Transformational Leadership Assignment

As a leader and a team member in academic endeavors at Minerva, I am highly creative, skilled and proactive, but I can have the tendencies to be excessively controlling, self-centered and harsh. I possess high talents and competencies that could be useful to the execution of projects and tasks, in various areas like writing, design, logical analysis, scientific thinking, analysis of social dynamics, PowerPoint, video-editing and proofreading. I easily form coherent visions of what our optimal final product will look like and take initiative to execute such visions and enact disruptive change. For example, after my final project proposal feedback was posted and the results were mediocre, my group mates were prepared to begin implementing the

In most of the projects I work on, I end up taking on a bulk of the work because other people simply cannot meet the standards I set for my own work. In cases where I must work with other people, I often lead planning and give orders to implement execution when I myself cannot execute the entirety of the project, such as in the “Negotiation” assignment I submitted earlier this semester. In the particular context of academic work, there are numerous factors that contribute to my transactional leadership style. For school assignments, it is assumed that everyone is operating at the same skill level, since we all recently learned the same curriculum. This does not hold true in most of the teamwork situations I have been in, but after appraising my classmates skills, it is often uncomfortable to verbally acknowledge any difference in our skill levels because of the existing culture of equality. The idea of stating that I am better at them at a particular task would be downright unacceptable, even if it could lead to more efficient teamwork. Additionally, I am often more emotionally attached to the successful realization of a vision rather than the successful mentorship of my team members, even though I recognize that I have a lot to offer them. I often hold on to the creative vision I generate for a

In order to reduce these controlling behaviors while maintaining the benefits of creativity and high performance, I should internalize the truth the best project outcomes are more often a result of collaboration, the development process and timing rather than the exact implementation of a particular plan. Even if working with people on tasks rather taking over the task could generate slightly less stellar results, the process of growing with and teaching another person could help me sharpen my aptitudes in those areas and my patience. In addition, the repetition of such a behavior could help me understand that people truly are capable of growth, even if it seems as if they could never change. As such, I should develop ways to transition to a transactional leadership style with these causes in