Personal Statement : My Leadership

After consulting with my team members and hearing their thoughts, I gained a lot of insight as to how my performance as a team leader was. I asked them to give me their thoughts on my first week of being a team leader and then I asked them again in regards to my second week of being a team leader. The changes they told me about were quite surprising. For starters, my team told me that my first leadership week wasn’t too great. They said I was not vocal or authoritative enough so they didn’t really know what they were supposed to be doing while we were out of class. Also, during my week we were doing the video assignment and they said that during the meeting which we were recording, I was too quiet and wasn’t leading the discussion like a leader should. Overall, they said I did not act or communicate like a leader during my first week. Now, following my second week as team leader, there were some major changes in the group’s feedback. During this week we started working the T6 assignment, and this time the group told me they had a much clearer idea of what their roles were as I assigned everyone a task. For example, Lisa and Kerine were assigned to revise the T2 and T4 assignments and they felt much better about knowing what it was they had to do. In sum, after my second week as a team leader my team members responded saying I was much better with communication and actually leading them.

Throughout Middle School and High School, I have won multiple Academic Honors and was able to partake in a Leadership Group/Camp. In Middle School, I was Honored as the best student in Reading, won many A-Honor Rolls, a few A/B-Honor rolls, and multiple Perfect Attendance Awards. In 8th grade, I was chosen along with many other students to help mentor the 6th graders moving up to the middle school and from there on I became part of a group called “Michigan Middle Leadership Initiative (MMLI)”, where only 10 students were selected to join. Currently, I have maintained a GPA of 3.89 or higher and I’m taking an Advanced Placement course for Environmental Science. Overall, I have a good attendance record and have never been tardy for class before. At the most, I’ll miss about 2 days of school in a trimester if I become ill.

So what were some of you general impressions, thoughts or feelings about how it went?

Being a leader is more than simply holding a leadership position or having the ability to lead. Everyone is capable of being a leader, but not everyone exercises his or her leadership abilities. Each person’s idea of leadership is different. My idea of leadership has developed over time, and being a member of the President’s Leadership Class has helped me develop my philosophy of leadership further than what it was two months ago. My personal philosophy of leadership is the ability to effect change through leading by example, taking initiative, and encouraging others.

These spaces, some have argued, should be free not only of overtly critical language, but also of “microaggressions,” a term coined in the 1970s. Susan Robbins defines microaggressions as “subtle, often unconscious verbal slights or actions that convey derogatory, racist, sexist, homophobic, or other hostile messages conveying inferiority, that become cumulative over time.” Though microaggressions may not be intentional, overt, or part of a pattern, they can have a negative effect on the person or group targeted nonetheless.

First, about my past leadership skills were understanding and gaining knowledge from people. When I was a child, I would always look up to my father and mother as role models to help lead a family together. Both of my parents gave me positive reinforcement in school and out of school so I can be successful in life. I have also taken an interest in

Is a leader as defined in the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, merely one who leads - synonymous with a boss? Or something more? I believe that a leader is much more than that and can be defined in any number of ways. In attempting to define a leader personally, I will use both myself and others as examples.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, leadership is the power or ability to lead other people, the act or instance of leading. I believe that Leadership is an art, the art to get others to follow and accomplish a common goal or task in a harmonic manner. A leader can be shown in all kinds of shapes and forms. To be a great leader many people believe it consists of modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. Over the course of me learning how to become a better leader and being in leadership roles, I’ve learned that all these are very necessary to be a great leader.

While I attended Wichita State University for my bachelors of Social Work, I was afforded the opportunity to participate in a leadership program two consecutive years. We learned tips on strategies to become more effective leaders. Whenever I participate in activities that require me to take a leadership or supervisory role, I tend to think of what I learned in the program. The conflict that I identified as a supervisor in this activity was mainly that we had a student with erratic behavior, with firearms at home, and a mother who not only, saw nothing wrong with it, but wanted him removed from public school and is largely uncooperative with the school regarding his psych eval.

