Who Am I as a Leader

Who am I as a leader?

Who are you as a leader today?

Defining who I am as a leader is a difficult question.  There are many aspects to leadership and management which must be examined in order to properly assess one’s qualities.  In order to do this as efficiently and effectively as possible I will be comparing and contrasting my leadership qualities to both Mintzberg’s Model of Management and the Style of Management.  In addition to referencing both of Mintsberg’s models I will provide examples from my personal and professional life to provide reasoning as to why I believe I am strong or weak in the areas described.

Mintzberg’s Model of Management is based on three planes; the action plane, the people plane, and the information plane.  Each plane comprises of different qualities which, in Mintzberg’s view, describe the roles of the effective manager.

The action plane examines the importance of doing and dealing.  Mintzberg defines these roles as “managing projects proactively and handling disturbances reactively”.  When I reflect on my experiences I realize that I have and do manage both of these roles effectively.  I currently work for a member-based not-for-profit as the Projects and Public Affairs Lead.  My public affairs role involves my looking outside of the organization and reading stakeholder, government, and member trends and statements to plan projects which will be needed in the near and long term.  Also, as a result of this proactive approach I am often working on many of the projects I have projected.  On a personal level I have always tried to be as proactive as possible, I believe trying to plan as much as possible, as early as possible, will mitigate many disturbances.  However, that said disturbances can and sometimes do arise and, fortunately, my experience has taught me how to effectively handle these situations.  One of the projects I am tasked with is planning and running the national level of a nationwide competition.  I have found that no matter how much pre-planning is done there is always a new dilemma which was never seen in previous years.  The greatest asset to having worked in retail for a number of years and as a travel insurance claims adjudicator was that I have learned how to effectively deal with crisis and to quickly mitigate conflict.  The ability to apply these skills to unforeseen disturbances, such as those which arise in the competition, allows me to react and resolve these situations in a timely manner.

Mintzberg’s people plane is described as encouraging others “to take action – by coaching, motivating, building teams, strengthening culture, and so forth”.  As a manager in retail, as an operations manager in a volunteer organization, or in my current role I have had a number of instances where working in teams was not only necessary but the only way to proceed.  When leading these teams I learned, very quickly, to be an effective manager I could not rely on simply providing direction.  Often I would find myself on making sure that there was a positive culture in which everyone was able to work as effectively as possible.  My favourite part of leading is building an effective team to carry out necessary tasks.  However, as Mintzberg describes, simply building a team is not enough, I have played the role of motivator, coach, and sometimes mediator.  These roles have been necessary to make sure the working culture within the team is adequate for team members to work at their full potential.  My experience has also taught me, that not only do team members work at their full potential they want to work hard to carry out their tasks.