Introduction
Reference Summary
While exploring my personal leadership I used a variety of books, research articles and assessments. The books were used to cover servant leaders, agile development and organizational learning. In addition to the books used for research I reviewed several articles on both servant leadership and agile development where I was able to being to piece together each methodology.
Since I am a huge of assessments, the research was personal assessment heavy with all of the educational and professional assessments I have participated in over the last few years. It is very important for me to see where I fall as an employee, person and leader and make connections to current theories, which then in turn become practice for me in my career. The following assessments provided insight into my current and future leadership styles:
• Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (CPP, Inc., 1990, 1998, 2005)
• Emotional Intelligence / Leadership Development Report (PRADCO, 2005)
• Strengthsfinder 2.0 (GALLUP, 2000, 2006-2012)
• The Achiever (Candidate Resources, Inc., 1999-2013)
• The Birkman (Birkman International, 2011)
Road Map
This leadership paper will explore the Servant leadership role and connect it with the Agile Development Scrum Master methodology. It will demonstrate the leader that exists today through assessments and describe my leadership aspirations as a Scrum Master, future adjunct faculty and project manager. In addition, the paper will communicate the history of Medical Mutual as well as outline the company’s current organizational expectations and future objectives for leaders. I will also explain my 10-year leadership development plan which involves developing an agile team, being g...
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...hey, J. (2013). A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership
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PRADCO. (2005). Emotional Intelligence / Leadership Development Report
[Measurement Tool]. Retrieved from www.pradco.com.
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Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. What is Servant Leadership?
Retrieved March 27, 2014. https://greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/
Rubin, K. S. (2013). Essential Scrum. Upper Saddle River. Pearson Education, Inc.
Senge, P. M. (1990, 2006). The Fifth Discipline. New York. Currency Double Day.
Servant leadership, as defined by Kretiner and Kinkicki (2015, p.486), is putting the needs of others, including employees, customers, and community ahead of one’s own needs. This management style requires selflessness and humility from management so the organization can focus on serving key stakeholders. There are ten characteristics of a servant-leader as identified in the text
Servant leadership is a designation coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970 in an essay entitled The Servant as Leader. In this essay, he describes the servant leader and a servant first contrary to one who is a leader first. The difference is the servant chooses to put others needs before his own while the leader first may later become a servant from the promptings of a sense of right and wrong or simply because they are coerced in that direction (Greenleaf, 1991).
Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that augments the lives of individuals, builds better organizations, and creates a more just and caring world, they put the team first, and themselves second (MindTools, 2015). Servant leaders are able to demonstrate their traits through interaction with followers and other leaders within the organization. The characteristics of servant leaders include their commitment to the growth of people, stewardship, and building community, and provide leaders with the opportunity to experience change and to invite followers to change (Savage-Austin & Honeycutt 2011). Servant leadership encourages leaders and followers to ‘raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality’, and set their leadership focus: follower’s first, organizations second, their own needs last (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). The servant leader focuses on the needs of others to include team members.
Northouse, Peter G. Leaderhip Theory and Practice. Ed. Fifth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc, 2010.
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B., (2007). The leadership challenge, (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
The first concept that we covered in the Master’s program at Baker University was to identify what type of leader you would like to be. At the time we did not have the knowledge but it was setting up the path of deliverables that would be achieved 2 years later. By analyzing the past leadership habits, applying new leadership concepts, thought process and real examples. We not have the tools to understand the individual’s leadership concepts and also organizational leadership concepts.
Servant leadership is a perplexing theory. It takes on radical ideas like a lifetime employment policy, or employee-wide furlough, to illustrate how putting the leader at the service of their employees can result in efficient leadership. “When individuals engage in servant leadership, it is likely to improve outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal levels (PSU, 2014)". The servant leadership actions of Charlie Kim and Bob Chapman depict how the proper use of servant leadership creates trust, and inspires productivity; benefiting their organization, their employees, and
Assessment tools can be a good start for individuals to assess their leadership characteristics and skills, such as Grossman and Valiga’s Leadership Characteristcs and Skills Assessment (Grossman and Valiga, 2013). These tools may be helpful but its accuracy is questionable. The assessment can overestimate or underestimate an individual’s skills since it is a self-subjective administered assessment that is biased towards the taker. An overconfident person may perceive their skills highly and an under confident person may have low results.
Introduction Through identification and ongoing assessment of her leadership style and ability, this leader is able to develop and understand her own strengths and limitations in order to grow and develop into a more effective leader. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of servant leadership, contingency, and path-goal styles of leadership to gain an understanding of current leadership models, identify this author’s style of leadership, and explore why leadership is important to organizations, society, and this author. A Personal Model of Leadership Servant leadership was a term that was first used by Keifner Greenleaf (1970) in his first essay, The Servant as Leader (as cited by Crippen, C., 2005). Greenleaf based his essay on his belief that a servant leader is a servant first, and explained that it would begin with the natural urge to serve and then the leader would make a conscious choice to become a leader, in doing so he makes the choice to ensure that others needs are met first (2005 ). As a servant leader develops he should always keep aware of those who he serves and strive to ensure that they are becoming healthier, wiser, freer, have an increase in autonomy, and become more like servants themselves (2005).
The outcomes of the two assessments along with my own self-awareness give me plenty to think about. How can I better use my strengths to become a more effective leader, and what can I do to ensure that I am working on my shortcomings to continue
Have you ever taken the time to determine if you have the “juice”? According to the Urban Dictionary’s webpage, the term juice refers to having respect and credibility on the street. However, as a leader, we are always hoping that we have this same respect and credibility in the work environment. A good way to determine whether or not you are, or will be, a good leader is to take a leadership assessment quiz. A leadership assessment quiz is an excellent tool to aid in determining one’s possible effectiveness as a leader. I have taken three different assessment quizzes to see where I am when it comes to being an effective leader. These quizzes outlined many of my strengths and weaknesses, but this paper will only detail two of those strengths
The first assessment I completed was very eye opening for me as a leader. As expected, my score for the overall potential of my leadership was on the higher end of the scale because of my background and amount of experience I have in leadership positions. This assessment portrayed a very accurate depiction of my overall leadership potential because I have always placed emphasis on being very good at what I do while working hard to not follow a path that did not work the first time.
In my view, people employ certain traits that differentiate us from our neighbor next door, and leadership is no different. The test produced by the University of Kent in the United Kingdom (University of Kent, n.d.) has developed a process that I feel accurately defines what sort of leader you are based on 50 simple questions. I was not surprised by the results and found them to be quite accurate and expected. In this essay, I will explore why I feel the test is an accurate way to determine your leadership style due to my personal experience with
Stone, A. G., Russell, R. F., & Patterson, K. (n.d.). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Retrieved from http://www.regent.edu/acad/sls/publications/conference_proceedings/servant_leadership_roundtable/2003pdf/stone_transformation_versus.pdf
Many times we can get so busy and wrapped up in our jobs that we may lose sight of how we are actually performing as a leader. Self-Assessment exercises offered in the reading material offer a valid look into strengths as well as opportunities for improvement. The first assessment that began to make me think about my leadership role deals directly with social motives in the work setting.