According to Hans Urs von Balthasar “a vocation is something lived, something enacted and a concrete life story” (Contino, 2004, p. 85). My vocational life story has developed over the past forty years with my first job at twelve babysitting six children to where I stand today teaching home economics at Chowchilla high school. “I build my own life story through the decisions of projects I undertake” and the choices I have made regarding my career path (Contino, 2004, p. 85). Someone looking from the outside at my wandering path might believe of my career changes seem a bit radical. Moving bicoastal, leaving a stable career of twenty five plus years to go back to college, take a pay cut and joining the unstable labor market of Home

As I work to make myself available to my followers. Creating a strong relationship with those around me is one of my top goals because once you develop a relationship, it becomes easier to work together on a project. I reach out to those around me almost daily, and I will continue to reach out to those who will follow me in the future. I want my followers to know that I am here for them. In the leadership positions, I am in now, I make sure that I post opportunities to gather together: from an organized movie night, eating meals together, studying together, or offering everyone a hot cup of tea (or other food). I make sure that the mentees know my door is open to them. I encourage almost any form of communication from text to a letter, but most of the communication, between my followers and I, is done through a group chat or face to face. I feel like my interactions have created a more open environment where the students feel safe coming to me to talk about topics they do not feel open enough sharing with a group of people. I am aware that my leadership roles will change, thus the way I interact with my followers will change with it. A constant notion that will not change is my effort to be involved with those around me. Just letting them know that I want to be there for them helps build bonds of respect and trust with any follower group.

A good leader is not always easy, but using what you know and learning areas of improvement, will assist in becoming a leader. My results from How Good Are Your Leadership Skills assessment said that I have an understanding of what it takes to be a leader. I creatively think out of the box and have experience. However, I must continue to acquire skills in additional areas, for improvement to be a good leader. My leadership style would be considered situational. I will lead based on my judgement and knowledge of the situation, depending on the needs of the individual or team. With a situational approach, I’d say I practice various leadership styles. However, if I were to pick one, I’d think I have an achievement- orientated leader. I believe

According to Schwartz (1997), Goizueta joined Coca-Cola at a time when the company was in trouble. Slowed by bureaucracy and with an eroding stock price, the beverage maker was slowly loosing its market share to rivals like Pepsi. An inspirational leader, Goizueta was able to turnaround the beverage maker and before his exit, the company had become one of the most recognizable brands in the world. His managerial style as Rowe and Guerrero (2010) point out was more intellectual than hands-on.

During the last six weeks, I have learned a lot about the true meaning of a good leader. The discussions have helped me identify what my strengths are and what are the areas that I need to improve on. Although, I have been in management roles, I would not identify myself yet as a leader. I am a very result driven individual which is strength of mine, but that can also lead me to be desensitized to other’s emotions or challenges they might be facing. Throughout the course, I have also come to realize that I have limited self-awareness. On the contrary, one of my strengths is my social awareness. I have the ability to go into social or networking events and pick up on emotions, or facial expressing to understand the overall mood of that environment. To be socially aware is particularly beneficial because, I can find common ground with anyone I meet to initiate conversation. Therefore, when I see that person again, I can make those personal connections. Another one of my strengths is the ability to look at a current process and streamline it to a leaner, more effective and efficient way. During the last several years I have been hired to be the visionary of new divisions and to implement processes that would support the company’s vision and mission while still driving results. My values are what contribute to the success I have been able to achieve over the years, however. My resilience and work ethic towards my job shows through in the

“There’s this culture in the Valley of starting a company before they know what they want to do. You decided you want to start a company, but you don’t know what you are passionate about yet. You need to do stuff you are passionate about. The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world, so do something you like.” Mark Zuckerberg Startup School, October 29, 2011(Zuckerberg, Beahm, & Books24x7, 2012).