Introduction
The success or failure of any institution depends on the quality of leaders at different levels of the organization and their ability to transfer their ideas, visions and aspirations to their followers. People can be followers and leaders at the same time and this course has taught me the importance of leadership and followership in institutional interactions and growth (Avolio & Gardner, 2017). Setting personal goals and objectives can influence personal and professional growth. Also, the process of setting goals and objectives can help an individual to crystallize their career aspirations and decide whether they need a change or not.
Executive Summary
Before I began this course, I did not understand the integral role played by relations between leadership and followership. I always thought that the process of leadership is independent, and it does not depend on the actions or behaviors of followers. However, learning about leadership theories in this course helped me understand the close connection between leadership and followership in a manner that enhanced my understanding on leadership and the role played by followership considerations in improving the effectiveness of leadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2017). For instance, after learning about leadership and followership theories, I have gotten to an understanding of the nature of relations in my organization and how the combative nature of some of the leaders undermines the level of commitment among employees.
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"Reflection and Setting Career Goals".
One of the assignments that influenced my thinking is the identification of goals and objectives in my career. The assignment gave me an opportunity to review my experience as a police dispatcher and my future prospective. I realized that I will need to go back to school to improve my academic qualifications so as to be in a better position to take a leadership role in my institution. Also, I identified some personal qualities that I need to improve on to enhance by capacity to deliver on my duties and obligations.
Action plan
To ensure that I can deliver my duties with utmost professionalism and effectiveness, I have identified a need to increase my knowledge and wisdom regarding my job as one of my most important goals. Under my goal to increase my knowledge and wisdom, my first objective is to meet the needs and expectations of customers (Marczely, 1996). My job entails communication with internal and external customers as I speak with people who are facing emergency challenges and in need of police help. Once I have this information, I relay it to the appropriate emergency departments to initiate the process of response. The importance of the role I play in police dispatch requires that I understand the nature of challenge faced by th external customer and relay the information to the internal teams, accurately. Thus, improving my knowledge on customer needs and expectations can help me improve the timeliness and effectiveness of my response. To achieve this objective, I will dedicate one hour every day to learning about customer experiences and make note of areas that need more attention and improvement. My second objective under my commitment to increasing knowledge and wisdom is to make my goals attainable by creating a list of activities that enhance customer experience and learning how to solve common problems more effectively. I will commit to learning how to solve a common challenge every week and improve the quality of services that I offer to my customers.
My second goal is to learn how to integrate courage in delivering my duties as a police dispatcher. Under this goal, the first objective will be to learn how to face reality head-on and taking responsibility for my actions. I will do this by making a note of every decision that I will make and analyze the log of decisions at the end of my work shift. The underlying understanding for this objective is to review my decisions and check whether I can take full responsibility of my decisions and the level of comfort I will have while doing that. I will evaluate the log of decisions at the end of my second month after starting the practice and review my work performance. I believe that a period of two months is enough to understand my ability to act courageously when delivering my duties and obligations. The second objective under my courage goal is to ensure that I communicate openly and frequently, even when I know that the communication may not augur well with some of my colleagues and customers (Tardanico, 2014). To do this, I will review some of the calls with customers as well as communication with colleagues and make a list of terms or words that I used and that I think could affect the level of clarity for the message. I will review track my improvement over a period of three months to identify my progress in eliminating the use of unclear terms and compare it with my score on customer satisfaction at the end of each random call. I believe that I can identify main communication challenges and apply appropriate solutions over a period of three months.
My third goal is improving my academic qualifications by enrolling and finishing a master’s degree in the next three years. Under this goal, my first objective will be finding an appropriate college offering a course in communication with relevance to emergency response and police dispatch. I will need three months to identify appropriate schools and make an application. I will consider factors such as flexibility of the course schedule and instruction as well as the practicality of the learning experience when making this decision. The second objective under this goal is finding a mentor to help me grow in a personal and professional capacity. I will be looking for help and inspiration in the pursuit of my studies and I believe that I will need a mentor to maintain a high level of commitment and relevant perspective on my studies and how they relate with my job (Marczely, 1996). I will spend one month identifying different individuals who can be appropriate mentors for me and another period of six months sending letters to them requesting for their mentorship. Taking a master’s course and getting a mentor will enhance my whole academic experience and keep it tied to my profession in emergency responses as a police dispatcher.
Conclusion
The course content on leadership theories and the way they influence leader-follower relations helped me develop an understanding of the situation in my current place of work. As a police dispatcher, I interact with leaders in different levels and after taking this course I am in a better position to understand the behaviors of my colleagues. After much reflection, I have identified my main goals as increasing my knowledge and wisdom, learning how to be courageous and improving my academic qualifications.
- Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2017). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 45(3), 84-102.
- Marczely, B. (1996). Personalizing Professional Growth. Staff Development That Works. Corwin Press, Inc., 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320-2218 (ISBN-0-8039-6433-1, cloth; ISBN-0-8039-6434-X, paper).
- Tardanico, S. (2014, June 9). 10 Traits of Courageous Leaders. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/susantardanico/2013/01/15/10-traits-of-courageous-leaders/#8a5a244fc0d5
