MBA401 People, Culture, and Contemporary Leadership Essay 3 Sample

MBA401 People, Culture, and Contemporary Leadership Essay 3

Assignment Details

Assessment Type:

Part A: In Class Activity (Week 11): 15%

Part B: Reflective Essay: 25%

Your Task

Part A: The summative reflective assessment will evaluate students’ depth of learning, development of knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding people culture and contemporary leadership.

Part B: Students will individually write a 1500-word reflective essay to show the depth of learning, development of knowledge and critical thinking skills regarding people culture and contemporary leadership. Write a reflective essay that addresses the following prompts:

1. Introduction:

a. Set the context with a summary of your background and experiences before completing MBA401.

b. State your objectives and expectations for this reflective assessment.

2. Learning Experience:

a. Reflect on your MBA401 journey and the various experiences explaining how they have shaped your growth and developing leadership skills.

b. Identify specific workshops and activities that have influenced your perspective.

c. Discuss how these experiences have challenged or reinforced your preconceived notions about people, culture and contemporary leadership.

3. Key Concepts and Theories:

a. Select three key concepts or theories related to people, culture and contemporary leadership that are most relevant and impactful.

b. Describe each concept or theory in detail, providing examples or illustrations to support your explanations.

4. Conclusion:

a. Summarise the key points in your reflective essay and reiterate the significance of increased self-awareness and how this can improve your leadership skills.

Please refer to the marking criteria to ensure you cover all the assessment requirements.

• Do not use AI to write your reflective essay.

• The essay must have KBS Harvard referencing, including in-text.

• While a lack of in-text citations may only appear to lose five (5) marks on the rubric, it will reduce student marks for other assessment sections.

Solution

1. Introduction

The experiences I had before completing the project were poor leadership skills. The study helped enhance competency levels by boosting leadership qualities. Leadership qualities are important in guiding others and motivating them to achieve desired goals. Apart from these, leadership skills help in team building competencies. Before taking part in the concerned study, my team-building capabilities were not up to the mark.

The objectives and expectations of the study are to state the ways I enhanced my leadership skills. Certain ways, such as strategic thinking and getting a good hold over soft skills and managerial skills, are the prime objectives of the study. Moreover, the study will focus on the ways I enhanced my communication skills, which are important for creating strong connections with other individuals for forming a team and fostering collaboration.

2. Learning Experience

The journey throughout the study helped me learn and develop certain new skills and made me informed regarding various aspects of running a business organisation. The study helped broaden my knowledge regarding the creation of an inclusive working environment, which enhanced my leadership qualities. Ways such as the implementation of policies and practices in the workplace for the safety of the employees in the workplace helped me in learning leadership skills. Leadership skills are important in convincing others to achieve a desired goal effectively (Doyle, 2022). Alongside, ways to make employees valued for their efforts for the work helped in developing an inclusive workplace culture.

Moreover, the study helped me learn the ways to provide services to diverse customers living in remote areas. Communication skills are important for effectively expressing opinions to others for achieving a target and motivating others verbally and non-verbally (Coffelt, Grauman & Smith, 2019, p. 2). Apart from these, the study strengthened my hold on ways to motivate others and foster team building. Team building not only helps in efficiently completing a business operation, but it also helps in enhancing the profitability of a business. In addition, motivating others helps in enhancing the commitment levels of employees to work with their utmost potential for the organisation. It consequently helps in raising the overall productivity of an organisation. Furthermore, the scope for learning ways to boost managerial skills made me learn ways to build good terms with customers, which impacts the profitability of an organisation positively for MBA assignment expert.

The workshop activities that helped in enhancing leadership skills are based on different aspects of the organisational culture of a company. Activities such as developing an inclusive workplace culture by implementing policies for the safety and respect of employees working for an organisation helped boost my leadership qualities. This made me think critically and make the decisions necessary to implement certain policies in the workplace of a company. Leadership skills are important in guiding and encouraging others to achieve a desired goal (Doyle, 2022).

