Self-Reflection on Learning Experience and a Plan of Personal Moral Development - Essay Sample

Introduction

Leading with accountability is one of the central themes in the corporate world today. As organizations face mounting challenges brought about by the changing business environments and workforce structure, the need for accountable leadership is urgent more than ever. Leadership with accountability implies the best possible combination of behavior and judgment, allowing an individual to demonstrate to the followers what is expected of them by the management. Several theories have emerged to explain the concept of leadership, with most of them centering on the leader’s ability and capabilities to provide direction to the followers to achieve the desired deliverables. This paper draws from some of these leadership theories to conduct a deep self-reflection and discuss my personal development plan throughout my career.

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My personal leadership style leans more toward transformational leadership. Transformational leadership, proposed by Burns, places a strong emphasis on the role of the leader to act as moral guidance to the followers (Bass & Riggio, 2010). In transformational leadership, the leader has an obligation to act right, behave right, and cater to the followers' personal needs, such as their emotional needs. Such leaders are bound to develop and sustain a strong corporate culture that emphasizes ethical behaviors among the followers, all of which contribute towards promoting cooperation to collectively achieve the organization's strategic objective. Thus, a transformational leader strives to elevate all the followers behind him by acting as a good example to be followed by all.

I have strived to cultivate transformational leadership traits throughout my livelihood. As a young student in the elementary school, my role as the head of the Arts club placed me at the center stage in promoting the welfare of the students interested in arts. In this role, I managed to coordinate various needs and developments of the arts students, including organizing for field trips and coordinating with the school leadership to avail resources for various departments of the arts club. In addition to my leadership role in school, I have always been an active participant and leader in our local church, leading the youth department and ensuring progress in music and dancing. Drawing from my transformational leadership skills, I have been able to design the best routines and programs that have enabled my followers and team members to progress in their music and dancing skills. As such, my influence on peers and colleagues throughout my childhood days speaks for itself.

Apart from transformational leadership, my interest in managing individuals and delivering results based on the principles of stakeholder theory has been evident. Throughout my lifetime, I have been engaged in several events, functions, and duties that call for managing different stakeholders within an organization, which have prompted me to draw from stakeholder theory. Stakeholder theory posits that stakeholders have innate moral worth or values that need to be managed and cultivated for the organization's overall benefit (Hasnas, 2013). The simple understanding of the theory is that the stakeholders’ value can be realized to the fullest through proper management. Thus, leaders' need to learn how to handle stakeholders, balance between their interests, and manage their expectations is crucial in realizing the full potential of all the stakeholders.

Managing stakeholders have been one of the most challenging experiences in my life. As a managerial intern in one of the organizations, I faced many challenges regarding managing employees and customers and coordinating their efforts and expectations altogether. The encounter required managing employees’ personal concerns such as burnout and fatigue and balancing the concerns with the need to meet customer needs and expectations. Such an experience required strong mastery of normative stakeholder theory to manage the values of both the employees and the customers such that no part could feel ignored.

Further, the theories and concepts throughout the course form a critical background on my path to self-development. As an individual with aspirations to entrench myself in the corporate world, the elements of corporate social responsibility and virtue theory will be critical in promoting sustainability in the workplace and giving back to the society where the business draws resources from. Corporate social responsibility concerns business practices and initiatives to contribute to societal goals (Lindgreen & Swaen, 2010). These activities and initiatives are mostly designed in a philanthropic and charitable way, though they go a long way to address the persistent societal problems that authorities have failed to address. As a corporate leader who understands the principles and the benefits of CSR, I will be actively involved in promoting the welfare of the neighboring communities and societies in which my organization operates. Such efforts help the community and go a long way in elevating the brand image of the company and the employees involved.

Similarly, virtue theory is critical in my path of self-development as a corporate leader. Virtue theory emphasizes an individual’s virtue, such as clarity of the mind, character, and sense of honesty in one’s behaviors or actions (Barclay et al., 2012). The corporate world is full of dirty dealings in the form of corruption and unethical lobbying practices, which have tainted the image of many individual corporate leaders throughout history. Drawing from virtue theory will enable me to brace myself to counter these corporate problems and lean on the clarity of my mind, purity of my character, and sense of honesty to provide the best leadership possible.

