Leadership Communication Training for
Under Armour Leaders and Managers
Introduction
This brief training will be addressing Under Armour, the company I am currently employed for. Under Armour is an upcoming athletic wear company that is rising to the top and quickly becoming a competitive brand in the athletic industry. Working with this company for over a year, I feel my store, as well as the other stores in Arizona, could greatly utilize training on leadership communication. I chose a PowerPoint format as my presentation form, as I felt it provided a great platform to provide the training for all of the store managers across Arizona. A PowerPoint offers great flexibility when it comes to being able to allow trainees to ask questions as we go, which I prefer. Additionally, I would also ask for actual on-the-job examples from the trainees that relate to the training topics. The purpose of this training is to promote leadership, encourage employee growth, and to achieve goals by focusing on our leaders and investing in our people. Essentially, this training presentation will cover four main topics; developing leadership skills, creating a vision, addressing ethics, and overcoming obstacles.
Discussion
Before we can become great leaders, we must first understand that we have the ability to develop leadership skills. While leadership traits rather than skills have been the emphasis of research for more than 100 years, in the past 10 years a shift has occurred, and leadership
Whether a person is born with traits of leadership or learned continues to be discussed by researchers. Leadership traits that are essential for any leader demand good skills in communication, show flexibility, intelligent, motivated, show restraints with emotions, and has a vision, will show support for those surrounding him/her (Cronhkite, 2013). When determining what makes a good leader in terms of behavior and competence the task can be complex. Issues of what style and behaviors will be more effective arise, there has not been any evidence that is reliable of the impacts of police leadership style and behavior that makes him/her more profound on the ground. Good leaders or leadership must have an impact on their subordinates, they
Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.
Developing leadership abilities early in my life is vital to becoming the person I aspire to be. Having these kinds of skills is something that can help me become a more effective communicator. Communication is necessary in many careers throughout one’s lifetime. Acquiring attributes of a leader
In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).
The training taught us when the best time to be commanding, visionary, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching leaders. They broke us away on only task-oriented leadership styles and more for people-oriented leadership ways. The training tried to be more hands on to treat each people as an individual and bring them into a team.
A society with an absence of leadership is one that exhibits disarray and pandemonium. Leadership, therefore, is a vital facet of human life and can be seen as a building block from which great nations were built upon or large corporations have thrived under. I believe leadership is intrinsically in all human beings, however some leadership traits in people are far more superior than others. This paper will evaluate results from multiple assessments that identify my particular leadership potential. Using Northouse’s text, this paper will also identify my particular strengths and weakness within leadership. The penultimate paragraph of this paper will consider how my evaluated leadership style interacts within my work environment.
As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.
Leadership is both an inherent value and is forged overtime. Inherently, some people are born good leaders and intrinsically have good values imbedded. Leadership traits can be honed and developed overtime; you never stop learning to be a good leader. Leadership is the cornerstone of all successfully run organizations and is what drives stewardship to successfully carry on the organizations mission statement. Throughout one’s life experiences, they come across some great leaders and some not-so great leaders. Those life experiences transcend one to become a better leader through experiential circumstances.
“It is unequivocally clear that leaders are not like other people” (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991, as cited in Northouse, P. G., 2016, p.22). I have always thought that I was not like other people; I see the world through a different lens. This difference, which sets me apart from my peers, has sometimes restrained my progress; however, after studying my differences and seeing them as strengths, I can now focus on these strengths that make me a unique, passionate, progressive leader. In reflecting on my leadership skills, I will analyze the results of the leadership questionnaires, as presented in Peter Northouse’s book, Leadership:Theory and practice (7th ed.), connect those result strengths with the
The questions regarding what makes a great leader, are they born that way, is there certain behaviors that can be taught, and can one switch from one style of leadership to another, are addressed from multiple perspectives. Three main schools of thought, trait theory, behavioral theory and contingency theory, work to explain the social phenomena of leadership. Though they pull from psychological theories, they each contribute valuable pieces that strives to solve the riddle of what makes or constitutes a great leader. However, this riddle may be far less complex, as John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader” (Adams,
211) for lower- and middle-level managers. “Leaders can do many things to influence the things that determine organizational performance” (Yukl, 2013, p. 182), such as task-oriented behaviours which predominantly are applied “to improve efficiency and process reliability” (Yukl, 2013, p. 182) and relations-oriented behaviours which mostly are applied “to improve innovation and adaptation to the external environment” (Yukl, 2013, p. 182). Through a Leadership Training Plan, leaders will better understand the complex interdependencies in performance determinants, the ripple effects of their decisions and actions, the use of trade-offs and how to “find an appropriate balance that reflects the relative priorities of the performance determinants and the potential for improving each one” (Yukl, 2013, p.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The Leadership Challenge (Sixth ed.). Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc
“Leadership is more ability than job. Moreover, it is all about determination, ability to solve problems, set direction for followers, gather them for common purpose and motivating people to achieve tasks. Furthermore, it is a charisma and the ability to reacting at the right time for a particular competitive situation” (L.Mullins, 2010, P372).
The word ‘leadership’ often times triggers a preconceived image of an ideal leader—typically accompanied by the aura that the effective leader should be at the top of the hierarchy, ready to produce the solutions to complex problems. However, this is not true of leadership, given that effective leadership is not achieved by position but rather through style and situational awareness. Examining leadership requires the consideration of the catalysts for different types of leaders. Popular leader development theories tend to focus on the natural servitude of the leader, his or her capability to manage, and leader behavior.
For decade’s individuals, companies, and organizations have spent an unprecedented amount of money on researching, molding, modeling and working to define what a leader is and what characteristics make successful leaders. Despite all the research, there is not a quick answer or even full agreement as to what makes an individual an effective leader. The definition of a leader is “someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority.” (Robbins, Decenzo, Coulter, 2015. P.370)