Complexity Principles In Leadership

There are many theories when it comes to leadership. Many of these date back hundreds of years to military styles of leadership. The 1990 's saw the emergence of a new theory in terms of leadership, Complexity Theory, which has since developed further and has been implemented in some of the most successful companies in the world.

In presenting a theory about myself as a leader, I will attempt to draw conclusions about my strengths and weakness as a leader based on the things learned in this class. I will speculate on a reflective leadership best-self-portrait through my work experiences that draw on my interpersonal resources for vision. Recognizing my talents and shortcomings will help develop both micro and macro levels of resource development needed to reach my full potential.

The three leadership challenges that I have identified throughout this reflection are, low confidence in myself, lack of professional communication techniques and limited ability to manage conflict. For the duration of this essay I will address these topics and outline goals that will be put in place to improve them.

In the nursing profession there are many roles that we have to fulfill. For the aging population it is crucial that the nurse has a good sense of holistic care to fulfill the many roles that we take part in to create client centered care and an ongoing support system. When reflection on my clinical experience ‘falls’ and “to increase strength and mobility’ were the most common diagnosis seen on the Kardex and patient chart. Public Health agency of Canada (2011) stated that one in three geriatric patients will have fallen within the last year and half of those who fell will experience multiple falls within the year. As a nursing student I saw numerous readmissions of patients who has experienced more than one falls since their previous admission. As a nursing student I reflected a lot on my experience on the floor and the question of ‘what can I do as a leader or as a follower to ensure that patients are safe and are ambulating properly’. This paper will answer this questions as well as address the different leadership experiences and complexity theory that is integrated into practice.

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

The line above is directly from the given handout, Leadership in the Age of Complexity: From Hero to Host published in Resurgence Magazine, Winter 2011. It made me ponder on what truly makes a person, a good leader to their fellow followers. Before reading the handout, my idea of a leader is someone who is simply a boss (bossy personality), a hero that often saves the damsels in distress and has all matters or situations in their control. This is because there is a preconceived thought which is often influenced that people always need to be saved by others. Therefore, the common misconception is that leaders have a know- it - all personality and they often tell their followers what to do.

The rise in knowledge work has encouraged a new view of leadership. Complexity leadership theory assumes that organizations are less like mechanistic machines, which can be controlled using directive leadership, but rather organizations comprising of dynamic groups with interdependent relationships (Best, 2014). Complexity leadership requires a paradigm shift from traditional leadership. Knowledge is powerful, and creating a shared sense of knowledge and cultivating this throughout the organization, rather than a few leaders with the knowledge is required in leading a complex adaptive system (Best, 2014). This paper analyzes macro, meso, and micro level leader interactions in leading complex adaptive organizations; an analysis of traditional and complexity leadership theories, with a mix of traditional and complexity leadership applied to a large knowledge worker based multinational education company.

An objective for the week 5 reflection paper includes highlighting and summarizing some of the most distinctive core competencies that were galvanized as the result of exposure to course materials. The topics discussed over the previous 4 weeks have helped to identify and distinguish between various key leadership elements which stand to benefit tremendously from developing a conscious awareness pertaining to the concepts themselves. Throughout life, individuals must overcome a seemingly infinite array of obstacles and challenges, for some, succumbing to failures were never an option. While taking everything into consideration, many realizations began to occur, the following paper reveals the importance for having leadership and conflict resolution strategies in place and available at a moment’s notice.

As a graduate student approaching her final semester in school, thoughts regarding my leadership abilities in the soon-to-be “real world” have occupied my mind lately. To further explore and develop my ideas about leadership, I decided to develop my personal leadership theory. So, I asked myself the following questions: What makes a successful leader? How do you recognize a leader when you meet one?, and lastly, what is my theory of leadership? With this last question I thought about what leadership meant to me personally and how I personified it in a role of authority. While I had given thought to how I led, I had rarely taken the time to fully understand what my personal leadership theory entailed. Throughout the length of this paper I will analyze how my leadership skills, traits, values and elements from both Authentic Transformational theories help me to shape my leadership philosophy. In doing so I hope to define the leadership values that influence the way I view and practice leadership.

Daily in this age, challenges overcome the leaders of all types of organizations. Therefore, courage is necessary in order to be successful and continue moving forward (Daft, 2015). Many true leaders get discouraged and do not find the way to implement their goals and be successful. All of this is caused by the trait and skills each person has and carries on. Also, there are other people that have too much self-esteem, but have great skills being a manager. However, a true leadership style would the majority of the time include a characteristic of understanding others’

The objective of this reflection summary is to expose critically how I could evaluate my own experience in relation to the theories and ideas about Leadership. In other words, how this lecture and insights changed my person notion, as well, how I could amplify my knowledge about this subject. But I assume, that the most important is to demonstrate how the application of Leadership skill in my career in future is relevant.

Effective leadership is one critical aspect for organizations today. Pursuing high levels of effective leadership, leaders need to measure their skills and capabilities against different leadership dimensions. This will help leaders to spot dimensions that need enhancement and others that need development. This paper will discuss the benefits of leader’s self-assessment of different dimensions with focus on those related to understanding human behavior.

In human, leadership is a complex activity which shows different characteristics in different situations (Keohane, 2005). The activity that was conducted in the class showcased different characteristics in participants when it came to leadership. The game was mainly for the participants to understand the qualities and knowledge when it comes to leadership.

The study of leadership teaches leaders about what motivates people to work. Thus, it’s understood that all motivated employees, and team players will be more productive. Therefore, the study of various theories and models of motivation, such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, and Herzberg’s two factor theory are carefully studied to improve leader’s ability to motivate their employees. Also, studying leadership enables leaders to understand people and the work environment better. However, most importantly, the study of leadership is a personal journey. Helping a person to develop their leadership potentials, which enables one to develop their leadership potentials. Therefore, understanding leadership is really learning about understanding yourself. When I decided to take this leadership class. My expectations were to learn more about myself, how to effectively communicate with difficult people, and become a better leader. My expectations were met. However, I have also learned that I need to develop my interpersonal skills to bring people together.