Increasingly, we live in a world where great management and entrepreneurship require outstanding leadership skills and understanding. Leadership involves actions taken to mobilize others to want to struggle toward a common goal. This is why leading people and organizations has become a prominent strength, which nowadays makes the line between success and failure more distinguishable. Since leadership has grown to become an important and sought-after skill, it has had more influence on my journey towards a successful career path. When I first decided to further my education by attending university, I wanted to be in a field where I could use my engineering talents to make change. I then came across Industrial and Systems Engineering, which I found to be a perfect fit with my strengths, values, and objectives. However, as time progressed and I began being exposed to real life scenarios, projects, and issues, I became aware that the field lacked the importance of leadership. As Industrial Engineers it is our duty to analyze and improve inefficiencies, but without the proper communication and leadership skills any solution lacks structure and will most likely fail in the long-term.
In my own words, I believe leadership is the ability to establish a clear vision which others will follow willingly all while providing the necessities and information to achieve that vision. My vision is to be a success leader in a team or organization which is why I have place emphasize on my understanding of leadership. Although my vision is be successful in leading others to the best of my ability, there are three main components to the field of management which are: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Strategy. These three components are all equally important and collaborate together in the field of management. Leadership includes an understanding of when, where, and how to use more formal sources of authority and power, such as position or ownership. Entrepreneurship is defined as the recognition of opportunities (This includes needs, wants, problems, and challenges), and the use of resources to implement innovative ideas for new, thoughtfully planned ventures. Essentially, Entrepreneurs are effective leaders who are able to convert ideas into action. Strategy is defined as the central, integrated, concept of how an organization will achieve its objectives. Like how we defined leadership earlier, strategy is plays a role much like a mission to achieve the vision. In this case, the objectives are the strategy used to achieve the team or organization’s overall goal. I believe these three concepts all play an important role in becoming an effective leader.
Many years ago, leadership was nothing compared to how it is defined and applied today. In 1910, Henry Ford was believed to be the pioneer in mass production by creating a stream-line manufacturing process which created automobiles at an accelerated pace. This new systematic advancement led to great success in the short-term, but since the process lacked improved communication and leadership skills, the system soon fell behind competitors. The leadership style at the time followed at the time follow an autocratic style of leadership meaning that the leaders make all the decisions alone without necessarily involving any employees in the decision-making process. Since this leadership style was more prominent at that day in age, it led to low employee morale. Employees were as interchangeable as the parts they installed. They had no value beyond the specialized work they performed. This leadership style led to the rise of the Toyota Production System (TPS) which incorporated a different approach to leadership. Under TPS, leadership followed a more Democratic style of leadership where leaders involve employees in the decision-making process. In some instances, a Laissez-Faire approach was implanted as well which meant that leaders left employees alone to make the decision. This style of leadership proved to be a lot more influential and boosted morale of subordinates. Even though Henry Ford was producing vehicles and supplying the demand in the millions, it was Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System, which surpassed Henry Ford in sales even though Toyota was producing vehicles in the thousands rather than millions. This example goes to show that leadership has evolved from an autocratic view of leaders over subordinates to a more democratic/Laissez-Faire view where leaders work with the team rather than against them. This view of leadership and its impact on an organization is what drove me to seek more about my own personality, traits, characteristics, and values since I wish to learn from this rather than make the same mistake someday.
I completed two separate personality assessments to determine in which direction my character traits and value are directed. The two assessment are the “True Colors Assessment” and “StrengthsQuest.” True Colors is a personality test modeled for understanding myself and others based on my personality temperament. The highest score I received was in the Gold followed by Green, then Blue, and lastly Orange. These results indicate that I have a strong representation of value and stability, meaning that I am most typically an individual who is responsible, organized, dependable, and efficiency. Gold and Green being my strong suits indicates that I prefer a more strategic approach to issues rather than moving forward without a set plan or approach. It also indicates that I have a strong work-ethic and are organized when facing issues. The results from this assessment also indicated that Blue and Orange were the bottom two colors, meaning that I have lack the tendency of being sporadic and seize the moment, which I can agree is in line with how I am. This personality test is useful in creating an overall picture of what one’s character trait and personalities may be, but it lack depth compare to “StrengthsQuest.”
StrengthsQuest is a personality assessment as well, but it is comprised of many more detailed questions. This exam also gives limited time per question to lower response bias and lower variability, meaning that the assessment can give a more accurate results. After taking the ClintonStrengths test, I was astonished while at the same time not surprised about the strengths I had achieved. My top five strengths, in order, were: Strategic, Consistency, Restorative, Deliberative, and Analytical. I agree on Strategic being my number one strength since I find myself calculating every risk before I take it. My choice of major positively supports this strength in that as an Industrial Engineer we are heavily influenced by statistics and problem solving. We are taught to measure each and every potential risk to ensure a desired outcome. Consistency is also a great identifier of what type of person I am as well. I treat every individual the same no matter what position they may be above or below me, which in turn helps build trust and a positive influence on the objectives required to achieve set goals. My third strength, Restorative, compliments my Strategic strength in that I’m adept in dealing with problems due to the tendency of planning ahead of what problems may arise from a decision. My final two strengths, Deliberative and Analytical, play a role together by supporting my strength in the ability to anticipate obstacles and search for possible reasons or causes. These top five strengths for the most part define the person I am, but I was astonished that none of these strengths fall under the category of Influencing and Relationship Building which I believe are important qualities to have. In many situations I believe relationship building is a key ingredient to a successful partnership and overall quality team effort.
Analyzing my strengths and weakness using the two personality assessments helped me understand what type of leader I am. I found that I view leadership as the ability to realize the existence of multiple perspectives separately from one’s own. A leader must have their own perspective which sets a vision and plan to accomplish a set goal or objective. However, a leader must also take into consideration the incorporation of other perspectives. Understanding what factors motivate each team member, and how they respond to various leading approaches will help ensure diverse kinds of thinking that will build influence around different ideas. Building trust with your team members and understanding their views on the situation helps build cognitive diversity which in turn drives the team closer to the objective.
Knowing about my personality, leadership style, and values will help me moving forward to my future career path. Acquiring this new found knowledge in which I now have a sense of what direction I lean towards, can have a great influence in how I handle future situations. After taking Leadership 2000 with Professor Wiard, I feel more confident in interviews with employers and have even incorporated some of the class material in my interview responses. Having taken True Colors and StrengthsQuest, I have also been able to be one step ahead of competitors in the interview process due to many employers nowadays require personality assessments to influence their decision making. Having learned that I am strategic with my situation control helped me better understand why I react to certain situations the way I do. This also contributed greatly to picking a better person-job fit for myself when viewing potentially career paths with certain companies/organizations. Overall, I believe due to my experiences with leadership and all new information I have learned revolving leadership will help me in my future career path in management consultant.
