Essay Title: Leadership as a Reflexive Process

(Reflexive writing is based on Ryan, M. (2014). Reflexive writers: Re-thinking writing development and assessment in schools. Assessing Writing, 22, pp. 60-74. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/76196/)

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 EUN656 (Leadership Identity), 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: briefly outline your leadership experience and leadership identity (with links to literature) and an overview of essay intent and structure. Start with a direct quote from any scholarly literature listed below that discusses the power of introversion in leadership that summarizes the entire content of the essay. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can. This section of the essay should be around 300 words.
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 EUN656 (Leadership Identity), my view of leadership was limited to the notion that it is any role from the organizational structure within my institution and it was a formally assigned role by the administrators that have supervisory and management roles. I was tasked to be the head of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Team for a year. The MIS Team is primarily composed of people who are much older than me and holds much higher teaching positions than me. 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. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can. This section of the essay should be around 1000 words.
Key point of Cognitive Dissonance: Discuss and analyse introversion in leadership as a big point of cognitive dissonance. What was one of the bigger ideas about introversion in leadership that challenged your initial understanding? Use evidence from relevant literature to support this discussion. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can.  This section of the essay should be around 1400 words.
Critical Element 1: Identify Leadership Beyond Formal Roles as the 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. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can.  This section of the essay should be around 900 words.
Critical Element 2 (around 900 words): Identify the role and power of introversion in leadership as the 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. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can.  This section of the essay should be around 900 words.
Critical Element 3 (around 900 words): Identify Leadership as an Ongoing Process of Identity Construction as a 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. You are required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can.  This section of the essay should be around 900 words.
Summary/Reflexive Overview (around 600 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 required to use as much scholarly literature as you can so that you can further substantiate your claims. Provide all necessary in-text citations as often as you can.  This section of the essay should be around 600 words.

You are only limited to use the following scholarly literature listed in APA 7 format:
- Grint, K. (2011). A History of Leadership. In A. Bryman, D. Collinson, K. Grint, B. Jackson, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Leadership (1st ed., pp. 3-14). SAGE Publications, Limited. 
- Samier, E. A., & Milley, P. (2020). Editors' critical introduction: A taxonomy of leadership identity studies for education. In E. A. Samier & P. Milley (Eds.), Educational Administration and Leadership Identity Formation (1st ed., pp. 1-32). Routledge. 
- Sun, P. (2016). Discourse and Identity: Leader Identity at Work. In J. Storey, J. Hartley, J.-L. Denis, P. t. Hart, & D. Ulrich (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Leadership (1st ed., pp. 581-594). Routledge. 
- Sinha, S., & Hanuscin, D. L. (2017). Development of teacher leadership identity: A multiple case study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63, 356-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.01.004 
- Briggs, A. R. J. (2007). Exploring professional identities: middle leadership in future education colleges. School Leadership and Management, 27(5), 471-485. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632430701606152 
- Lipscombe, K., Grice, C., Tindall-Ford, S., & De Nobile, J. (2020). Middle leading in Australian schools: professional standards, positions, and professional development. School Leadership and Management, 40(5), 406-424. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2020.1731685 
- De Nobile, J. (2021). Researching Middle Leadership in Schools: The State of the Art. ISEA, 49(2)
- De Nobile, J. (2018). Towards a theoretical model of middle leadership in schools. School Leadership and Management, 38(4), 395-416. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2017.1411902 
- Schyns, B., Kiefer, T., & Foti, R. J. (2020). Does thinking of myself as leader make me want to lead? The role of congruence in self theories and implicit leadership theories in motivation to lead. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2020.103477
- Haslam, S. A., & Steffens, N. K. (2021). Identity Leadership in a Crisis: A 5R Framework for Learning from Responses to COVID-19. Social Issues and Policy Review, 15(1), 35-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12075 
- Guillén, L., Mayo, M., & Korotov, K. (2015). Is leadership a part of me? A leader identity approach to understanding the motivation to lead. The Leadership Quarterly, 26, 802-820. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.001
- Rennison, B. W. (2018). Theories of Leadership. Journal of Leadership and Management, 13, 185-199. 
- Lakomski, G., & Evers, C. W. (2017). Educational Leadership and Emotion. In D. Waite & I. Bogotch (Eds.), The Wiley International Handbook of Educational Leadership (pp. 45-62). John Wiley and Sons, Incorporated. 
- Delaney, H. (2016). Identity Work in Leadesrhip Development. In J. Storey, J. Hartley, J.-L. Denis, P. t. Hart, & D. Ulrich (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Leadership (pp. 566-580). Routledge. 
- Ryan, M., & Loughland, T. (2020). Preparing teachers for reflexive leadership roles in schools. Journal of Education for Teaching, 46(5), 676-689. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1771172 
- Uhl-Bien, M., & Carsten, M. (2016). Followership in Context: A More Nuanced Understanding of Followership in Relation to Leadership. In J. Storey, J. Hartley, J.-L. Denis, P. t. Hart, & D. Ulrich (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Leadership (pp. 142-156). Routledge. 
- Mullen, C. A., English, F. W., & Kealy, W. A. (2014). Sketching the Universal Leadership Journey. In The Leadership Identity Journey: An Artful Reflection. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 
- Zheng, W., Meister, A., & Caza, B. B. (2021). The stories that make us: Leaders’ origin stories and temporal identity work. Human Relations, 74(8), 1178-1210. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726720909864
- Gergen, K. J., & Hersted, L. (2016). Developing leadership as dialogic practice. In J. Raelin (Ed.), Leadership-as-Practice (1st ed., pp. 178-197). Routledge. 
- McCauley, C. D., & Palus, C. J. (2021). Developing the theory and practice of leadership development: A relational view. The Leadership Quarterly, 803. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101456
- 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. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17674-7_5 
- Coetzer, M. F., Bussin, M., & Geldenhuys, M. (2017). The Functions of a Servant Leader. Administrative Sciences, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci7010005 
- Crippen, C., & Willows, J. (2019). Connecting Teacher Leadership and Servant Leadership: A Synergistic Partnership. Journal of Leadership Education, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.12806/V18/I2/T4
- 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.