A leader’s task is to integrate material resources, professional knowledge, and social intelligence to project and coordinate professional cooperation and interpersonal relations in a team. Continuous evolution of interpersonal relations challenges leaders to expand the range of the personal skills and qualities needed to adopt and implement these new strategies. As I am pursuing my future career as a University professor, the impact of this interpersonal challenge is even greater. It requires not only leading the class but also teaching students to become leaders in their future professional and social lives. The main goal of this paper is to begin structuring the flow of the Professional Development project. The objective of this research is to conduct a literature review on the subject. Another objective is to study the requirements for successful leaders in the modern socio-economic environment. This research will also define personal qualities of leaders that allow executing effective team building strategies. It will outline the implications for the future research on the topic.

Personal Qualities of Leaders for Team Building

Leadership and leader’s qualities are the center of continuous academic research and professional discussion as can be read in many essays. Researchers and practitioners strive to define those crucial unique characteristics, which enable certain people to build and manage teams effectively and integrate individual efforts and skills to generate long-term relations in teams, while pursuing feasible perspectives of productivity growth. It has been acknowledged that, nowadays, effective leaders are more important for organizational and team development than innovative strategies, skilled professionals, business planning, and any other relevant resources. A leader’s task is to integrate material resources, professional knowledge, and social intelligence to project and coordinate professional cooperation and interpersonal relations in a team. Smooth team functioning facilitates effective decision-making and boosts overall performance. Some people are born to be leaders due to the personal intellectual, communicational, and behavioral talents, while others have to learn to become leaders, by studying successful leaders and effective teams.

This topic is relevant to my career field, as I would like to be an effective leader, who is capable of understanding followers and inspiring them. The main goal of this paper is to begin structuring the flow of the Professional Development project. The objectives of this research are to conduct the basic literature review on the subject and study the requirements for successful leaders in the modern socio-economic environment. This research will also define personal qualities of leaders that allow executing effective team building strategies. It will outline the implications for further research on the topic.

Impact of the Interpersonal Challenge

An interpersonal challenge for leaders is to secure team motivation and performance in the context of diverse and liberal socio-cultural environments. As I am pursuing my future career of a University professor, the impact of the interpersonal challenge will become even greater, because it requires not only leading the class but also teaching students to become leaders in their future professional and social lives. Therefore, the current impact of the interpersonal challenge is to assess and adapt the current leadership style to improve the team’s cooperation and performance. The long-term impact of the interpersonal challenge is to ensure that the personal leadership style is flexible enough to evolve along with the change in the external and internal functional environments.

Results of the Research

Nowadays, leadership theories represent an extensive field of study. However, academic research has failed to generate a uniform leadership model so far. To a great extent, it has been conditioned by the fact that, in the recent decades of socio-economic development, the requirements for leadership functions and leadership qualities were continuously modified. The evolution of leadership theories introduced constant change in terms of models, philosophies and leadership styles. Trait-based theories were pioneered by Carlyle and Galton in the middle of the 18th century. They suggested that some people naturally possess a specific set of qualities that compel others to accept them as leaders. Related studies focused on defining the personal qualities of true leaders. 

Leaders should be characterized by their ability to balance performance and team orientation. That model suggested that democratization of leadership has a detrimental effect on the team productivity. The contingency leadership model challenged the idea of polar leadership, suggesting that any leadership style is challenged by continuous external and internal change and leaders should be able to recognize and adapt to it.

One of the recent innovative leadership models argues that horizontal structures (i.e. employees) rapidly increase their authority. As a result, a new leadership function is to recognize the personal and professional needs of the team members and create an environment that will motivate teams to develop and maximize their performance and productivity. The latter model incorporates the fundamentals of Social Intelligence (SI), i.e. the principles of confidence, social adequacy, sincerity, constructive communication, and emotional intelligence. It is possible to conclude that leadership approaches evolved from vertical to horizontal and became more socially-conscious. Accordingly, they require that leaders are capable of administering constructive horizontal communication, relationship-building and context-setting rather than vertical control.

Recommended Strategies

Based on the research results, I believe that, when facing this challenge, modern leaders have to learn not how to manage but how to build relations, not how to direct but how to inspire commitment, as well as how to share knowledge, empower and delegate authority. With regard to this, I suggest that the leader uses the following strategies to face this challenge:

1. Leadership through motivation and communication.

2. Leadership through learning and delegating.

3. Leadership through innovation and change.

Leaders have to become socially intelligent and nurture the culture of common goals and mutual interest, in order to grow together with the team.

This study will focus on conducting self-assessments and defining personal qualities that condition the current leadership style employed in situations, when it is necessary to build teams and manage team interactions. Based on the earlier academic studies, I will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the habitual leadership style to understand whether it is beneficial in the context of my future career. I will also consider the required changes, by taking into account experiences of successful leaders in the field. This will allow identifying the path and perspective for personal development that will enable me to acquire the necessary skills and qualities implied with the evolution of my leadership style. In the conclusion of this research, I will construct an effective and feasible personal leadership model.