During this course I have taken various types of self-assessment tests and the results to those were very thought-provoking. Never have I thought that these types of tests would be so accurate and interesting. The most significant key learnings that have stuck with me are the personality assessment tests called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the measurement of locus control. I believe that acknowledging these assessments can help me to understand myself more deeply and to become a great leader. This paper will focus on the key leadership insights I have gained from this course and the impact it will have on my professional development as an aspiring hospitality leader.
As a student who wishes to become a leader in the hospitality industry, I find this course very beneficial and practical. The reason why I chose to enroll into International Hotel Management to get my undergraduate degree is to become knowledgeable in every course we’ve taken so far. In the future, I hope to develop into a skillful general manager. I understand that we can all be exceptional leaders if we are willing to acquire the right leadership skills and that not all leaders were born to be a leader, but they work hard to be a great one. I consider myself as an honest individual in every aspect and I try to stay that way. During the class session, I was happy to hear that honesty is the number one, out of 20 qualities, and it gave me a little spark and reminder that I could be a leader someday. Another thing that gave me motivation was the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. My scores were titled as ISTJ, which are introversion, sensing, thinking, and judging. I knew I was an introvert from the start but I was not sure about the other characteristics. For some reason, I always thought that extroverted people were better than introverted people. They just seem very energetic and are always able to communicate and socialize much better and that made a little jealous to be honest. However, because of this course, I was able to re-think that idea and realize that being an introvert also has many strengths and qualities that extroverts do not have. While reading the leadership textbook, I found a section about introverts having misconceptions about themselves and that both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are introverts, which changed my thoughts on less introverts being leaders than extroverts. Overall, the results of my characteristics were defined as an organizer, trustworthy, responsible, good trustee and inspector, which I agree. I believe these personalities are directly linked to my strength, which is being honest and if I keep developing these skills and characteristics, as well as any new ones I can pick up, I know they will all come in handy in the future.
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Locus of Control
I scored a 40 on locus of control, which is below average. Locus of control is a specific personality attribute that have a significant impact on our behavior. Many people believe that their actions have an impact on what happens to them in the future. They believe that they carve their own futures, disregarding any external factors. On the other hand, people like me feel like whatever happens in my life is a result of chance, luck, people or any other external factors that have control over fate. Basically, I am more of an external locus of control person, which makes sense because making excuses and procrastinating work and goals is relevant to me, plus I feel like I give up easily on a lot of things due to this mentality. I believe that being external locus of control gives me more anxiety because I sometimes believe that I have no control over my life. If I could change this mentality, I believe I am able to think more positively and achieve much more during my career development. As I read in the textbook, internals focused people are more self-motivated and have better control of their own behavior, and participate more in social activities. This example here is why I strongly believe that I should shift my locus of control into internal because now I know that high internal focused people achieve more than external focused people. By saying that, I’m not stating externals are bad and internals are good. It is just a preference on how we would like to see the world from different lenses. So, to start shifting my mentality from external to internal, I should stop making excuses and avoiding responsibilities. By doing that, I believe it can have positive impacts on my life. Also, by being mindful towards others and respecting other people’s values is going to be very important part of my journey. Mindfulness is vital part of being a great leadership and we are learning to be mindful in many of the courses such as multicultural management, ethical issues in hospitality industry and also in leadership course, which tells me practicing mindfulness is essential.
How Will My New Learnings Will Impact My Future Development?
Managing people is going to be one of the hardest things I could possibly do. Those that were or are in a leader position say that it is hardest thing but they also love what they are doing. From that I understood, whatever you are doing, it is important that we should love what we do otherwise it will just turn into punishment. A difference between a manager and a leader is that a manager has people who work for them and report to them while leaders have people who follow them because they trust the leader’s vision. Leaders are able to inspire their followers with a purpose and help them to grow their minds and abilities as individuals. However, during this course one of the things I learned those that are in a leadership position must have some of the key leadership attribute and behaviors and be able to develop what they lack. In my opinion, great leadership personalities include optimistic, honest, driven, mindful, responsible and someone who is able to look far beyond the horizon. Out of this list, optimism and honesty really stands out to me because a lot of people would describe this as a dreamer and that this is not good because they need to be realistic. But how I see it is that not every day is going to be filled with dance parties and when the unexpected happens, the followers usually look at the leader before showing any reaction so if the leader is sending out a negative vibe, it will have an impact on the whole team. So, a leader should always remember the power of positive thinking.
Another leadership goal I set for myself in order to improve my leadership skills is to become a situational leader and again, this leadership style simply means that I must be able to adjust my leadership styles to fit the development level of my followers as everybody’s skills vary depending on their experience and everybody gets influenced differently. Practicing situational leadership will come in handy in any condition I find myself in, especially when working with people who come from different culture, language and skills. If I use those learnings from this course to integrate into my future job position, I would be able to get promoted much faster and efficient. I plan on moving to Mongolia in the future and for someone who has lived in Canada for almost 5 years, I believe this leadership style learnings will be useful for me when dealing with followers that have a completely different viewpoint than me.
Conclusion
Knowing my strength and weakness and how my personality affects my everyday life is the first step to become a great leader. One should be able to identify their own attributes before moving on to anyone else. The self-assessment test results will be valuable pieces to keep and also to re-take in 5-10 years because although I am happy with my results now, I know that in 5 years, as I am in a completely different stage in my life, I know that my values will have changed so it will be interesting to compare the results. Therefore, I hope to develop a high internal locus of control to balance out my already set personality because I want to see how else I can develop and better myself.
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