My leadership plan

I haven’t never been in a leader position at work, so I can’t say yet for sure what kind of leader I am or what kind of leader I will be. My only own leadership experience comes from school-projects, where I have worked as a project manager. Projects where quite little and not that well organized from principals, so my leadership experience is not that extensive. Because of that it is very interesting to learn from other leaders and courses, what leadership-style would be the best for me to the future and generally also. In the future my goal is to buy my father’s company, so leadership-skills are going to be very useful to me.

Even I haven’t been in a leader position, I have worked as a subordinate of other leaders, so I can give a comment from their leadership from a view of employee. I have experience from organization where was culture of fear and pretty toxic leader and also from organizations where leader was like a mentor and collaboration with other employees worked really well because of that. Toxic leader and culture of fear taught me very well how not to do things.

I think the best leader I have had was from my second job. I worked as female-dominant-field and that is quite challenging position for any leader, because of drama. Our leader was really humorous person, who didn’t take things too seriously. Even he heard gossips from himself, he took employees to strict talk with him and after that everything was okay. Even he was strict on some points, he was still really kind and thankful for us. If someone did great job, he thanked for that and the whole group. Most important thing was, that even he was leader, he helped us with daily routine works. He didn’t put himself to podium compared to employees. That is why he deserved employee’s trust and everybody got motivation for work in that environment.

Then I reach a school-spot from different town, so I needed to change my working place also. I started to work at same field organization but in different city and there I met my worst experience of leader. In my first organization monthly meeting the leader emphasize us how she is the manager and she is not going to do our work or help us on any way. She also emphasized us that we can’t talk with our working partners that much beside of work. Leader also did gossips from workers and believed if some workers gossiped from others. In job there was bullying and very toxic environment because of that leader. On my second job I was really motivated for working, even the field wasn’t my first choice to do career. At this second organization from same field my working motivation went so little because of the leader, even I had the same working duties and even more responsibility.

Comparing those jobs, I realized how much manager/leader can have effect on organization, employees and to organizations efficiency. So, it is really important to think what kind of leader I will be and what kind of leader I want to be. Leaders are never ready, so it is important to improve skills regularly. Bad leader can have really bad effect to employee’s personal leadership.

On my organizational leadership at this point I think my biggest challenge is my kindness. Even I am really determined person and have strong mind, I am still thinking too much feelings. This side of me needs improvement a lot. Even kindness could be good resource, leader can’t be too kind. I can’t always think from my decisions that someone could get sad mood from it.  Some employees can also exploit that characteristic. Being not that experienced leader, I am also quite insecure of my opinions when I am at company with more experienced leaders. I need to start not to care what others are thinking about my opinions, even they could be more experienced than me.

As a organizational leader I want to be like a coach. I want to motivate my future employees and make them to feel special. If workers feel well at company, then company will succeed. My goal as a leader is to be reliable, kind, motivating and strict enough leader. I want that employees will feel that they are same level than me, so they have courage to speak to me about possible problems and other things. I can’t never see myself to be as a toxic leader and doing culture of fear at organization. When I said strict enough leader, I meant that I will not allow any bullying and gossiping at company for example. If something like that would happen in the future, I will bring up those things with employees right away. I will do anything, that employees can feel “safe” and nice at their working environment.

In personal leadership my worst enemy is timing. I have been really bad at doing schedules and follow them. In nowadays organizations personal leadership is acting quite big role and people needs to get that work done on their own. If I am willing to be organizational leader someday, I need to definitely improve my scheduling skills as well and start to lead myself better. If the leader can not schedule right, how those employees can do it?

Which of courses topics were familiar to me?

Personal and organizational leadership were quite familiar topic to me. Someone has said wisely: that leadership is the thing where leader is getting stuff done with people while management is getting stuff done with things. This topic is acting really important role to me. Group development, employeeship and collaboration are things which every manager should emphasize on their action. Of course, when organization grows and it is bigger, the leader focus will be more and more organization actions. But on my opinion, focus to employees is still worthwhile thing, so when the company is big enough, hiring human resource manager is not a bad decision. I also know that dictatorship and culture of fear at organization is never good thing. Anyone can know that information.

Second topic analysis of financial statements is having also familiar characteristics to me. These things purpose is decision making. With information which these analysis produce, organization can do strategic outlines and decisions. Organization leaders can’t lead the company if they don’t know about for example company’s economic statistics. These analyses are also acting important role at international business. Wise leader can take different countries cultures into account and do wise strategic moves with that information.

Third topic management accounting and control is even more base for managers strategic decisions and especially for board of management. Management accounting and control are also things which keeps organizations running. If balance sheet looks zero and double-entry bookkeeping system is having thousand of mistakes, I am sure that organization will be at bankruptcy very fast.

Fourth subject economic for executives wasn’t that familiar to me. I got already some base information from my national economy-course, but still some of topics were unfamiliar to me. Of course, history of great depression is familiar and micro- and macroeconomics, which is the difference between those. All of the names I have heard, but I didn’t remember those very well. These topics are important to understand when you are leader of organization. You need to understand how economy goes and which kind of habits the consumers have.

Fifth topic corporate finance & financing a company was more familiar to me. Especially after I have studied that management accounting course. This topic includes like company’s financing. With this information organizations can weigh should they expand and grow to be public company. Shareholders can use this kind of information and organization can also get benefit from that.

Sixth topic was global marketing management. Because of my thesis topic strategy, most of this topic are was quite familiar to me. I have also been at course beside of my work, where we have focused on doing swot-analyses, marketing plans etc. After this topic, seventh topic strategic management was also more familiar to me because of that thesis. Without strategy, companies don’t have any goals, vision or missions, where to aim at. Strategy is like a common thread which company should and needs to follow. Organization can withdraw from competitors with rational strategy.

Eight topic management communication was not that familiar to me. Of course, onboarding and those were familiar to me and I know their importance to company. But I need definitely more information about these topics. Ninth and tenth topics strategic human resource management and operations management were familiar partly. But on those topics, I need to improve my knowledge still a lot.

What is going to be my personal change and expected impact?

On my personal leadership I will improve my scheduling and I promise not to stress that much. With these promises my personal leadership will get better and my efficiency at work will be much better, when I have scheduled my days right and don’t worry about what all I need to do. With good schedule everything will be done in right time.

On my organizational and common level leadership I can’t say yet what kind of leader I will be in practice, because I don’t have experience from it and can’t say how my changes are going to effect on my future employees. Like I said at the beginning that I want to be reliable leader, who is at the same level with other workers. I think I will manage to do my career with that motto to pretty far.