Personal Statement : My Leadership Strengths

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.

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

For all seventeen years of my life, I have grown up in a Christian home and attended a Seventh Day Adventist church and school. I believe that growing up in a Christian environment has provided me with the foundation of my spiritual life. I 've been taught fundamental aspects and ideas of Christianity and have studied most of the common stories and messages of the Bible. However, even though I am equipped with these study materials and spiritual strengths, I believe that my relationship with God is shaky and not as strong as it has the potential to be. Even though I can proudly acknowledge that there is a God, I often don 't feel His presence and sometimes doubt His existence. I always find myself questioning my spiritual life and relationship with God. If I 've grown up in a Christian environment all of my life, why do I not have a strong relationship with Him? Why is my faith so weak? I believe that the answers to these questions can be found by acknowledging my spiritual weaknesses and using my spiritual strengths to improve them. I believe that acting on some of my spiritual weaknesses, such as an insufficient amount of time devoted to God, unfocused time with spent with Him, and biblical unintelligence, can help me to improve my spiritual life and walk with God.

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.

At twenty-three, Carly Fiorina had dropped out of UCLA Law School with no plans about what she wanted to do with her future. However, almost twenty-two years later, she became president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company - the first woman CEO of a Fortune 20 company. She was given a mandate by HP’s board of directors to “shake things up” and was later named the "Most Powerful Woman in Business" by Fortune magazine. Prior to joining HP, Fiorina spent nearly twenty years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she held a number of senior leadership positions (Cara Carleton Fiorina. (2014).

I am Staff Sergeant XXXX and this essay details my personal leadership philosophy current as of January 18, 2016. I find it necessary to include the date because my leadership philosophy is alive, it adapts and changes as new experiences enrich my life. This philosophy has been developed and shaped by a myriad of experiences, both personal and professional. Therefore, it’s my belief that every aspect of my life, whether it be positive or negative, has molded me into the person I am today. I believe that translates into the type of leader I am. My leadership philosophy can be broken down into three main components: what I expect from myself, what others can expect from me, and what I expect from others.

Leadership values that I think were key to our basketball season was responsibility, teamwork, and flexibility. The coaches were responsible for drilling that into the athlete’s minds as well. It is very hard to play lightening if there is no teamwork present. The athletes were also accountable for dedication. I noted earlier that dedication was a problem in previous years, but this year athletes held themselves accountable for making it to each practice. Other values I presented were having a sense of purpose and setting goals. Not only goals for the team, but generating goals for myself. A goal I had was to pursue self-improvement in my leadership. I haven’t had very many leadership experiences so this was my time to learn and reflect upon this experience. One thing I learned was to have a listening ear. Once I took the time to stop and listen, I became more approachable and felt mindful to other’s feelings.

Looking at the results from my Seven Habits profile, I generally score about the same across the board- other than one category. In the “Synergize” box I was very low. My leadership style is based on building relationships and caring for others’ time and work effort. I don’t often self-reflect on whether or not I am seeking out insights from others. I also scored the absolute lowest on being creative in searching for new and better ideas for solutions. I have never had the natural gift to think outside the box and find alternative solutions other than what is the obvious. That could be quite detrimental to a manager and company. I need to learn to synergize as a manager and find new solutions to old problems.

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.

Over the past 14 years, I have had the opportunity of experiencing many diverse styles of leadership ranging from the enlisted ranks in the Navy to being a commissioned officer in the Army, each experience with its own distinct style of leadership. I find that having such a diverse range of experience contributes greatly to my current position as a Maintenance Test Pilot.

Throughout this interview that was conducted with my brother I learned a lot of things about myself that I never knew before, which will certainly help me in the future when I will be applying for work or volunteer positions. According to my brother I have many strengths, skills, qualities, talents and things that I need to work on. During the interview with my brother he said that my strengths were hard working, considerate, easy-going, generous, responsible, patient, passionate, loyal, dependable and determined. I never knew I obtained half of the strengths he mentioned but when he did I was stunned that he thought all of this about me. I also notice that all of these strengths is important when applying to careers or volunteer work because a manager will want to hire someone that is hard working and

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

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.

Trying to decide what your personal strengths are, is hard. For myself, I have grown in my strengths, and I’ve experienced my weaknesses. My personal strengths consist of: positivity, encouragement, laughter, and love. I pick these four because I feel that I am truly strongest in these aspects of my life. Being positive is a big factor in everything I do. I always want to be happy and joyful; not only to display Christ in me, but to make others feel the way I do. I want others to appreciate life and to feel any kind of uplift in his or her spirt. Positivity plays into encouragement. I make it my goal to make others feel better about themselves. My goal coming into college was to learn and know every person(s) name that I got the chance to meet. Just taking a few minutes out of your day to truly get to know someone, is such a blessing. It not only blesses me in new friendships, but it also blesses others because they feel that someone genuinely cares about them. Laughter is another characteristic I strive to pour out onto others. I laugh at practically everything. I love to laugh, and I love to make people laugh. I’ve learned the importance of laughter, and I just want to make one person smile every day. Love is my last of the four attributes. Love is so important to me. I love creation (Trees, birds, squirrels), God, and I love people. I just want the love that God has given me, to pour out onto others. I want others to know that I love them. These are my personal strengths

The purpose of this memo is to evaluate my listening skills, assess my strengths and weaknesses, and describe how I can improve my skills. My listening self-assessment score of 36 indicates that, although my skill level is decent, I have room to improve significantly. I regularly attend professional meetings where either informational listening or critical listening is required. Despite this, I consider my listening skills subpar and am aware of my need for improvement. In understanding how I can improve, I must first assess my strengths and weaknesses.