Leadership Reflection

Throughout this course, our textbook readings, the posting to threaded discussions, my responses to a classmate’s post, and reading various classmates’ responses helped further digest, comprehend, and synthesize the leadership content within Daft’s “The Leadership Experience” textbook. Our weekly lectures with various classmates’ interpretations and responses during the open discussion forums about the textbook themes brought a variety of unique viewpoints to the specific leadership topics. This reflection paper was an extension of this learning, and provided a deep introspection about leadership concepts; how did I, how am I, and how can I apply this knowledge in my workplace. This writing exercise uncovered new meaning and insights while both challenging and supporting certain personal views and ideas about leadership.

In my view leadership is one’s ability to make a positive impact based on the needs of many. As a leader, I consider myself to be energetic, team orientated, encouraging, and a hands-on leader that focuses on the developmental of all my staff and individuals around me. Over the week, I have been instructed to complete three assessments: Strengthsfinder 2.0., DISC, and Jung Typology Personality to provide insight on my leadership style. From these assessments, I have learned a greater understanding of my leadership style. I will be reflecting on the results and comparing patterns across the three assessments.

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).

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a great leader? I am going to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses as a leader by sharing my online leadership assessment results, review what my philosophy of leadership is, and discuss the characteristics that I believe make a great leader. I am also going to show how I will execute my plan to become the best leader I can be.

“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

Looking back to an inspiring leader of mine, George Washington, I see a man that was able to influence other to do great things that ultimately formed the United States after overcoming great odds against Great Britain. He was a transitional leader that was able to accomplish great things for which I idol him for that especially in a time where I do not see any true great leaders of George Washington’s caliber. I aspire to be a great leader in my future and I have been working toward this goal ever since high school. It is important to understand who you are and where you can improve as a leader because it will be important as you leader others and attempt to shape a business, a country, or a large group of people across the world. This assessment will determine my strengths and weaknesses as a leader by providing detailed examples based off of my perspective. It will relate my leadership ability to my personality and go into describing how my leadership relates to the Trait Approach, Skills, Approach, Behavioral Approach, Situational Approach, and Psychodynamic Approach. Further explaining how each of these leadership approaches is integrated to define leadership and how an individual is a leader through personal qualities and how they influence others to impact organizations. I am not a perfect leader and will go into depth about my flaws and my personal action plan for overcoming my shortfalls in order to become a better leader. Through a thorough personal analysis and a

Leadership is an art and a science that is developed and perfected by the summation of innate abilities, understanding the behaviors of people and how to capitalize on their strengths, and the unique ability to inspire and drive under challenging and dynamic circumstances (http://www.gwinnettnetwork.com/ArticleWhatMakesAGreatLeader.htm). This discussion examines a leader profile that has been an influence in my personal development that will analyze the characteristics of the leader that affected my development and also create a leadership scorecard of the selected

I have learned that while I am strong in some leadership areas, I am also weak in other areas. Prior to this course, I looked for my approach or style of leadership through other individuals. Essentially, I tried to model or shape my behavior and viewpoint by looking to others. Now, I see that is a critical mistake as I must discover my own unique style of leadership, not someone else’s – this is about being authentic and true to myself. It all makes sense now as I never could get it right before – felt like I was acting and being fake (and I was). This has given me a renewed sense of confidence in my leadership potential. I strongly believe that with hard work and commitment, I can be a great leader.

Through the process of assessing my skills as a leader, I have learned quite a bit of information. There are parts of the assessment that I hadn’t thought of, but the answers from my peer are what really shaped my understanding of the assignment and my leadership skills.

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 course, Leadership Development, I have gained a better understanding of the fundamentals requires to be an effective leader and my leadership skills. Leadership has a complex meaning. Many definitions of leadership have been identified; Rost says, “In leadership literature, more than 100 different definitions have been identified” (Rost, 1991, P.1). Leadership to me is the influence an individual has over a group of people as the leader encourages them to work towards a common goal. Being a leader is not a task that everyone was born to do. It is a skill that can be improved over time. To be an effective leader, you have to be able to gain the trust of others and motivate them to achieve a goal. You have to identify the areas/skills you excel in and area/skills you need improvement in. You have to identify and practice your leadership skills that you are your strengths and weaknesses. According to the book, strength, “Is an attribute or quality of an individual that accounts for successful performance” (P. 50). Weaknesses are something you are not good at and results in poor performance, “Are our limiting attributes” (P. 60). As a developing leader, I have been able to identify areas and skills that are my strengths and weaknesses; along with my weakest skill and area, from taking the assigned assessments, and feedback from others who took an assessment about me to help foster my leadership development plan in becoming a better leader.

A supervisor once sat with me as we went over my annual performance evaluation and he said to me “not only do you have the qualities of a leader, but you also have charisma, Donna, and I don’t see that in people too often”. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t even know what that meant. Not only did I not know what charisma meant but I had no idea what that statement meant or should mean to me. Those words stuck with me though and I often wondered what he really meant and sometimes still do. However, I have been on a quest, probably for most of my life, not to be a leader, but a searcher for the main purpose of the entire process of developing my personal leadership philosophy, and in reflection on the impact of many leaders in which I have encountered over the last 20+ years of my adult life. I often think about the various elements of leadership in their separate contexts, but rarely do I take the time to align these things in the larger framework of my own leadership development. I have not, until lately, thoroughly contemplated what leadership means to me nor have I broken down my knowledge of myself, others, and personal practice of my leadership skills.

When I walked into the first class of leadership training, I thought that I had a firm understanding about what leadership was, and how to lead in an efficient matter. I quickly learned that I had a lot of room for improvement to become a better leader. My leadership journey prior to this class was not diverse, most of my leadership experiences were in athletics, there were only a few times I lead in other situations. In high school I was the captain of the varsity soccer team my junior and senior year, captain of the varsity basketball team my senior year, a member of student council my junior year, and a member of the the student ambassador program my senior year. 90% of my leadership experiences have

As an educational leader, I have encountered several new and existing school policies. I never thought deeply about the various processes and the stakeholders involved in policy formulation and implementation. This semester I am engaged in the course Managing Educational Policy as School Leaders (EDLM 6005). This is Semester III, 2016/2017. My course coordinator is Dr. Timar Stephenson. Dr Stephenson was my course coordinator once before and was very helpful whenever I needed clarification or when I had a difficulty. I am thrilled to embrace the new ideas and learning opportunities embedded in this course since it teaches issues which I experience at work. Dr Stephenson, during his introduction reminded his entire class that success in this course would only be realized through hard work, dedication, and commitment. Therefore, it is imperative that I have the right attitude as I navigate this course. The course involves seven weeks of intense work. I am pleased to have a wonderful group facilitator by the name of Rhonda Joseph who has already given us a BBC to explain the requirements of the course and our first two modules.

Due to my passive nature, I’ve always avoided leadership roles. With that being said I still aspire to be someone who can be looked to as a leader. In order to reach that goal I observe and try to mimic the actions of people that inspire me. There have been many people I’ve taken orders from, but I have “followed” few. Those are the ones I consider to be true leaders, and have tried to be like myself.