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Daft, R. (2018). The Leadership Experience (7th edition). Mason, Ohio: South-Western CENGAGE Learning.

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Simon Sinek on Leadership - TED2014 (short)

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Achieve High Level of Diversity Awareness

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Achieve High Level of Diversity Awareness

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The second goal I set is to get close to the highest level of diversity awareness to become an inclusive leader. According to the five stages of personal diversity awareness (Daft, 2018, p. 348), I am on the transitioning stage from stage 3 – Acceptance to stage 4 – Adaptation, and I challenge myself to strive to the last stage – Integration in the far future.

To reach stage 4, the strategy that I want to employ is to fully emerge in the different groups of people who are not like myself. As a leader, I would want to dedicate a part of my time to develop the deep connection the team members with dissimilar characteristics. The first thing I should do is to find time with these individuals and from there, I will establish the healthy relationships with them. I will also ask questions in a proper manner since it is the amazing tool to gather information and to show that the leader cares about the persons, which would help increase the connection, thus engagement (p 268). At this step, I need to be extremely sensitive, otherwise it is likely to make the other people feel offended. With my understanding of the difference, the next thing I will do is to reflect upon their circumstances, especially putting myself in their shoes to fully adapt with their mindsets and behaviours. Once I get the gist of it, it is time for me to start taking more initiatives to integrate the actions that involve their participation and support.

According to Daft (2018, p. 349), stage 5 of the diversity awareness is seemingly unreachable, however, it does not mean that leaders should give up on pursuing it. For me, it is a goal to always keep in mind so I can strive to become better at it every day as a leader. After achieving stage 4, as me becoming a higher-ranked leader, I would like to establish an organizational culture that applauds diversity and equality. After that, I wish to make sure every person embraces and adapts to diversity both cognitively and behaviourally in the organization.

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The first goal of my journey to become a great leader is to assist the team members to find value in their work to increase their engagement. As the members understand the meaning of their contribution to the bigger picture, it would be easier to have them engaged since they would actively seek ways to serve the mission (Daft, 2018, p. 248). To achieve this goal, two main actions that I need to take are refining my skill on asking questions and learning to give the team members the freedom to complete their tasks.

From my experience of leading a group, realized that I should be more prudent with the questions that I pose to keep the team members engaged. The first step is to be mindful of the situations and aware of the outcomes that I want to achieve from the conversation. Realizing this matter, in the next month, I will create a list of potential questions for common situations beforehand to be used in the future. Based on the purpose of the conversations, the next thing to do is selecting the right open-ended questions that can create a welcoming environment for sharing, thus engagement. I learned that leadership is not only about giving the correct answers, but more about asking the right questions (Daft, 2018, p. 267).

Another element that can give a great outlook on the value of the members’ work to engage them is candid feedback. Giving evaluation on their performance will help them realize the importance of their role in the team, and it shows the leader’s appreciation of their work and the genuine care for their improvement in the future (Daft, 2018, p. 216). Firstly, since feedbacks can be positive but also negative, I need to overcome the fear of confrontation caused by the nature of my culture. To achieve this step, I write a journal to remind myself of how my assertiveness is in the process towards my personal and team development. Next, I need to be conscious in terms of offering constructive feedbacks so that I can become impeccable with my words when giving my team the assessment. Being mindful and choosing the right words to say should to be practiced on a daily basis. Finally, with my courage, I should be aware of when to give feedbacks so that the team will know how they are doing (Daft, 2018, p. 216).