Personal Reflection: My Learning And Professional Development

Part two introduction

I will now discuss my learning and professional development during the project discussed in part one. I will also discuss my leadership skills, relating this to relevant theory. Next, I will discuss situations that arose which encouraged me to reflect on my leadership skills. Finally, I will discuss how leading the project developed me as a leader.

My vision

Previously, at a meeting with staff, I discussed my vision for the project. Although all staff seemed keen on implementing the change it soon became apparent that they were not as enthusiastic as me. Through informal discussions with staff, it became clear they felt that they were working towards my vision and not a shared vision as I had not given them the opportunity

Prior to the implementation of change, I regularly adopted a pacesetting and democratic leadership style as defined by Goleman (2000). I was a systematic worker, as defined by Aubrey et al (2012), preferring to carry out tasks independently. That ensured tasks were always completed effectively and to a high standard. Furthermore, I continually listened to the staff’s views and involved all staff in decision making. On reflection, (Schon, 1983) I was aware that these leadership styles would not be effective throughout this project as it was important for decisions to be made quickly and for the workload to be minimal. I feel that the use of distributed leadership as defined by Harris and Spillane (2008) worked to an advantage for both me as a leader, and to the project. My workload was lessened by sharing leadership roles within the staff team. Furthermore, staff was given the opportunity to make their own decisions related to their tasks. As previously discussed, this had a positive impact on the project has staff were keen to complete their tasks to a high standard. Moyle’s (2006) places great emphasis on the value of involving staff in the decision making process and suggests that by ensuring this, staff motivation by will