Until recently I was the Management Accountant of a waste management company in Africa which operates in five different countries.

As Management Accountant, I was in charge of inventory, job costing, financial management system and fixed assets. I had eight people reporting to me directly and ten people indirectly. The company underwent restructuring recently where the company was divided into two based on the type of customers/clients. A section serving public customers/clients, i.e. government and its agencies, and the other section serving private customers/clients i.e. corporate bodies and individuals. After the restructuring I was appointed as the Finance Manager of the section handling private customers. I am heading the finance team and my leadership is not only limited to the department I am heading but cut across other sectors of the company. When I was the Management Accountant, I led a team to implement a financial management system across the company which involves structuring our accounting system, training and recruitment of requisite skills and competencies for Finance department. I also led a team to review and implement procedures to improve the collection of house-to house refuse, revenue generation and collection. I participated in the restructuring of salary of the company. I jointly reviewed our foreign operations to make it profitable and self sustaining with our Operations Manager. I also led in restructuring of Finance department to provide opportunities for staff to take on more responsibility and leadership in supporting the broader work of the department. This last experience has been repeated as I became the Finance Manager of the private business of the company. I have also led in the preparation of the companys budget several years. I also develop mechanism to ensure adequate supply of materials and fuel for our operations. In all these experience I realized the effect of culture on achievement of results, how people react to directives as well as interpret information given out. People prefer things to go wrong than to

say it which will result in dismissal of fellow worker. I was labeled as someone who is wicked because I did not tolerate mediocrity and negative attitude towards work. I prefer making decisions that need to be done to be done immediately while many prefer it to be hanging. I also realized how when organizational culture is form, it become difficult to change and role of top executive in the formation of culture within an organization. The impact of organizational culture on performance cannot be under rated. The culture even affects peoples attitude and their readiness to accept leadership role. My career plan is set up my own company and operates it as if I am an employee employed to manage the company. I have already started and I want it to grow a little before I will resign to take it up fully. My plan is to help people to unearth their talents. So the people that I will employed will be help to take decisions on their own that will help the company to grow. I will like to create an environment where every staff will lead in his/her area. After my MBA I would like to read more on strategic management and leadership. Two areas of my leadership capabilities I shall evaluate are Empowering and Motivating, Coaching and Development. The reason of selecting these is my career plan of managing a company that allows employees greater freedom, autonomy and self control over their work, and responsible for their decisions. Mullins (2008, p446). I also want find out how to motivate and inspire followers, how to get followers to commit to actions and to perform willingly and with enthusiasm rather than simply carrying out task because they are told to do so. Additionally,to be conversant with latest trend and opportunities around, coaching and development will be a key in achieving the objective of the company.

The sources of data that will be used for the evaluation shall be feedback from colleagues and subordinates which was gathered through questionnaire, MBTI, PDJs and ..these data can be found at appendix 1 to 3. EVALUATION OF LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members. (House et al. 2002,P.13) This definition of Leadership is the GLOBE definition of Leadership. Organizations across the globe are placing emphasis of Leadership due to pace of change, complexity of work and intense competitive pressures. Most organizations are looking for leaders to help them stay on course. It is therefore important for me to critically evaluate my Leadership styles and skills to enable me become effective Leader. EVALUATION OF LEADERSHIP STYLES Leadership styles refer to the pattern of behavior an individual leader uses across the full range of leadership situations. Leadership style has an impact on the work climate and the effort put forth by the team or group. Naturally I tend to use Directive, Visionary, Coaching, Pacesetting and Affiliative style of Leadership. This is well supported by self report questionnaires like MBTI report (app.4), HayGroup report (App.51) and Questionnaire Feedback report (AP22). Directive style which is also known as Coercive style primary objective is immediate compliance. With reference to PDJ 3 (app.2) , I exhibited that leadership style when I insisted that a task should be done by a certain date and they are suppose to adhere to the directive. The motivation to comply with the directive was the consequences of noncompliance. The strength of this leadership style is when the task is relatively straightforward, it is a crisis situation, deviation

from it will result in serious problems and dealing with problem employees, when all else has failed. The weakness of this style is that it is the least effective in most situations. For example, in the situation I referred to, after the deadline some were still doing what they are supposed to hand-over but pretended as if they have hand-over. Flexibility is the hardest hit. People feel so disrespected, sense of responsibility evaporates and unable to act on their own. Given the impact of the coercive style, I might assume it should never be applied. Coercive style can be used but only in extreme situations or when it is imperative and during turnaround. In those situations, the coercive style can break failed business habits and shock people into new ways of working. Visionary style which is also known as Authoritative style provides long-term direction and vision for the employees. This style relies on dialogue with others as well as the leaders unique perspective on the business to establish a vision. With reference to PDJ 4, my first meeting with the staff when I assumed my new position, I communicated to them clearly my expectation from them, the departments role in achieving our corporate vision and how each of them plays a key role in that. In doing so, I dialogue with them to set standards for our task. Since then if I detect any attitude that will derail us from achieving our set objectives, I quickly call a short meeting to give them feedback as how we are faring. This was needed because the set-up was new and they needed clear direction on their assignment. Some workers were new in the system. I gave them scope in terms of how they will achieve standards, with freedom to innovate and take risk. The positive impact of this style was that it creates flexibility because I just state the end and they are suppose to devise their own means. All my staff now comes to me to show me their plans and just makes few recommendations and I asked them to implement. It is effective when one is an expert and wants to chart a new course. This style is likely to fails when the leader is working with a team of experts or peers who are more experienced than he is. When the authoritative

becomes overbearing, it affect effective team spirit. The authoritative style drives every aspect of climate; it motivates people by making clear to them how how their work fit into a larger vision for the organization. Affiliative style is most concerned with building good relationships and with harmony. According to the HayGroup report, myself report indicated that it is my dominant style whiles my raters says it is my back-up style. Since this measures the leadership style that my raters see me demonstrating in the workplace, it is my actual leadership behaviors. This means that, I exhibit it in certain situations. I perfectly agree with my raters. I always expect a high standard from my employees and if you failed to achieve it I will complain and try to help you achieve the goal. But if continuous assistance do not yield the needed result, it wont be difficult to do away with you. I love to build teams with high the am spirit and harmony but would never tolerate mediocrity and reward poor performance. With reference to PDJ 4, in build a new finance team, I tend to relay on affiliative style so that all the employees will be happy, there will be harmony among them and there will be emotional bond among us. Blending affiliative with authoritative style yields a good result. Pacesetting

LIST OF REFERENCES House, R.J Javidan, M., Hanges, P and Dorfman, P. (2002) Understanding cultures and implicit leadership theories across the globe: an introduction to project GLOBE, Journal of World Business, Vol. 37 (1), pp.3-10 Gillen, T. (2002) Leadership skills for Boosting performance. London: CIPD. Goleman, D. (2000) Leadership That Gets Results Harvard Business Review Vol.78 no2, pp. 78-90 Goleman , D., Boyatzis, R. and Mckee, A. (2002) The New Leaders. London: Little Brown Hay M. (2011) Inventory of Leadership Styles Manual. London: Hay Group. Mullins, L. (2008) Essentials of Organizational Behavior (2nd ed) Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Herzberg, F. Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B.B. (1959) The Motivation to Work (2nd ed.) Chapman and Hall. Whitemore , J. (2002) Coaching for Performance. (3rd ed.) London: Nicholas Breadley Publishing. Rosinski, P. (2003) Coaching Across Cultures. London : Nicholas Brealey Publishing

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