Hist 6125 Week 3 Reflection

This is an excellent question! I have heard the saying, “People do not quit their jobs, they quit their boss” more times than I care to count during my time in corporate America! Leadership can really make or break a team. However, effective leadership, is never taught or even always encouraged. Why? Because being an effective leader is difficult. It means being decisive and confident, yet thoughtful and humble. It means taking charge of goals while stepping back to let others lead. To be an effective leader one must learn to balance out contradictions and navigate an ever changing work environment like the chaos was well planned. An effective leader sounds almost mythical.

So how do we find an effective leader? Do we set traps by the coffee pot in the break room and wait for one to be ensnared? Do we go to the wonderful island of LinkedIn and peruse for one? Do we hunt one down on Monster? We can, but potential effective leaders are all around us in the work place, but they often go unnoticed and under appreciated. That’s because what is more important than an effective leader is an effective team.

An effective leader will recognize that their role is minimal compared to that of their team. They set the tone for everyone under their authority and are singularly responsible for the direction of team culture. An effective leader constantly seeks opportunities for growth for their teams and for themselves. They are someone who can transition smoothly between coaching, mentoring, teaching, and facilitating roles. They raise up their team members to be their own effective leaders. Enough on my philosophy of leadership and onto the other questions.

 If you had to pick five leadership qualities that were most important to you, what would they be?:

If I had to pick five leadership qualities that were most important to me, they would be these: An effective leader is a servant leader who is honest, passionate, resilient, thoughtful, and emotionally intelligent.

How would you address potential conflicts at the workplace?:

I have seen enough workplace conflict to know that there is not a one size fits all answer for this question. However, it has also been my experience that the vast majority of workplace conflict is caused by miscommunication. The best way to address any miscommunication is with patience and understanding. While I do think that conflict should be addressed immediately, there is also a time and place. Publicly praise and criticize privately. If the conflict was particularly heated, give people a chance to cool down and space to breathe. After that, in a safe space facilitate a discussion that involves active listening. Be sure to address any biases or assumptions we are making. Separate these from the facts and clearly outline the facts. Do not take sides and always give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

Furthermore, people are rarely the “problem” in a conflict. Rather, people are expressing emotions after dealing with the actual problem for far too long. Often times that problem comes down to the day to day processes that we take for granted. Perhaps that team chat tool was great pre-covid, but now it just isn’t cutting it and messages are being lost? Maybe we rely too much on zoom meetings now? Perhaps we even lack a process and things are just done all sorts of ways which is causing confusion? Regardless, we need to get to the root of the problem and work together to solve it.