Eagle Scholar Leadership Journey

This semester, we learned specific ways to build our leadership capabilities by reading “How Remarkable Women Lead” by Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston, researching Boston women leaders, interviewing a present day woman leader, and reading a group book. Throughout all of these resources and research, common themes of how to be a successful leader emerged. Not only did I learn more about leadership in general, but I also found ways to improve my own leadership without going too much out of my comfort zone. The important lessons of leading with perseverance, framing, and an activist's mindset thoroughly influenced my identity as a leader and gave me new tactics to grow as a person.

As a graduate student approaching her final semester in school, thoughts regarding my leadership abilities in the soon-to-be “real world” have occupied my mind lately. To further explore and develop my ideas about leadership, I decided to develop my personal leadership theory. So, I asked myself the following questions: What makes a successful leader? How do you recognize a leader when you meet one?, and lastly, what is my theory of leadership? With this last question I thought about what leadership meant to me personally and how I personified it in a role of authority. While I had given thought to how I led, I had rarely taken the time to fully understand what my personal leadership theory entailed. Throughout the length of this paper I will analyze how my leadership skills, traits, values and elements from both Authentic Transformational theories help me to shape my leadership philosophy. In doing so I hope to define the leadership values that influence the way I view and practice leadership.

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

Throughout my time as a young adult I have had countless amounts of people tell me that they see me as a leader. They told me that I have the traits and the skills of someone who can have success in leadership positions. Truthfully, I never really understood what they meant. I knew that I was a good public speaker, but I never really understood what else I had. In high school I was always put in leadership positions whether it was an officer of the National Honor Society or captain of my sport teams, but I never really understood what drove me to attain those positions. I continued my quest for leadership positions in high school with every student organization I joined. Whether it was Pi Kappa Phi fraternity or Dance Marathon I felt the need to prove to others that I can more than just a member, but a leader. It wasn’t until I took this class that I truly understood what made me a leader. Because of this class I was able to better understand what are my leadership traits, my leadership styles, and how I use those in order to attain and succeed in leadership positions. Throughout this paper I will explain how Career Leadership Academy allowed me to realize what made me a leader and analyze the ways to improve at my future leadership positions.

A leader takes diligent time in considering the ability to adhere to other people’s interests and presents their followers with a positive mindset. This summer, I accepted an invitation to participate in the Dale Carnegie Young Adult Leadership Program. Attendees of this program learned several skills that can be applied to future experiences, especially on how to become an effective leader. Everyday, the attendees acted as leaders by accomplishing various tasks that forced them to reach out of their comfort zones. We acted as leaders by leading group

Moreover, while taking the Leadership Foundations Class, there were many lessons that provided me with tools to be an efficient leader. However, when my teacher exposed the class to servant leadership, I immediately took interest in it. At this moment, I finally directed my leadership to embody the qualities of a servant leader. Some of which include: acting with humility, encouraging the new generation of young leaders, valuing diverse opinions, and serving others before

Leadership is about effectively influencing people; an endeavor that can be very challenging at times even for the most qualified and experienced leaders. My time at the Eisenhower School has allowed me to read and assimilate vast amounts of information about leadership. The white space during the school year has facilitated reflection on the results of my executive assessment, seminar discussions, and the various leadership presentations from strategic leaders. As a result, I realize there are strategic leadership concepts I have already experienced and applied. Self-awareness by attaining understanding of my own personality is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned. Cognizance of my temperament’s tendencies and those of

Over the course of this semester, I have learned about the theoretical foundation of leadership and management. From various leadership styles to numerous learning tools have all aided in shaping me to become an effective leader not only in the health care profession, but everyday life as well. Through utilizing these tools, I have managed to put them into actions through working individually and in teams which has helped me to learn more about myself and the type of leader I am. Throughout this action plan I will reflect on my definition of leadership, what I’ve learned about myself in the capacity to demonstrate leadership, my leadership strengths and weaknesses and three action steps that will help me to develop my leadership in the future.

Ronald Reagan once said, “the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things, he is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” This quote by our past president, Ronald Reagan, relates to my experiences with leadership. Throughout high school I experienced democratic leadership though playing sports like field hockey and track. I have also experienced leadership during small group projects, as well as being a leader of an organization on a college campus. Through all of these experiences, I have learned essential characteristics and qualities to becoming a good leader. I have also had negative experiences with leadership that have taught me things not to do as a leader. I

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

In this Christian Leaders Series edition of this Maxwell classic, you will discover the biblical foundation for leadership that John Maxwell has used as a pastor and business leader for more than forty years. In this book, John Maxwell explains ten principles to enhance your leadership ability. While not everyone is destined for glory in their leadership journey, everyone has influence, and it is in our hands to develop ourselves to become that which we are capable.

The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus is for those who want to become wise and highly effective leaders. This is more than a theory; it focuses on a uniquely constructive and compassionate approach to leadership based on positive spiritual principles contained in the teachings of Jesus. It addresses priceless wisdom for leading ourselves and others. We can apply these principles to family, work and church or ministry. When we are called upon to lead, in any capacity, we have to be effective and lead with ethic and justice. We have to be able to provide positive influence for others. The book “Lead like Jesus” give us four stages for us to learn how we can identify our stage in order to go to a different level of leadership. We need to identify

The five leadership practices included: spiritual, heartbeat, abilities, personality, and experience. The spiritual part of leadership begins with the author’s relationship with God first. God is first, because, Matthew 22:37-38 records, “And He said to Him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love you neighbor as yourself, indicating, the two greatest commandments involve God and others.” Therefore, God and others are linked together. The heartbeat of leadership describes the passion, which relates to the time, focus, and energy the author is purposing to put into leadership. The abilities of leadership implies the willingness, showing forth effort, determination, and tendenosity. Personality can be received as positive or negative, because it identifies self. Personality reveals the inner person. An example of this is the author‘s personality shows, joyfulness, hopefulness, love, or it can be anger, bitterness, and unwillingness to change. The experience of leadership is having to have lived a life beneficial for other to see and know. The author purpose to utilize each core activity by putting each activity into practice in leadership. Leadership is broad, it is utilize in many areas such as: business, church, small groups, community, school, etc. So then, the spiritual part of leadership is finding likeminded people. Likeminded

Effective leadership approaches from a biblical perspective consist of God’s nature in his manifested character. Christian leaders are willing to pay the price to lead in Christ’s affliction. Paul said there is a price to pay in order to lead and Jesus reminded us, “Remember what I told you: 'A servant is not greater than his master. ' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also” (John 15:20, New International Version). Christian leaders need core attributes of God’s styles and approaches, support and linkage from scriptures, and knowledge of his leadership models of truth for effective leadership. However, these perspectives will gave me a better appreciation and insight of who God is and who I can be with his guidance.

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Dwight D. Eisenhower This quote from Eisenhower rings true on many levels. During my career in the military and the private sector, I have been subjected to many different styles of leadership, good or bad. In my leadership roles I have attained, I tried to model leadership abilities by taking bits and pieces of previous leader’s styles and forming them into my own model. This has proven to work well as dealing with people from all different walks of life there is no one size fits all approach. In writing this paper, I will detail my own leadership platform drawing from the course material and various other sources. The goal of this paper is to show a solid understanding of the course teachings and perhaps give the reader a new found perspective on leadership.