Essay Sample on Leadership Growth and Its Impacts

Leadership involves the aspects of influencing people in the right course of direction and turning vision into a reality (Roupnel et al. 2019. P. 127-28). It is an invaluable attribute that is required in many contextual settings to spur growth and excellence in the long run. In the context of an organization, for instance, growth and sustainability are keys to achieving short and long-term objectives. The impetus of strong and effective leadership is that it comes with the competence and vision required to achieve these organizational goals. It is imperative to understand that leadership is a broad discipline that encompasses different styles. In a leadership discussion, the above is a reality that cannot be ignored. The most popular types of leadership are transformation and transaction leadership. My leadership growth emanates from a combination of transformational leadership and pedagogical model given my career as an educator.

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In this paper, I will be chronicling explain my growth in leadership and the impacts it has connoted in my professional and personal life. To illustrate this growth more concisely, I will attempt to detail this information is six essential topics, which include reflection, connections to experience, connections to discipline, risk-taking, ethical perspectives, and initiative.

Reflection

In my younger years, I always have the urge that I was part of something significant and that leadership was embedded in my DNA. At that age, my understanding of leadership was still blurred. However, my leadership vision as a child made use of different methods, for instance, the "future perfect," which incorporates an individual projecting themselves as a future leader and imagining what attributes and cultures would make that goal possible (Pasmore et al. 2009, p. 14). My journey to leadership initialized when my family moved to the US, where I acquired the inspiration to become an educator and, more so, to be involved in pedagogical leadership.

Relocating to the United States

As reiterated above, my inspiration for becoming a teacher and taking part in leadership started when I relocated to the United States. I was confronted by a series of problems, such as adjusting to the new environment and school. I also experienced a language barrier, which meant that taking instructions and communicating with schoolmates and my teachers was impeded. Despite my low command in English, I was lucky to have empathetic school mates and teachers who made it easier for me to communicate either through emotions and expression. The teachers performed a preeminent job in inspiring me to become a teacher. From there, I learned that educators encourage students to learn by inspiring and helping them. Therefore, coming from the educational perspective, this type of leadership can be connoted as pedagogical also known as instructional leadership

Journey to Leadership and Growth

My journey in leadership came automatically with the experiences of learning at the university. To this end, it is aligned on the pedagogy as it involves the aspects of improving learning, evaluation of teachers, and enhancing the quality of student's learning. However, it is worth noting that pedagogical leadership borrows heavily from transformational leadership. The primary focus of a pedagogical leader is to ensure that learning levels have been augmented by setting clear, achievable goals and influencing the students.

Connections to Experience

My experience in the academic discourse is informed from a research context and leadership experiences. Through learning and my leadership growth, I came to appreciate the importance of leadership in school matters. Through research, I have made efforts and established that worldwide reforms in educational policies had characterized the last two decades. Issues of governance, financial management, and quality control are in tandem with the new policies which emphasize evaluation and assessment (Day et al. 2016, p. 222). Mostly, it is acknowledged that the measure of learning and educational success is the implicit factors for outlining a school's effectiveness. However, upon research on school leadership, I learned this might not be the best definition for a successful school. In leadership research, schools' "effectiveness" is achieved through the promotion of positive values, for example, integrity, fairness, and empathy (Ten Bruggencate et al., 2012). Thus, with the right leadership in school, I established that it's possible to inspire students to love learning and prepare them to become better citizens and enhance their economic and social capabilities for healthy living (Ishimaru, 2013). Louis et al. (2010, p. 9) argue that many learning organizations connote little or dismissible impact upon a student's learning. In the capacity of leadership in synchronizing with my academic knowledge, I would contend that for schools to have effects on student's learning, there must be a creation of synergy between all the relevant stakeholders, that is, teachers, parents, and policymakers.

Connections to Discipline

Leadership occurs in many contexts. It is sometimes faced with the danger of ambiguities. Many disciplines derive value from leadership, for instance, education and organizations. For example, I have focused my leadership on the educational lens and established that school leadership's influence pivots the impacts of the students' learning. On the same notation, the results of the students' outcomes also depend on the type and variables of the school leadership applied. In the academic discipline, the most cited is instructional learning, also known as pedagogy. Of course, the above model works for hands in hand with transformational leadership upon which involves sharing a vision and inspiring a culture of learning. In my leadership experience, it is not enough to just inspire and bring vision as a leader in an educational context. Thus, one must also emphasize structures, directions, goals, curriculum, and evaluation.

