Leadership portfolio  

Leadership portfolio   

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Leadership portfolio

Leadership assessment

I exhibit a leadership style that is consistent to my personality traits. Specifically, my leadership style can be termed as being transactional, visionary and democratic. This is because I score highly in conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness as my dominant character traits. From this context, my conscientiousness influences my leadership style to include leadership attributes such as a keenness for detail and right procedure, high task orientation, high ethical standards, keenness towards following established rules and laws, preference for structure and organization, and a high value for integrity and honesty (Hassan, Asad & Hoshino, 2016). Besides, I have a keen eye for detail and am very meticulous with the tasks at hand. As such, I expect my followers to display similar attention to details and deliver on their tasks accurately in the right way. Therefore, would make a performance-driven and results-oriented leader who expects my followership to deliver high standards of work and tasks. Moreover, my openness and agreeableness makes me exude other leadership traits such as empathy, care for the welfare and wellness of others, teamwork, and value for work-life balance (Özbağ, 2016). As such, I have a high emotional intelligence because I am conscious and concerned about the feelings and welfare of others and understand that their wellbeing influences their performance at the workplace. This would make me display a democratic leadership style in which the followership or team members contribute to the decision-making process and where I value the opinions of others before arriving at the final decision. Altogether, I would fit well in leadership roles such as leading a high-performing accounting team in which integrity and rule adherence is highly valued and required.  I would also fit well as a departmental leader in an organization heading the finance department therein. As such, I can fit very well in a financial institution such as a bank and any other organization that has a finance department.

The positive aspects of my leadership attributes are the applicability in the accounting profession, which makes my leadership style suitable for my career in finance and accountancy. Indeed, accountancy is a detail oriented profession that requires one to be highly meticulous in tasks. In addition, the finance industry is highly regulated and controlled because of the influence it has on the performance of organization and national economies. As such, adherence to rules, regulations and laws is a requirement for all accountancy practitioners. Moreover, deep concerns about financial integrity emanating from headline-hitting news about fraudulent financial practices in organizations require that I display a high level of conscientiousness in my leadership style at the workplace (Steinbauer, et al., 2014). As such, there is a perfect fit between my personality traits and my leadership style in my accountancy career.

However, I am concerned that my high expectations of integrity and ethical behavior in others may be disappointed by the lack of such skills and values in others. Therefore, while I would wish to drive high performance in an accounting team, I should also be ready to mentor others, which requires that I improve on my coaching skills and coaching leadership style. I also realize that my preferred leadership style may stifle creativity and innovativeness in others. Moreover, my high task and productivity orientation may stifle productivity because my insistence for ethical behavior, meeting of strict deadlines and demand for perfection may cause fatigue and even discouragement in others who are not able to adhere to similar performance standards (Myszkowski, eta l., 2015).    

Action plan

Although I have the personality attributes to make a conscientious, democratic leader, I am yet to develop my leadership skills fully to take full advantage of my personality. Therefore, my plan to develop and improve my leadership skills include taking up leadership courses to increase my awareness about diverse leadership styles and how they affect the performance of my followership and organization. Specific skills I would need to develop further include mentorship and coaching to ensure that my followership is skilled enough to adhere to the high performance and quality standards required in an accounting team. To this end, there are numerous leadership courses that I can take up in the university, some of which are offered online, making them convenient to me.

In addition, I would need to gain some experiential exposure in leadership as I develop my accountancy career. As such, I need to take up every opportunity at leadership that would be presented to me at any point in my career advancement. In this regard, volunteering to take up leadership roles in my organization is pertinent in my leadership skill development. In addition, my communication skills would be exercised as I develop a good rapport with coworkers, organizational management and other resource people who would facilitate the development of a healthy and productive network. 

Moreover, I need to seek out a mentor who would guide me in my leadership tasks and career advancement. In this regard, in need to network with college professors and financial managers in organization who have built a sound reputation at leadership because they would inspire me to strive for high leadership standards that are required in the accountancy career.     

Personal leadership vision

 I aspire to be a transformational leader because it would enable me to not only drive high performance and quality at the workplace but also inspire others to achieve high levels of integrity, ethical behavior and conscientiousness in their tasks and duties (Conway, 2018). To this end, I see myself leveraging my personality, especially my conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness develop a leadership style that is suitable for the finance career and especially the accountancy profession. Indeed, the accountancy profession is at its infancy in the United Arab Emirates, which is my home country and preferred country of professional practice. Considering that many positions in organizations are still dominated by expatriates, the government is keen to develop a highly-skilled domestic pool of human resource. As such, my aspiration to become a leader in the accountancy profession is in line with the vision of the country’s leadership. Therefore, I look forward to not only becoming a highly skilled and competent leader but also towards inspiring other Emiratis to follow suit and take up leadership positions as well. To this end, in look forward to becoming a leadership mentor and coach to young Emiratis, which would in turn, expand the pool to indigenous professional leaders in the country.

In addition, although accountancy remains a highly regulated field due to the high integrity and accountability requirements, I hope to become a leader who demystifies the accountancy profession and leadership (Conway, 2018). I am aware that may Emiratis may be frightened by the heavy personal and professional burden placed in accountants and therefore may fear taking up the career. Therefore, I would like to become a leader who dissipates such anxiety and may accountancy attractive to my fellow citizens.    

References  

Conway, E. (2018). The Future of Accountancy—Beyond the Numbers. In Contemporary Issues in Accounting (pp. 187-195). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Hassan, H., Asad, S., & Hoshino, Y. (2016). Determinants of leadership style in big five personality dimensions. Universal Journal of Management, 4(4), 161-179.

Myszkowski, N., Storme, M., Davila, A., & Lubart, T. (2015). Managerial creative problem solving and the Big Five Personality traits: Distinguishing divergent and convergent Abilities. Journal of management development, 34(6), 674-684.

Özbağ, G. K. (2016). The role of personality in leadership: Five factor personality traits and ethical leadership. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 235, 235-242.

Steinbauer, R., Renn, R. W., Taylor, R. R., & Njoroge, P. K. (2014). Ethical leadership and followers’ moral judgment: The role of followers’ perceived accountability and self-leadership. Journal of business ethics, 120(3), 381-392.