Leadership and Team Self-Management Assessment
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show who I see as having a successful leadership style and also the reason behind my consideration of him as a successful leader. The paper also provides an example of a historical figure and how they relate, the leader’s traits that I need to develop and my strengths that could benefit the leader.

Based on my reading, the historical figure that I see as having a successful leadership style was Martin Luther King. Famous for his crisp and well-chosen words, King’s inspirational messages mobilized fellow countrymen supporters with whom they shared a common vision and was a thorn in the flesh for those who perceived his sensitive messages a threat. Perhaps it may not be a surprise that his inspirational messages sealed his own fate but this he more than made for it when he famously declared that the longevity of one’s life should not be substituted for the quality of one’s life.
And King’s life was a quality life before the assassin’s bullet nipped his life at the bud. With his famous inspirational speech, “I have a dream,” and based on a self-management assessment; the infamous “I have a dream” quote was a regular encouragement to all countrymen with similar vision to be self-directed (Sullivan & Decker, 2009). The singular form of the first person “I” implied that those people that he addressed, he believed and encouraged them that they should be self-directed. The fact that his inspirational quotes are a source of encouragement to many, clearly points out to how successful his leadership style was.
King often mobilized and led masses to voice their concerns. An example is the Montgomery Bus Boycott in which he led the African-Americans to decry the racial segregation on public buses. Based on the self-management assessment, it reflects on how King would often help the team to identify their small successes in support of movement toward larger outcomes. This is because King led the campaign in which the Montgomery Bus Boycott took 385 days before it ended (smaller success) but it was a movement which led to a larger outcome, the end of the racial segregation that so much oppressed the black population.
King was a leader of great insight, who evaluated and used alternative methods that would make what they were lobbying for more effective and achieve better results. King, though among other activists of civil rights, led in the foundation and also the leading of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 so that lobbyists could tap the moral command and the power of organization of the churches attended by the blacks so lobby for the civil rights reform using ways that were non-violent. In Alabama, King also lobbied for the implementation of civil rights laws through the use of the nonviolent techniques used by Gandhi and also using philosophy that was nonviolent.
Based on the results of the “Leadership and Team Self-Management Assessment” (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2007); it portrays King as someone who was a leader [or among the leaders who were ] to create opportunities for creative and innovative thinking and new methodologies for work.
King’s literature work such as as “The Measure of A Man”, though tailored to address the problems including social, political and economical factors that faced the then society, show the King’s innovativeness in helping the civil rights lobby group chart a new course for their ambitions (Hall, 2008). Based on the “Leadership and Team Self-Assessment Assessment”, it shows how King often helped create opportunities for creative and innovative processes and new applications for work. King was a leader who oft came to the rescue of his countrymen when their progress toward achieving their goals stalled. Using an example of the Birmingham campaign, a way of promoting civil rights to African-Americans, King and his fellow lobbyists initiated Project C, sit-ins and marches aimed at provoking arrests after the business leaders failed to fall for the boycott that put pressure on business to employ and promote people of all races without discrimination. Then due to its less efficacy, he led in the initiation of “Children’s Crusade” which proved more effective. Based on the “Leadership and Team Self-management Assessment, it portrayed King as a leader who helped the lobbyists develop new approaches and paths of exploration when they got stuck.
There are a number of the leader’s traits that I need to develop. One is innovativeness; King’s innovativeness was unparalleled because he had creativity in literature and an insight that made him being referred to as having an insight of a sixty-year old person though was thirty-nine. I need develop that trait by reading scholarly materials. Two is a down-to-earth person; King had a way with people of all age brackets and walks of life, perhaps the reason he was falsely described as an adulterer. I need develop that trait by associating with people outside the scope of my leadership role since they are handy in sharing positive ideas. My strength that my example leader can develop from include outsourcing whereby in his time, he could have used diplomacy to mobilize renown civil right activists from the rest of the world who could take the message worldwide and pressure their countries to cut any links with America through sanctions.

References
Hall, M.C. (2008). Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Leader. Edina, Minnesota: ABDO.
Porter-O’Grady, T. & Malloch, K. (2007). Managing for success in health care. St. Louis, Mo: Mosby, Elsevier.
Sullivan, E.J. & Decker, P.J. (2009). Effective leadership and management in nursing. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.