Consequently, it helped in creating self-awareness for implementing policies that might create biases for a particular gender. Creating an inclusive culture in the workplace requires the development of gender equality in the workplace. The activity helped me to think critically to make decisions for creating policies to promote gender equality. Decision-making skill is important to take the right steps to address an objective (Joseph & Gaba, 2020, p.268). Moreover, the workshop consisted of activities such as motivating employees to work with their utmost potential for the organisation, which helped me to enhance my communication skills. This activity helped me develop deep insights into the situation faced by different employees, thereby resolving the issues faced by an employee. Besides these, leadership skills are boosted by developing knowledge regarding team formation. This opened the doorway for becoming a competent leader and helped me enhance the productivity of an organisation. The activity helped boost leadership skills through effective communication. Communication skills helped in convincing others to work for a common goal.

Furthermore, the activities associated with the workshop helped in personal growth. It helped in developing self-awareness and a deeper understanding of others' situations for helping them out of problems they are facing in terms of careers. This boosted my decision-making skills and consequently opened the doorway for availing of an ocean of career opportunities.

The ways experiences gathered regarding leadership and communication skills challenged me in terms of building inclusive workplace culture and team building. While implementing policies in the workplace regarding inclusive culture, there are issues of understanding the cultural values of different individuals. This created discrimination in the workplace, it is important to understand the morsel values and cultural disparities of different individuals (Operiano, 2023). It, consequently, helps in maintaining peace at work and consequently enhancing workplace productivity.

Moreover, issues of appearance bias in the workplace make many employees feel ashamed of their looks as they are not fit for societal standards. This challenged my decision-making skills, which consequently challenged my leadership skills. Besides these, issues in team building are due to the development of confusion among the members of a team regarding work. This happened because of poor work distribution among team members (Spahn, 2023). This not only challenges leadership skills but also challenges communication skills.

3. Key Concepts and Theories with illustrations and examples

The organisational culture model of Schein has been helpful in understanding the aspects of organisational culture which are important in the contemporary world. The three layers described in the model have given me clarity regarding the functional aspects which are involved in the daily cultures within an organisation.

Figure 1: Schein’s model of organisational culture
Source: (Mamatha &Geetanjali, 2020)

The first layer is the superficial layer with the minimum effect on any organisation's culture while the second and the third layers have deeper impacts on the organisational cultures (Mamatha & Geetanjali, 2020, p.27). The shallow layer named artefact has made me understand that the visible aspects are also important in casting their effect on an organisation's culture. Job titles, employee dress code, vision and mission and employee benefits all come under the umbrella of artefacts. The second layer, named espoused values, describes the practised values of the organisation and the employees working there (Assoratgoon & Kantabutra, 2023, p.136666). I have learnt from the aforesaid layer that the functional guidelines of the bank have been a product of the values which the organisation decides to uphold. Eventually, by following the guidelines of the bank, all its employees contribute significantly to the establishment of the core values for the organisation in its work culture. However, as per my personal experience, there remains a portion of the values and ideas which even the employees of the organisation are unable to address or comprehend. I, being an employee of the bank, have often wondered about the implication of certain rules and regulations in the organisational culture which we practise regularly.

Figure 2: Transactional leadership theory
Source: (Saad & Abbas, 2019)

Transactional leadership theory is a widely popular theory which emphasises the effect of management in the job role of a leader. Transactional leaders have a reliance on the effect of punishment and reward for the completion of a task efficiently (Kabiru & Bula, 2020, p.522). They rely on the regular vigilance of the tasks of the team so that rapid responses can be implemented when faced with a problem. The leaders are rigid and do not allow innovations to be implemented into the work culture, as they depend more on structures than flexibility (Saad & Abbas, 2019, p.236). Bill Gates has been regarded as a transactional leader who is of the opinion that when people are given problems with an explanation to reach corresponding solutions, they are bound to act accordingly. However, a combination of transactional skills, such as reward-punishment and regular passive vigilance, should be combined with transformational skills, such as motivation innovation, which can improve the organisational culture of the banking systems.