A glimpse at organization leadership, one may establish that all the values of leadership are used interchangeably. Like pedagogical or instructional leadership, organizations also require the traits found in transformational leadership too. One of the elements of transformational leadership is technical proficiency, which involves understanding your job and being aware of employee's jobs. Thus, it is an aspect shared generously across all the disciplines.

Risk-Taking

Through my leadership program, I learned that change is an imperative element of sustaining growth and in the ever dynamic world irrespective of the context. In this regard, the mediated and moderated role of risk-taking in leadership takes shape. In the organizational setup, for instance, employees may be cynical about change and how it predisposes them to the uncertainty of the future (Jung et al., 2020, p. 2341). Organizational leadership must impose change through risk-taking to survive and gain leverage in the competitive market environment.

In the course of the program, I took a risk and signed up for another essential class in tandem with my professional course. In leadership, chances are calculated and must be mediated so that it does not turn out negatively. The signing up of the extra course was risky since I would lose some hours in the programs, but I conceived it as positive risk behaviors since it would surmount to additional knowledge.

Ethical Perspectives

Ethical perspectives are essential in intelligently making a crucial decision. There are four different lenses of ethics. They include relationships, reputations, responsibility, and results lens. All of the above lenses are tied to the values and qualities of leadership. For instance, the relationship lens connotes a person whose decision emanates from rational thinking and equality (Bisoux, 2013). During my leadership program, I was confronted with ethical dilemmas upon which none of the choices was easy to make. I was given options of choosing two partners for an essential final part of my education research. Both had an impressive academic record, but they were different in areas of expertise. One was good at research, but his personality was difficult to work with, while the other was easy and accessible. We were required to work together since they were research areas that needed improvement. I sought the use of ethical maturity achieved through the combination of all the four ethical lenses. In the end, I settled with the partner, who was less difficult to work with and provided him with areas we needed to improve in researching.

Initiative

During my leadership, I took part in forming "Young Professionals," a leadership forum that unites the young people in the education profession. I took the initiative of drafting the group's constitution with the help of other recruited members and conducted a democratic group election. The impetus behind this group's foundation is to solicit for professionals in the educational field to address the young professional on matters of leadership and context. One of the prominent educators and leaders invited to address the group was Kenneth Leithwood. He has authored many leadership books with the most prominent journal articles, such as Makes A Successful Risk Leader.

Conclusion

I have reflected on my leadership journey by structuring it into six categories. They include reflection, connections to experience, connections to discipline, risk-taking, ethical perspectives, and initiative. I have also explained how my arrival in the US, inspired my career and professional leadership foundation. My leadership is aligned on the pedagogy as it involves the aspects of improving learning, evaluation of teachers, and enhancing the quality of student's learning. Therefore, my leadership involves accruing characteristics that make an individual take a moderate risk, perform initiatives, and make ethically sound decisions.

References

Bisoux, T. (2013, January 1). Business through an ethical lens | BizEd magazine. An AACSB Publication | BizEd Magazine. https://bized.aacsb.edu/articles/2013/01/business-through-an-ethical-lens

Day, C., Gu, Q., & Sammons, P. (2016). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: How successful school leaders use transformational and instructional strategies to make a difference. Educational administration quarterly, 52(2), 221-258. DOI: 10.1177/0013161X15616863

Ishimaru, A. (2013). From heroes to organizers: Principals and education organizing in urban school reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(1), 3-51. DOI: 10.1177/0013161X12448250

Jung, K. B., Kang, S. W., & Choi, S. B. (2020). Empowering Leadership, Risk-Taking Behavior, and Employees' Commitment to Organizational Change: The Mediated Moderating Role of Task Complexity. Sustainability, 12(6), 2340. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062340

Pasmore, W., Lafferty, K., & Spencer, S. (2009). Developing a leadership strategy: A critical ingredient for organizational success. Greensboro: Center for Creative Leadership. https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DevelopingLeadershipStrategy.pdf

Roupnel, S., Rinfre, N., & Grenier, J. (2019). LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: Three programs that maximize learning over time. Journal of Leadership Education, 18(2). DOI: 10.12806/V18/I2/T1

Seashore, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., & Anderson, S. (2010). Investigating the links to improved student learning: Final report of research findings. https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Investigating-the-Links-to-Improved-Student-Learning-Executive-Summary.pdf

Ten Bruggencate, G., Luyten, H., Scheerens, J., & Sleegers, P. (2012).