My Personal Model Of Leadership

The path to a personal leadership philosophy is made up of three parts. Each individual aspect is a facet of a complete whole. Much like a timeline that includes a past, present and future, my personal philosophy consists of a foundation, action, and growth. If you do not understand where your foundation of leadership came from, you will have problems acting in a leadership capacity. Also if don’t pay attention to how you are acting as a leader you cannot know in what ways you need to grow. Why should I spend the time and effort in developing myself as a leader? The Gunner’s Mate rating has a strength of just over 600 members. Maritime Force Protection Unit Kings Bay has 31 Gunner’s Mates assigned to it. I have a full five percent of the Gunner’s Mates in the Coast Guard that I lead. During my four year assignment at MFPU Kings Bay, approximately 55 Gunner’s mates (9.2 percent) will have been under my leadership. I see that as an enormous responsibility. As a young Gunner’s Mate I saw my senior leadership as people capable of effecting great change on the rating. Now today I am in the position to have that same impact.

My ethical philosophy of leadership would consist of different theories. I don’t believe that just one theory is right or wrong. I feel that for me to be an affective manager that I must utilize many theories to have a better understanding of how to work with my employees. However, to be that affective manger I must also understand that I will need to say “no” and sometimes be stern with my employees. I have to be strong and define myself, my values, my character as well as my beliefs. This will not only help me in the work world but also in everyday life.

Servant Leadership is “an approach to leadership with strong altruistic and ethical overtones that asks and requires leader to be attentive to the needs of their followers and empathize with them; they should take care of them by making sure they become healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous, so that they too can become servant leaders” (Valeri, 2007). Although there is not many servant leaders in this world but the concept of servant is one of the most leadership approach leaders today struggles with. Servant leadership is mainly about the leader helping to grow their followers or members personally and professionally through empathy, listening skills and compassion. The concept of servant leadership which was proposed by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 writing indicated that servant leadership is a theoretical framework that advocated a leader’s primary motivation and role as service to others.

Servant leadership, as it applies to the modern world, is a concept that Robert Greenleaf defined in his influential 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf’s essay explains that servant leadership is an amalgam of concrete leadership styles and “fragments of data” that came to him through “intuitive insight” (1970). Having worked at AT&T from 1926-1964, he accumulated a number of leadership qualities throughout his professional career. After retirement he began teaching at Harvard Business School, but became distressed by younger generations and their rebellious attitudes. After careful consideration, he decided institutions were doing a poor job of serving, so they were doing a poor job of leading. His

Many have developed elements that they believe are the foundation of servant leadership. In summary, included in the fundamentals are healing, creating value for community, empowering, empathy, listening, awareness, behaving ethically, and helping others grow and succeed. Healing refers to leaders trying to help solve problems and relationships. Creating value for community refers to leaders serving as an example and encouraging others to also serve the community. Empowering refers to leaders providing followers with autonomy. Empathy refers to leaders understanding others. Listening is a trait all leaders should possess. In order to understand, one should first listen. Awareness refers to leaders attentive to the things happening around them. Behaving ethically refers to the demonstrating of integrity to gain the trust of followers. Helping others grow and succeed refers to leaders providing support to followers to help them develop and accomplish professional and personal goals.

Phase 1 of the Personal Leadership Philosophy Paper presented the opinion and supporting information establishing that; leaders are products of opportunity, birth and environment, but of these; opportunity influences great leadership the most. Furthermore, it was discussed that assigned leadership is a cancer to corporate America and this point is illustrated in the following example. While employed at Deloitte and Touché Consulting Group (DNT) we engaged ARCO, a major oil and gas company, to develop and implement an email migration strategy that consisted of 1200 Arco users at their subsidiary company, Vaster Resources Inc. In the initial meeting we were introduced to a gentleman, we will call John Smith for the purposes of this paper,

As an ethical theory servant leadership looks at the duties of leaders and the consequences of leadership actions. The approaches to examine the decisions and consequences of ethical leadership include ethical egoism, making decisions that act for the good of the leader; utilitarianism, making decisions that provide benefit to the greatest number; and altruism, actions are only deemed moral if they show primary concern for others. Looking at this set of approaches, it can be seen that servant leadership can be assessed in these terms. The leadership model is described as primarily focused on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong (What is servant leadership n.d.). The servant-leader believes in power sharing, putting the needs of others before himself and helping team members develop and perform as highly as possible. The servant leadership model is made up of the following key

Philosophy is "the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge or conduct."(Stuart Berg Flexner and Lenore Crary Hauck, 1993). Leadership is the process of influencing others to accomplish the mission by providing purpose, direction, and motivation. Command is the authority a person in the military service lawfully exercises over subordinates by virtue of his rank and assignment or position.(FM 6-22) My leadership philosophy has been developing thru my Army career. I have use the NCO creed as a pillar for my Leadership philosophy. The outcome of my performance is a direct reflects of my subordinates. My ideas will not always the best, that is why my Soldiers have a open door to provide any feedback.

My personal leadership philosophy describes who I am as a Soldier, a Non- Commissioned Officer, and a man who serves his country proudly. As a leader, I believe that all members of my team are important. As a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer, I believe, as the NCO creed says, “Non-Commissioned officers are the backbone of the Army.” It is very important to know your role as a NCO and fulfill all of your duties and responsibilities inherent in that role. We can all contribute to the mission and we have to understand that no one job is more important than the other. Teamwork is always provided in my leadership philosophy and if we all work together as a team we will all have the ability to make a positive difference in each other lives. When this is accomplished, then I

Leadership is the ability to inspire and focus members on a common goal, whether short term or long term and have the same vision. Leadership is more than telling or ordering, but having members believe and want to follow the same path as you. It’s a commitment to your people built on trust and respect. Many leaders shaped my personal leadership philosophy, to include several negative and positive experiences. Negative experiences from poor leaders and lessons learned on my part have uniquely shaped this vision. Difficult to be a good follower when your leader lacks competency, integrity, and your trust. If a leader takes credit for work other than their own, or forces and ideology onto others, but does not follow it themselves; these negative influences damage the trust and respect required by all leaders. However, positive experiences can also have a career lasting impact. A leader who inspires through personal actions and convictions can change how an entire unit operates without ever saying a word.

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.

Dr. Kent M. Keith was a presenter on behalf of the Greenleaf Seminar on Servant Leadership at the 53rd annual conference for the Arizona School Boards Association in December, 2010. He correctly pointed out that servant leadership is about serving others, about becoming distinguished through the altruistic desire to serve, and about the "…universal recognition of the importance of serving others" (Keith, 2010).

Through identification and ongoing assessment of her leadership style and ability this leader is able to develop and understand her own strengths and limitations in order to grow and develop into a more effective leader. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of servant leadership, contingency, path-goal styles leadership to gain an understanding of current leadership models, identify this author’s style of leadership and explore why leadership is important to organizations, society and this author.

In the book The Servant, the author James C. Hunter discusses Servant Leadership, and the impact it has on every aspect of life. The book begins with a middle-aged man, John, who has it all, a supportive wife and kids and an authoritative job as a manager at a glass factory. John however, feels his life is falling apart, his employees aren’t respecting him and his relationships with his wife and kids are becoming distant and negative. In an attempt to make a change, John attended a week long religious retreat that’s main focus is Servant Leadership. The attendees at this retreat were all very different, their careers varied greatly, and their views on how to be a leader were not alike either. In the end though, they all agreed on one thing, making a change to become a Servant Leader was going to reshape their lives, through both their careers and relationships.

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.