The reason why I am taking this course is because I want to improve my leadership abilities, whether that’s galvanizing a group to perform their best or by making a critical decision for a group or an organization. Moreover, I strongly believe if I could improve my leadership skills, I will be soon being an effective manager, who is capable of running a conglomerate business. In addition, what I want to learn about leadership is all the qualities that I can instill in myself for my future endeavors. Lastly, my favorite leadership quote is by one of my favorite hero’s according to Munger “Develop into a lifelong self-learner, through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” – Charlie Munger The
At the beginning of this class, leadership was something I hoped to enhance throughout the duration of this course and in the next few years. Through the course, I have learned more about myself and the type of leader I am through the relational leadership model. Learning about the strengths I have as an individual, the leadership skills and styles, working with other people through communication and listening. I have learned relevant concepts that served as the foundation to leadership philosophy. Leadership has a lot to do with relationships. One thing that has stood out to me is that they see the definition of leadership as a relational and ethical process of people together, attempting to accomplish positive change (Anderson&Bolt, 18).
Learning how to be a leader in all types of situations has been one of the most important skills which I have acquired. The most important growth in my leadership skills was through 4-H where I served as President, 1st Vice President, and various other positions. I learned valuable public speaking skills from a lawyer who was teaching a public speaking class and was able to apply this in the various duties I undertook as leader of my club. Now I step into leadership roles with confidence, trusting my ability to work with and lead everyone in the group. When I join the scholars at the Hankamer School of Business, I will be able to fulfill any leadership positions necessary with confidence, whether it be in a small group or large group
I have always known I love change, but from this class, I learned change is the hallmark of a leader. As John C. Maxwell says in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, “Growth = Change.”The leadership assessments allowed me to understand myself in a new way. Because I am a curious green thinker, I need explanations and answers to understand my world. I tend to see the big picture of a project and my mind motivates me toward something new or improved. I am curious about new opportunities because I easily become bored with routine. Learning I have these characteristics has increased my confidence to pursue future leadership roles in a small to a mid-sized position.
When I started the course I was excited to learn different qualities as like leader the assumptions was there will be having some exercises to buid some leadership qualities which I did not have. I assumed that I will learn how we can motivate others and some special capability how we can develop in myself like great leaders and as I assumed I get same thing that great leaders are not born with leadership skills ,they develop that skills .
The initial belief that there were some super-secret cure-alls for leadership problems was a thought, the thought when starting my degree. Even though I have been to specific leadership schools in the military, I have always been in an Autocratic directed career and often have to use this style of leadership. These CSU courses have given me additional understandings that build on to existing leadership knowledge. This has evolved to understand the myriad of skills, from communication to problem-solving, that should be used to gather, analyze, and formulate strategic decisions (CSU-Global, 2015; CSU-Global, 2016a; CSU-Global, 2016b). To say it opened my eyes to what good and great leaders are charged to do for the betterment of their organization
I believe that developing leadership skills is not a rapid process, but it is a daily process. The best place people learn how to lead is from their daily experiences. Therefore, my job experience helped me to be more familiar with this topic and I gained additional worthy information from the class materials and lessons. Writing a biography was an amazing experience that helped me to look back in my life, review it in details, know what I did in the past and discover myself better. I did many of the book’s assessments and exercises and I found them totally thought-provoking and useful materials. They assisted me to think more about my leadership potentials and skills. Doing the exercises made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses in the area of leadership. I read in the book about 10 qualities that mark a leader and help influence the leadership process. Those qualities listed as: vision,
At the beginning of the Engineering 400: Leadership and Business Professionalism course, I recall thinking to myself that the course would be a waste of precious time. Having a leadership role in many areas of my life thus far such as family, work, student organizations, etc, I thought I had it figured out. So when I learned there would be an essay on the topic of leadership as well as having to read a book, admittedly, I had a sour attitude towards the course. I now know that I was indeed wrong. Throughout this essay I will explain how my attitude and perspectives within leadership roles have been altered by simply taking this course.
It is hard to quantify what I have learned in the semester of Leadership because the courses focus was not about memorizing data, but rather learning about having the will to lead and finding the courage to make it happen. A majority of the information I learned from this course came from learning about myself. Through readings, course activities, and various projects, I learned what makes a great leader, but more importantly what traits I possess that will make me a great leader. In order to be a great leader, one must have an understanding of what leadership is. Leadership is a social influence (Stogdill, p. 25). It means leaving a mark. It is initiating and guiding, and the result is change. Leading is the result of your passion coming to life.
This course showed me that the ability to influence, motivate, and enable others towards organizational success is much beyond critical of a leader than just accomplishing the organization’s goal. To be able to influence others, I need to take stock of what my strengths are, such as those identified by the Strength Finders, as well as test out different leadership styles and behaviors learnt until I find a suitable fit for myself and the circumstance I am in. This process of borrowing selectively from various people different leadership styles would suggest me taking elements I have learned from other’s styles and behaviors and making them my
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.
Heading into this course, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was about. Aside from reading the description on the KU website, I had no idea what to expect. I thought it would be centered around what would make a good leader, and the things I should do to achieve this. After the first couple weeks, I finally grasped the purpose of this class, and slowly started to work what I was learning into my day to day life. Through this class I have been able to identify what adaptive leadership is and how to apply it to my day to day task as well as how to work within the disequilibrium. I was also given the opportunity to reflect on what I was learning, through journals and amongst my peers through discussion boards, and how I was using my knowledge to identify different challenges I was facing in my life.
When I enrolled in this PPHL, I was not sure that I will get the best out of the subject due to previous experiences of attending theoretical leadership trainings. However, at the end of the subject, I was challenged, groomed, humbled and inspired as a leader. The subject has helped more to bring a lot out of myself, stimulated the urge for personal authenticity and an appreciation of the power of vulnerability in leadership. Through personal interactions with other students and presenters as well as the group activities, I have realised that the success of the team depends on recognising each other’s strengths and complementing on the weaknesses. In addition, I have learnt that effective leadership depends on team work, incorporating people with different skills and abilities. I have learnt the importance of personal reflection and meditation in leadership. Furthermore, taking time to know myself or who I am, has been one of the great lessons from this subject. It has enabled me to focus on the roles of a leader instead of striving to do everything myself as the case before. In addition, learning the skills of gaining the trust of the people you are leading as well as inspiring them was a remarkable lesson.
One of the biggest lessons learned from this course is that to be an effective leader, you must have a diverse skillset. I’m not sure if there is any one magical component or characteristic in being a great leader. One influence during my review of the literature was that; although easier for some, I see leadership as something we must continually improve upon. This is in contrast to my belief during my first day of class, when I thought leaders just
It would appear that my original theory regarding the applicability and practicality of this capstone was accurate. This course has managed to successfully supplement the knowledge I had previously acquired in other courses. For example, I was familiar with and understood the basic principles of leadership. However, this course has taught me that the ability to lead is not an exact science, but an art and determining how to proceed when faced with uncertainty or a highly volatile situation is an exceptional challenge.
"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.