Application of the Theories in the Career Path

The concepts and theories studies throughout the course have broad applications in my life and career as well. First, as a future leader, the elements of distributive justice, ethics theory, and Heifetz’s perspective of ethical leadership are critical in enabling me to discharge my duties in an accountable and ethical manner.

The distributive theory will underlie most of my decisions, actions, and behaviors as a leader. Distributive theory concerns just allocation of resources among individuals. Proponents of distributive theory argue that each individual has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties (Jasso et al., 2016). Within distributive theory, people are entitled to certain inalienable rights such as food, healthcare, clothing, and shelter. A leader's role is to ensure that resources necessary to further these rights are equally distributed and that these rights are guarded by all means.

As a leader, the precepts of distributive theory are critical in safeguarding the needs and rights of the people, especially the vulnerable and the voiceless. Certain categories of people within the society or organization are subjected to injustice due to their inability to speak out and air their concerns. One of the common instances has been the inability of most people to access healthcare due to high healthcare costs despite healthcare being a basic need. In organizations, toxic corporate culture provides an environment where resources are shared based on who knows the management most, and some people included the less represented gender, and are restricted from accessing resources. As a leader, I will use the principles of distributive theory to ensure equality prevails in the work environment and that duties and resources are shared equally based on merit and ethical considerations.

Similarly, ethics theory will hold a central place in my future role as a leader. Duty-based ethics theory suggests that people should be concerned with doing the right thing, regardless of the consequences (Driesen, 2009). The old-age theory suggests that some acts are right or wrong because of how they are, and as such, one has the duty to act accordingly without much regard to the positive or the negative consequences that such actions may attract. Actions such as stealing are wrong regardless of the consequences. As such, duty-based ethics theory will be crucial in enabling me to discharge my duties ethically as a leader and remain responsible for my actions and accountable for my decisions. Drawing from duty-based theory will enable be handle occurrences such as discrimination and sexual abuse, which are rampant in the corporate world, and provide decisive decisions and take necessary actions for followers that perpetuate such behaviors. The aim will be to develop and promote an ethical culture where every employee is responsible for the actions and accountable for their decisions, with all efforts directed towards creating a friendly workplace environment where everybody thrives.

Lastly, Heifetz’s perspective of ethical leadership will help me manage internal conflict within the workplace. Heifetz’s perspective of ethical leadership posits that leaders must utilize authority to confront and address conflicts and effect changes within the workplace (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002). Conflict is inherent in any workplace environment as long as people have varying beliefs, values, and cultural orientations. The need for a strong leader who draws from his authority, experience, and understanding to address emerging conflicts and take appropriate actions to mitigate any future conflict or escalation of an already brewing conflict. Similarly, Heifetz’s perspective of ethical leadership presents the need for leaders to direct changes within the organization. Drawing from this perspective, I will be able to handle conflicts and manage change easily within the organization. Since change is inevitable in an organization, Heifetz’s perspective will be critical step-by-step guidance in enabling me to implement change in my organization and ensure that followers are attuned to the proposed and implemented changes.

Conclusion

Overall, the concepts and theories learned throughout the course are crucial in my role as leader. The theories will enable me provide leadership based on accountability and ethical considerations. Similarly, the concepts and theories will be critical in enabling me cultivate and promote an ethical corporate culture where employees are responsible for their actions and accountable for the decisions made. Worth noting is the fact that organizational success depends on the leaders’ ability to provide guidance and roadmap to success. As such, ethical leaders are bound to promote success within their organizations. With these theories and concepts in mind, I am bound to provide the best leadership to my followers and the organization at large.

References

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2010). The transformational model of leadership. Leading organizations: Perspectives for a new era, 2, 76-86.

Driesen, D. M. (2009). Toward a Duty-Based Theory of Executive Power. Fordham L. Rev., 78, 71.

Barclay, L. A., Markel, K. S., & Yugo, J. E. (2012). Virtue theory and organizations: considering persons with disabilities. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 27. No. 4. PP. 330-346.

Hasnas, J. (2013). Whither stakeholder theory? A guide for the perplexed revisited. Journal of business ethics, Vol. 112. No. 1. PP. 47-57.

Heifetz, R. A., & Linsky, M. (2002). A survival guide for leaders. Harvard business review, Vol. 80. No. 6. Pp. 65-74.

Jasso, G., Törnblom, K. Y., & Sabbagh, C. (2016). Distributive justice. In Handbook of social justice theory and research (pp. 201-218). Springer, New York, NY.