Write about a postgraduate-level reflexive writing essay that requires you to critically analyse the changes to your own understanding of leadership identity and leadership identity construction. You will initially outline your initial understanding prior to beginning the unit, discuss and analyse one of the first critical points of cognitive dissonance and then discuss and analyse 3 critical aspects where you experienced change in your understanding. This critical inquiry will culminate in a reflexive statement about your own understanding of leadership identity construction that highlights how this shapes your own leadership practice and identity.

Here is the suggested structure for the essay.
Introduction (around 200 words): briefly outline your leadership experience and leadership identity (with links to literature) and an overview of essay intent and structure. Start with a motivational quote from any scholarly literature listed below that summarizes the entire content of the essay.
Initial understanding of leadership and leadership identity: Outline your initial understanding of leadership and leadership identity and analyse what contributed to this existing understanding. Use evidence from your reflective journal and the relevant literature to support this discussion. Prior to beginning the unit, my view of leadership was limited to the notion that it was a formally assigned role within my institution. I consider myself to be a purpose-driven servant leader who believed that if I could efficiently carry out my duties and responsibilities for the MIS team on a day-to-day basis, I would be an effective teacher leader for the team. Moreover, I consider myself to be an introverted teacher leader, thus, I thought that it limited me to become an effective teacher leader due to my shyness and awkwardness to socially interact with my team members, especially that I am the youngest person in the team and I am the lowest in terms of position and years of service in my institution.
Key point of Cognitive Dissonance (around 850 words): Discuss and analyse one of your bigger points of cognitive dissonance. What was one of the bigger ideas that challenged your initial understanding? Use evidence from your reflective journal and the relevant literature to support this discussion.
Critical Element 1 (around 550 words): Identify first critical element of leadership and leadership identity where your understanding has shifted dramatically over the unit. Critically analyse the various changes and use evidence from relevant literature to support this analysis.
Critical Element 2 (around 550 words): Identify second critical element of leadership and leadership identity where your understanding has shifted dramatically over the unit. Critically analyse the various changes and use evidence from relevant literature to support this analysis.
Critical Element 3 (around 550 words): Identify third critical element of leadership and leadership identity where your understanding has shifted dramatically over the unit. Critically analyse the various changes and use evidence from relevant literature to support this analysis.
Summary/Reflexive Overview (around 400 words): To summarise your learning journey, present a reflexive overview that traces the key changes in your understanding and ideas about leadership and leadership identity.

You are only limited to use the following scholarly literature:
- “A History of Leadership” by Keith Grint, from The SAGE Handbook of Leadership, edited by Alan Bryman, et al., SAGE Publications
- “A taxonomy of leadership identity studies for education” by Eugenie A. Samier and Peter Milley
- "Discourse and Identity: Leader Identity at Work" by Peter Sun
- "Development of teacher leadership identity: a multiple case study" by Somnath Sinha and Deborah L. Hanuscin
- "Exploring professional identities: middle leadership in further education studies" by Ann R. J. Briggs
- "Middle leading in Australian schools: professional standards, positions, and professional development"
- "Researching Middle Leadership in Schools: The State of the Art" by John de Nobile
- "Towards a theoretical model of middle leadership in schools" by John De Nobile
- "Does thinking of myself as a leader make me want to lead? The role of congruence in self-theories and implicit leadership theories in motivation to lead" by Birgit Schyns, Tina Kiefer, and Roseanne J. Foti
- "Identity Leadership in a Crisis: a 5R framework for learning from responses to COVID-19" by S. Alexander Haslam, Kiklas K. Steffens, Stephen D. Reicher, and Sarah V. Bentley
- "Is leadership a part of me? A leader identity approach to understanding the motivation to lead" by Laura Guillen, Margarita Mayo, and Konstantin Korotov
- "Theories of Leadership" by Betina Wolfgang Rennison
- "Educational Leadership and Emotion" by Gabriele Lakomski and Colin W. Evers
- "Identity work in leadership development" by Helen Delaney
- "Preparing teachers for reflexive leadership roles in schools" by Mary Ryan and Tony Loughland
- "Followership in context: a more nuanced understanding of followership in relation to leadership" by Mary Uhl-Bien and Melissa Carsten
- "Sketching the Universal Leadership Journey" from the book "The Leadership Identity Journey : An Artful Reflection" by Mullen, Carol A., et al. 
- "The stories that make us: leaders' origin stories and temporal identity work" by Wei Zheng, Alyson Meister, and Brianna Barker Caza
- "Developing leadership as dialogic practice" by Kenneth J. Gergen and Lone Hersted
- "Developing the theory and practice of leadership development: a relational view" by Cynthia D. McCauley and Charles J. Palus
- Cardona, P., Rey, C., & Craig, N. (2019). Purpose-driven leadership. In C. Rey, M. Bastons, & P. Sotok (Eds.), Purpose-driven Organizations: Management Ideas for a Better World (pp. 57-71). Palgrave Macmillan Cham. 
- Coetzer, M. F., Bussin, M., & Geldenhuys, M. (2017). The Functions of a Servant Leader. Administrative Sciences, 7(1). 
- Crippen, C., & Willows, J. (2019). Connecting Teacher Leadership and Servant Leadership: A Synergistic Partnership. Journal of Leadership Education, 18(2). 
- Khalil, R. (2016). Influence of extroversion and introversion on decision making ability. International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 4(5), 1534-1538. 
- Kuofie, M., Stephens-Craig, D., & Dool, R. (2015). An Overview Perception of Introverted Leaders. International Journal of Global Business, 8(1), 93-103. 


Provide all necessary in-text citations and reference list in APA 7 format. The entirety of this essay should be around 4000 words.