When I first started the course from week 1, I envisioned leadership as a gift for a chosen few. My focus narrowed to the success stories of great leaders of the world. I thought for a second the celebrations of these success stories and their native originalities. However, as the class lessons progressed weekly, my thoughts changed. I realized that effective leadership and performance is a combination of factors but not limited to professionalism, personality, academia and teamwork. According to Griffith & Dunham, learning about teams and incorporating affiliate ideas in the group is a top-notch leadership skill (2014). It increases chances of solving organizational problems while helping an individual meet his or her personal goals.
Concisely, my personal goal has been to understand my performance capabilities and individual styles in team building. I feel that certain elements such as inadequate skills among team members can pause challenges in realizing this goal. In such cases, it is prudent to beef communication skills among teams to enhance effective leadership, team focus and motivation. Likewise, it is critical to develop team collaboration to achieve professional goals. I am certain that the weekly course objectives helped me stay focused on creating a strong team. I belief that working with people from various dynamics of personalities and conflicts can be strengthened through team collaborations.
I agree that understanding team dynamics and team development stages is crucial in establishing workplace success. As a leader, I am entitled to develop team norms that redirects and governs conformity to the expectation and standard behavior of members. As the team grows, productive and destructive social styles start to develop. These styles can be identified through assertiveness and interpersonal emotional characteristics of individuals (Griffith & Dunham 2014). The interpersonal dynamics can lead to disagreements among teams. Since people respond to conflicts differently, there is the need to cultivate effective conflict management including avoiding, accommodating, competing and compromising (Dennis, Garfield & Reinicke, 2019). These conflict management skills can help resolve the disagreements in team building and refocus the interest of team members.
To sum up, the course has reshaped my initial perception about effective team building and leadership. As a leader, it is my sole responsibility to promote effective leadership and organizational performance. These tasks can be achieved by understanding performance capabilities, effective communication and incorporating team dynamics. Effective leaders must showcase their abilities in resolving conflicts in team building using conflict management skills.