Reflections on Leadership& Excellence Module
Leadership! A word everyone uses but few know what exactly it entails. During the past two weeks we were introduced to the world of Leadership through the module Leadership and Excellence. The module’s aim was to convey to us valuable information about the importance of leadership, the role and the qualities of a leader, leadership ethics, leadership strategy and finally how to overcome leadership obstacles. The module was based on experiential learning and thus we had to perform real-life leadership activities with our teams in order to achieve the desired results. Through these activities we understood the importance of leadership, the qualities a leader should have in order to be successful as well as how to use leadership in order to overcome arising problems. Truth is, leadership is a vital element for the success of an organization or an operation as leaders motivate, provide guidance, initiate action, build morale and finally co-ordinate. These outcomes were evident in many of the challenging activities we had to take part in as the assigned leader and his leadership style was largely responsible for the outcome. Additionally, we learned that the success of a leader is largely based on his sub-ordinates’ effort and thus, leadership is based on efficient teamwork and cooperation between the leader and the other members. Furthermore, we came to the conclusion that everyone can be a leader, even those who think they cannot. I personally didn’t think I could lead my team and achieve our target but through the empowering words of teammates, their dedication and their motivation our team achieved its goal. Moreover, throughout that module I learned how to be more respectful, listen to the views of others and learn to guide my team under pressure. In general, I liked this module as it inspired me and provided me with hands on experience on a very demanding topic which takes years of practice and understanding. The activities were challenging and required a plethora of skills. The only thing I should improve is the fact that when someone else takes initiative I tend to lose my motivation and step back being more of a “walking dead” than a “follower”. I think I will be able to improve on that disadvantage as time progresses and I gain more experience in working with others. Also, I would like to add that this module enabled me to enhance my communication skills as well as my motivational skills. These are qualities essential for a leader. Finally, I would like to add that except from the team activities I also learned many things from the discussions in class. In these discussions everyone shared their experiences with leadership either on a personal level or in a working environment. Since my class consists of a blend of cultures it was very interesting for me to hear what everyone had to share about experiences they had in their countries as leadership is a universal concept and can be applied into many environments.