Kasey Rivera Reflection

Great leaders work purposefully to communicate what is important. A clear and commonly understood set of standards is critical to encouraging the heart. Standards must have a focus on excellence and be inspirational. Kouzes & Posner state that people want to do a good job and be successful, and it is an essential part of a leader’s role to communicate what success looks like. Standards are comprised of three aspects; all of which leaders must address. First, leaders must seek to address values. Leaders have to stand for something and have courage in their principles. Leaders must convey these values to other members and seek correspondence between personal and

Today’s potential leaders who have enhanced there skill with education in leadership, believe in the elements that they 've learned. The rational, technical reducible in today 's marketplace could be ill-equipped without the proper motivation and mentoring because motivation of followers isn 't created out of thin air. It’s accomplished by aligning individuals and members who take pride in their contributions and have an understanding of shared goals and values.

In my opinion, Chris McCandless was more centered around the fixed mindset. The experiences he took on, were a reflection of the way he handled his growth. To elaborate, an example of this was his passion for running. “McCandless viewed running as an intensely spiritual exercise, verging on religion. He believed doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available.” (pg. 112). His teammates noticed his intensity for the sport and when McCandless felt that he was not doing well enough, he would beat himself up for it. From this, it is evident that he believed that being successful was more important than the effort to achieve that or process of getting there. This goes onto my next point, that

This quotation is recorded from just one of the many letters sent in after Christopher McCandless’s story was published in the magazine entitled Outside. Many people believed that in order to do something as insane as he did that he must be “mentally disturbed”. While people native to Alaska saw him as just another person unprepared for the elements he was about to face. Despite the negative aura that surrounded the story of Chris some people still wondered how all this affected his parents. Any number of people believe that it takes a truly evil person to up and leave like Chris did. In some ways these people have an argument, to see your parents for the last time and not let them know it is the last time is pretty rude and selfish, but there

19). Still a part of the Great Man Leadership era, these trait theories just went a step further in attempting to pinpoint exactly which traits of these “great men” were consistently associated with the leaders, in an effort to more clearly define what a great leader was. This was again a further attempt to be able to identify a leader early on and predict which individuals were born to become leaders. It is thought that a major flaw with these theories was the failure to account for external factors, such as the environment in which the individuals were brought up in, as well as the situations they experienced (Horner, 2007, p. 270). Still today we do continue to study the characteristics of leaders in order to better define and understand what makes someone a good leader.

For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders

This approach emphasize that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership. It’s the leader and the leader’s personality that are central to the leadership process.

I have always strove to be the person that others looked up to. I never knew how to do that though. Until one day, one of my friends, a person I idolized, became an American Quarter Horse Youth Association Director. Ever since that moment I knew how I was going to leave my mark, and expand as a leader. Becoming someone fit enough for this leadership role was not an easy task.

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).

My father once told me that, “everything we do— be it in academia, at work, social or family life—we are guided by principles, beliefs and values that collectively form our ideology of life.” I believe that every leader, to a certain extent, is shaped through her individual personal experience. Although in some cases, we may not realize to what extent our personal assumptions and beliefs shape our ability to lead or be led.

As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.

“It is unequivocally clear that leaders are not like other people” (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991, as cited in Northouse, P. G., 2016, p.22). I have always thought that I was not like other people; I see the world through a different lens. This difference, which sets me apart from my peers, has sometimes restrained my progress; however, after studying my differences and seeing them as strengths, I can now focus on these strengths that make me a unique, passionate, progressive leader. In reflecting on my leadership skills, I will analyze the results of the leadership questionnaires, as presented in Peter Northouse’s book, Leadership:Theory and practice (7th ed.), connect those result strengths with the

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

An effective leader needs to be genuine and true to the values he holds. If the leader is not honest with those he interacts with, they will not trust him for long. Being clear about values allows the leader to help establish a solid setting for the community to build upon. Strong leaders demonstrate the following values: being trustworthy, caring, focused, flexible, direct, knowledgeable, and approachable. By having a foundation that focuses on the importance of education an instructional leader can focus on clarity and purpose. Through having this clarity of focus, a leader is further prompted to be a lifelong learner (Robbins, 2009).

The characteristics of a leader like Ms. Jovita Carranza came through in her daily actions with those encircled by her personal and professional life experiences. Leaders come in all forms of varieties, genders, ethnicity and descriptors like Carranza. Carranza didn't stopped to think about some of the leaders that have inspired her or even some that have infuriated her, the qualities of her good leadership skills will became apparent through her professional growth with UPS. When we think about the characteristic of a leader, we often think of leaders that are ever-changing, which calls each of us to act or to follow. We could take on the prime example, such as Carranza. She had some of the values that we all inspire to follow, she had