The Leadership Practices Inventory is a leadership model designed by James M.Kouzes and Barry S. Posner. Theory states that leadership is not a quality acquired from birth or transmitted through DNA information. Leadership is independent of racial, regional, religious, or ethic boundaries. There is no relation of leadership with having a power and a high status. Anyone who has the inherent aptitudes and set of skills to inspire and mentor others towards a common objective qualifies as a leader.

The LPI model can be classified into five main categories bed on the nature of qualities asked for and the type of responses they might fetch. They are:

• Model the way
• Inspire a collective vision
• Challenge the process
• Enable others to act
• Encourage the Heart (Kouzes and Posner 2012).

I took the LPI test a few days ago in order to find out where I stand in this competitive world where it is quite tough to become a true leader. I wanted to know what leadership skills I already possess and what skills I can further work upon to grow into an effective leader. My personal scores and reflections according to the LPI criteria are as follows.  

As far as leading my subordinates by example is concerned, I am moderately confident. However, as a leader, I ascertain it that I receive the same performance and dedication from the employees, while maintaining the quality of work. I try my best not t make promises I cannot keep. When I make a commitment to my colleagues, I make sure to fulfil it to the best of my abilities. I am also quite open to criticism and feedback, be it positive or negative. I make it a point to ask other employees what effect my actions are taking on their work (Kapp 2012). If a change is required to be made, I do it as far as the situation permits. I conduct team meetings now and then, to correlate the company’s aims to the general team attitude. I believe that leadership is a quality that involves not only power over others, but also a sense of responsibility. A leader needs to understand skills and feelings of his workers and set his targets and strategies accordingly (Kouzes and Posner 2017). Hence, I am fairly confident on my innate leadership philosophy.

I do not converse a lot about upcoming procedures for work. I do not particularly devote a lot of time to researching magazines, blogs, publications, and the web for new trends and practices of work. Knowing and communicating futuristic processes and equipments is essential to become a successful leader (Miner 2015). I definitely need improvement in this field. Visualizing the future is something I do now and then but not very often. As an able leader, I need to set aspiring targets for myself and my subordinates as well. This could help motivate the employees to work for a better future, with tangible results and rewards (Arbak and Villeval 2013). This is an area I might improve upon also encouraging my employees to share their own respective dreams about the picture. Martin Luther King Jr. motivated millions with his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, whereby he taught the Black American to fight for his rights (Garrow 2015). Quite often, I try to initiate my subordinates into the organisation’s future aims by helping them identify with the bigger picture of the company’s progress. I ask the employees individually their own aims for the future and how it corresponds with the company’s targets.

Structuring a Path

As a leader, it is a requisite to constantly improve and enhance my personal set of skills and the way I work. I make it a point to ask my team-members to devise innovative and novel methods of performing tasks. I take a single project as reference and ask all the members to give their subjective opinions on the solution (Braun et al. 2013). I conduct team discussions as to why a path of operations would be suitable and why another would not. To that effect, I look for solutions outside the company’s confines, consulting other leaders, employees, and often making foeld trips to similar institutions to adopt innovative techniques. Many a time, planning and execution don’t go hand in hand, and when a project fails, I try to extract the maximum lessons to follow for the future. A true leader never loses- he wins or he learns (Hirak et al. 2012). Pragmatism is one of my strengths and I always set realistic targets which can be acquired with the resources at our disposal. However, this does not stop me from taking calculated risks for better results.

Quite often, I interact with random team-members and ask them to share their own opinions about the way we work. I entertain different points of view and try to extract the best out of each to form a collective whole. All employees are treated with respect and I try to address employees by their first names (Latham 2014). However, I give subordinates moderate amount of freedom to put such myriad opinions into practice, as too much freedom tends to create confusion and disarray at times. I cannot improve drastically in this field as it is subject to varying aptitudes and skills.

I make it a point to always congratulate a member for a good job by verbal chats, text messages, e-mails etc. I see to it that everyone is aware of my trust in their abilities and this gives their confidence a boost (Men 2014). I always try to devise innovative ways to accolade successful employees like token gifts, incentives, fun activities etc. I openly praise code-upholders and star performers, so that they act as examples for others to follow, although I can improve in this area (Jones 2012). After a successful project, I don’t always stand on ceremony, but share a quick ‘congrats’ with each team-member, reminding him how valuable he is. Although I am a fairly practical leader, I need to work on these skills a bit more in order to make my team-members feel included in the organisation’s plans.

The plan covers a time period from 01/08/2017 to 15/09/2017.

Leadership Practices- 1) Inspire a Shared Vision 2) Model the Way

Leadership Behaviours- 1) Discussing future trends about our work. 2) Describing a spellbinding vision of the future.

SMART Goal in Focus:

• Specific- It is always sensible to lead by example and have a good foresight of what can be achieved.
• Measurable-I should find that my subordinates are inspired at the prospect of a better future, which they are discussing.
• Achievable-Since no tangible resources required, it is attainable.
• Realistic- The organisation encourages such innate development of leaders.
• Time-specific– Time is not a hurdle in such a goal of reassessing my style of work.

The plan covers a time period from 01/09/2017 to 15/10/2017

Leadership Practices: 1) Enabling team members to act; 2) Challenging existing processes

Leadership Behaviours: 1) Providing more choices to employees about how they work;

2) Enhancing my ability to experiment and take risks.

SMART Goal in Focus:

• Specific- The goals quite clearly state that I wish to facilitate the working of team members; and to learn to take calculated risks at work.
• Measurable-I will know that my objective is accomplished when my team members start innovating their working styles on their own in a positive way; and when I myself can assess a situation and know which risk to take and which one not to.
• Achievable-These goals are certainly achievable as with a little time and practice, the employees will get more efficient, and stop depending on me for orders all the time.
• Realistic-The target is quite practical, since situational emergencies are exactly the reason why these goals have been set. As a leader I should be knowing how to deal with failures.
• Time-specific- These goals are a bit more time consuming than the previous ones. However they will not affect my other commitments.

References:

Arbak, E. and Villeval, M.C., 2013. Voluntary leadership: motivation and influence. Social Choice and Welfare, pp.1-28.

Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., 2013. Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.270-283.

Garrow, D.J., 2015. Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the southern Christian leadership conference. Open Road Media.

Heizer, J., 2016. Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.

Hirak, R., Peng, A.C., Carmeli, A. and Schaubroeck, J.M., 2012. Linking leader inclusiveness to work unit performance: The importance of psychological safety and learning from failures. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(1), pp.107-117.

Jones, D., 2012. Does servant leadership lead to greater customer focus and employee satisfaction. Business Studies Journal, 4(2), pp.21-35.

Kapp, E.A., 2012. The influence of supervisor leadership practices and perceived group safety climate on employee safety performance. Safety science, 50(4), pp.1119-1124.

Kouzes, J.M. and Posner, B.Z., 2012. LPI: Leadership Practices Inventory: Development Planner (Vol. 270). John Wiley & Sons.

Kouzes, J.M. and Posner, B.Z., 2017. A coach’s guide to developing exemplary leaders: Making the most of the leadership challenge and the leadership practices inventory (LPI). John Wiley & Sons.

Kreiser, P.M., Marino, L.D., Kuratko, D.F. and Weaver, K.M., 2013. Disaggregating entrepreneurial orientation: the non-linear impact of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking on SME performance. Small Business Economics, 40(2), pp.273-291.

Latham, J.R., 2014. Leadership for quality and innovation: Challenges, theories, and a framework for future research. Quality Management Journal, 21 (1), 5.

Men, L.R., 2014. Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership, communication channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), pp.264-284.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

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Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley & Sons.

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