Figure 3: Transformational leadership theory
Source: (Saad & Abbas, 2019)

Transformational leadership theory has also been discussed and I am incorporating certain favourable changes into my leadership style to facilitate growth. The theory of leadership made me realise the fact that leaders can identify the role of their followers in the collective development of the organisation. I have started interacting with my team members in such a way which can help them realise their actual contribution to performing the banking processes on a daily basis. Similarly, I am seeking advice from my boss on a regular basis to understand the impact my job role has on the organisational work culture. I am planning on improving my regular verbal communication style so that I can motivate my team members to commit sincerely to the banking processes so that the organisation can achieve its desirable outcome successfully. Innovative banking ideas are developed with the help of a transformational leader due to the encouragement, inspiration and motivation bestowed on the followers (Bakker et al., 2022). Jeff Bezos has been regarded as an impactful transformational leader who is capable of initiating innovative product and service ideas into the minds of the employees (Brown, Brown & Nandedkar, 2019). His leadership skills are the result of the success of Amazon’s unprecedented service and e-commerce growth. Employee satisfaction and improved collaboration in the business of Amazon are also a result of the transformational leadership skills practised by Jeff Bezos.

4. Conclusion

Concludingly, I have learnt certain specific valid skills and methods regarding leadership and communication skill enhancement. The self-awareness associated with the misconceptions I had earlier about organisational culture, leadership skills and communication strategies had been eliminated after experiencing the workshop activities. I have mustered the skills of team management and team building while practising effective communication skills with remote customers. The significant impact of efficient organisational culture on the collective development of an entire organisation has inspired me to work for the personal development of communication and leadership skills.

Reference List

Assoratgoon, W & Kantabutra, S 2023, 'Toward a sustainability organisational culture model', Journal of Cleaner Production, p.136666, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136666

Bakker, AB, Hetland, J, Olsen, OK & Espevik, R 2022, ‘Daily transformational leadership: A source of inspiration for follower performance?’, European Management Journal, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2022.04.004

Brown, M, Brown, RS & Nandedkar, A 2019, ‘Transformational leadership theory and exploring the perceptions of diversity management in higher education’, Journal of Higher Education Theory & Practice, vol. 19, no. 7. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.www.na-businesspress.com/JHETP/JHETP19-7/1_BrownM_19_7_.pdf

Coffelt, TA, Grauman, D & Smith, FL 2019 ‘Employers’ perspectives on workplace communication skills: The meaning of communication skills’, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 4, pp.418-439. Retrieved from : https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/66033401/viewcontent-libre.pdf?1615913020=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DEmployers_Perspectives_on_Workplace_Comm.pdf&Expires=1695294684&Signature=RvkVUkJVOo7O5AJ0ABp7CjIhcsa9ruuqWWakjJaCakMDyZNY1jkarKhWrHx4TnZLrDN6cBFzfdTLQOZghnzer5s4YnoVFg4vUWZUgyD~RVgkJOz6iO-zyxNPP4aXwQ-HPpjPR4HabcUwhjbbbznyFqCwH2zu85b9FxMDwHm1W-wORxwXYA5-uPBQhQ5XgTlep9T48g1zH~P08ZjLvxj4E23J~sfZXRFr5tKKr~WY2~xfqw3TMK-AUOoyDrXnzdpTrXkmbnqpo2nbY1LCwto3Npf0Zob2Q2jcd18Ui0AAU3KomftTRMSyydgY9pgDaoih16k7DLPIEIuP~1l127UK7A__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

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Joseph, J & Gaba, V 2020, 'Organisational structure, information processing, and decision-making: A retrospective and road map for research', Academy of Management Annals, vol. 14, no.1, pp.267-302. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0103

Kabiru, GK & Bula, H 2020, ‘Influence of Transactional Leadership Style on Employee Performance at Selected Commercial Banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya’, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. Iv, no. ix, pp.520-524, Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hannah-Bula/publication/355408215_Influence_of_Transactional_Leadership_Style_on_Employee_Performance_at_Selected_Commercial_Banks_in_Nairobi_City_County_Kenya/links/616ee2aac891c4663aa2c1c8/Influence-of-Transactional-Leadership-Style-on-Employee-Performance-at-Selected-Commercial-Banks-in-Nairobi-City-County-Kenya.pdf

Mamatha, SV & Geetanjali, P 2020, 'Founder leaders and organisation culture: A comparative study on Indian and American founder leaders based on Schein's model of organisational culture', IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, vol. 9, no. 1, pp.23-33, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2277975219890932

Operiano, E. (2023, August 4). ‘10 diversity and inclusion issues’. EdApp Microlearning. <https://www.edapp.com/blog/diversity-and-inclusion-issues/>

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