Assessment Task Two: Leadership Development Due Date: Week 09 Type: Individual Weighting: Total 50% Length: 2,500 words (+/-10%) Overview: This is a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) assessment task...

2
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
1.    Leaders’ Observation    3
Transformational Leadership    3
Transactional Leadership    4
Charismatic Leadership    5
Emotional Intelligence    5
Confidence    6
2.    Leadership Diagnostic Tool    6
Self-Confident Test    6
Team Leadership Skills    7
Authoritarian vs Participatory approach    7
Cultural Differences    8
Virtual Team Communications    8
Emotional Intelligence Skill    8
3.    Leadership Development Plan    10
Leaders’ Feedback    13
Conclusion    14
References    14
Appendix    16
Introduction
Leadership is the ability of an individual to “lead” or “guide” other team members, individuals or an entire organisation. The report begins with an introduction of a known leader and discusses his leadership traits. Later the report, discusses the leadership development plan which explains the step by step process to acquire the traits required in a capable leader. In the final stage, it provides the feedback on the leadership development plan from the capable established leader. The real objective is to understand about various traits and theories of leadership and apply them in a practical real-life manner using the tool of leadership development plan.
1. Leaders’ Observation
Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc. and Pixar, who also invented the Macintosh computer, is considered as one of the most innovative and influential leaders of this generation. As mentioned by A
aham (2014), he led some of the most powerful organisations in the world and his inspirational leadership story has many unique characteristics, which can be learnt by other individuals through careful analysis. Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1976, was ousted once in 1985 but later returned and rescued the same in 1997. Along his journey, he revived and transformed several industries, which include: animated movies, tablet computing, music, phones, personal computing and digital publishing.
Transformational Leadership
Good leaders need to adapt to different situations. Steve Jobs was ousted from his company Apple Inc. when he was 31 years for his lack of leadership and empathy skills. He spent the next decade adapting and sharpening his style of leadership to better adapt the needs of the company. As noted by Dinh et al. (2014), transformational leaders transform other people, organisations and supporters for
eakthrough results. They do this by focusing on improving morale, dedication and motivation of other team members. They integrate the change by promoting a common vision and intellectually stimulate by questioning the common notions or beliefs. Steve Jobs revived Apple Inc. nearly from the ashes to be the most powerful organisation today through his transformational leader qualities (Tourish 2014).
Transactional Leadership
Transactional leaders have formal authority and motivates others largely through external motivation. Here, the focus is on performance in a structured environment against the previously defined set rules. As explained by Lussier and Achua (2015), transactional leaders work to elicit performance from their teams by motivating and rewarding externally. James MacGregor Burns, who pioneered the concept of transformational leadership believed that both transactional and transformational leadership are mutually exclusive to each other, as transactional leadership is based on only give and take, while transformational leadership focusses upon changing the values, attitudes of not only an individual but whole organisation.
Steve Jobs in his initial years of professional career was a task-oriented leader, who focused only on the task and organisation work performance rather than on the feelings of the people. Largely because of his aggressive management style, he was fired in 1985. At this time, he delivered strict blunt criticisms on his employees for the results. During these days Steve fit in the description of a transactional leader. His transformational leadership trait was much more visible in his second stint with the company, when he motivated his employees and provided them the vision to build something great and revolutionary. Thus, Steve Jobs evolved his leadership and it was a perfect blend of transformational and transactional leadership (Isaacson 2014).
Charismatic Leadership
Charisma means ‘Charm’, when wielded on others exert great influence and power. It is independent of formal authority and tradition and is based entirely on the leaders’ extraordinary personalities and qualities. As noted by McCleskey (2014), the charismatic leader inculcates great loyalty, affection and trust among followers. Steve Jobs’ charismatic leadership pulled and saved Apple from crises and motivated employees to work joyfully 90-hours a week to meet possibly impossible deadlines. Jobs grand rhetoric and inspirational speeches during speeches and product announcement attracted huge global media and people attention. Jobs
ought a revolutionary change by invoking emotional and personal appeals which aptly combined with his rational world changing intellectually radical vision. Throughout his life he used his charisma to command respect, control and influence people (Niebuhr et al. 2016).
Steve was called as master of persuasive and effective speaking, who knew how to alter the style of one’s rhetoric according to the situation. Jobs rhetoric drew from figurative language, metaphors and stories to emphasise his ideas. He considered metaphors to be more memorable than statistics. He could deliver messages and simultaneously touch different scenarios, company’s products, other exceptional people and futuristic journey. Experts believe that charisma is not any inflatable, magical quality but is largely a result of relationship among leaders, context and audience (Steinwart and Ziegler 2014).
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself and others. It may seem that Jobs lacked emotional intelligence according to the way he treated his employees, especially in his early years. However, Jobs defined all his products based on type of experience it would yield to common people. All his life he focused on making things simpler and improving the lives of people. He had a talent to motivate himself and others by getting them involved in the product and giving them appropriate autonomy. He was optimistic, empathetic    , but it was his passion for products that sometimes ove
ode empathetic actions on whom he felt were incompetent to be part of Apple Inc.
Confidence
Steve Jobs was intent on making things simpler and eliminated unnecessary details from...