsberghedelaPotterie, 2018)
These leadership styles above indeed represent my personal leadership style. I believe that everyone should be given the right or platform to try and make a difference. Workplace stereotypical limitations only end up inhibiting potential attainment of organizations’ goals. With a clear-cut view on the diverse managers I admire, including those from our leadership forum, and all I have learnt about leadership thus far, I think I would rather be an entrepreneur than a manager. For the early start off in my business carrier, I would walk on the lane of entrepreneurship (in the media field, blogging and authoring books) while also climbing the ladder of management in other establishments proper before my brand is widely successful.
See some of the the things I hope to achieve after graduation in the short clip below
For the better time frame of my teenage and adult life while working in a Nigerian NGO - FECA Nigeria - and even now in my day to day life activities which also includes leading a youth organization - ACF Youth, etc., I’ve been a practicing entrepreneur and people manager and thus can relate to some quantifiable extent with what I’ve learnt so far in IBM about leadership and management, and I’m even more willing to learn and improve.
My Reflection On Note Taking in a Learning Session
Coincidentally, this is the only learning session that I played the role of a note taker, and I must say that I did the best I could at that moment to capture every essential information that needed to be captured.
As one of the three note takers during this forum, I made certain that everything I noted down corroborated with what was being discussed and what the outcomes meant exactly, i.e. giving appropriate conclusions to each point as the meeting progressed. For example, when I didn't grasp the example one of our managers for the day had given on the question of how he fosters creativity and innovation in his employees, I asked of he could please repeat what he had said and he kindly did.
My love for English language makes me want to get it right all the time. During the forum I payed intent attention to my use of words (oral) in the conversations in order not to make mistakes while buttressing my thoughts or opinions. I also gave careful attention to the notes I was taking to make sure they were systematically written and error free in that anyone at all can understand them even if the person wasn't present at the forum. Because of my well-written notes and that of other note takers, my team was able to make a good report of our learnings which was required for submission a few days after the leadership forum.
In as much as I am good at note taking, sometimes there still are errors in my notes, which is why I always proofread them to correct errors after the session. I always ensure that I pass on error-free notes at the end of the day and I did so for this learning session as well. I should however work on my language prowess even more, so that I become more proficient and less liable to make mistakes while taking notes.
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