Reflection Paper In Leadership

According to well-respected Evangelical pastor and author, Richard Warren, “Great leaders inspire. They maintain a hopeful attitude, even in the face of discouraging setbacks, constant criticism and abundant opposition. People don’t follow discouraged leaders. They follow those who persist with hope.” In every setting, the ultimate purpose of leadership is to influence others to accomplish a shared goal. In order to be an effective leader, one must possess certain key traits. These traits include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (trait approach). I am of the firm belief that some of these characteristics can be learned and developed through human interaction and experiences. This is contrary to trait theory which states that leaders are born with inherent characteristics which facilitate leadership (Northouse). In the military, there are specific personality leadership traits. As highlighted in “The Marines” documentary, these traits include tact, dependability, trust, enthusiasm, courage, and loyalty. This paper will discuss the leadership styles displayed by Marine Corps Drill Instructors and point out how the different characteristics of these styles would apply in the civilian workplace.

The Leadership Legacy Assessment is a test that will help an individual identify their type of leadership. As a result, it will provide their characteristic strengths and weaknesses, which will allow the individual to see the area they want to enhance.

When I was a lieutenant, one of my mentors told me that the officers ‘job is first and foremost about leadership. For senior officers, then, one must say everything is about leading strategically. In order to be an effective strategic leader, my self-assessment has led me to focus on the following goals during this academic year at the Air War College (AWC): to improve my understanding of the strategic environment; to learn to be strategically relevant, to shape my ability to communicate effectively at the strategical level.

The Right to Lead Assessment Model (RLAM) is a useful construct for analyzing one’s own ability to lead at the strategic level in a Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational (JIIM) environment. I will briefly describe key RLAM components, assess my personal strengths and weaknesses (in each component), and then prescribe a strategy to improve weakness while attending the Air War College (AWC). My overall objective is to have people follow me because I earned their commitment and confidence (also RLAM components) as opposed to automated, unearned respect associated with my rank or job title. The RLAM, which I use as a reflective self-assessment, consists of roughly 12 components. However, I focus on five of these components, which are most critical for strategic leadership: character, competence, personality, drive, and relevance. Character is the most important RLAM component.

To develop this complex and comprehensive set of leader capabilities requires a strategy that employs federal and civilian education, leverages experience gained during positions within operational or staff models, as well as self-development activities that are broad ranging. This strategy must product a steady flow of talented, agile leaders who are proficient in core leader and functional competencies across the protection and mission support

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how my legacy leader’s use of the Army’s leadership attributes and competencies contributed to my development and leadership philosophy. When it comes to leadership in the Army there are some who are good leaders and others that need some work. Everyone at some point in their career will be in a leadership position and it is important to understand what it takes to be a good leader in the Army. Luckily for us the Army has a guide for us to use that tells us what attributes and competencies make up a good leader (Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA, 2012). While we are provided these attributes and competencies

The project I chose to demonstrate my leadership on was to go around the Frostburg community picking up recycling and then dumping it in a local landfill. I first chose this project to work on because I thought, how could I help Frostburg and give back to the community? By recycling products and going green, these products can eventually be reprocessed and re-used without having it go to waste. I mainly decided to collect recycling to maintain and keep Frostburg clean and liter free. It establishes a healthy environment for locals, students and staff around the area. Going green and keeping the community environmentally friendly is highly stressed around the world today. Any kind

According to well-respected Evangelical pastor and author, Richard Warren, “Great leaders inspire. They maintain a hopeful attitude, even in the face of discouraging setbacks, constant criticism and abundant opposition. People don’t follow discouraged leaders. They follow those who persist with hope.” In every situation, the ultimate purpose of leadership is to influence others to accomplish a shared goal. In order to be an effective leader, one must possess certain key traits. These traits include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity, and sociability (trait approach). I am of the firm belief that some of these characteristics can be learned and developed through human interaction and experiences. This is contrary to trait theory which states that leaders are born with inherent characteristics which facilitate leadership (Northouse). In the military, there are specific personality leadership traits. As highlighted in “The Marines” documentary, these traits include tact, dependability, trust, enthusiasm, courage, and loyalty. This paper will discuss the traits of Marine Corps Drill Instructors and point out how these traits would apply in the civilian workplace.

He or she should be aware of following important questions, aspects, influencing factors in order perform his role at the strategic level. What is going on in the world? What are the current threats? How is the threat changing? As leaders they are the most important individuals to facilitate organizations to do better with a thorough understanding of missions, environment their organization operating in, ways and means to achieve desired outcomes while giving particular attention to respective nation’s vital interests and policy. Overall, my special attention of this outcome would be learning to think strategically and critically, and make practical and thoroughly considered decisions in difficult situations. General Colin Powell’s wide knowledge and effective communication skill, and General Norman Schwarzkopf’s vision and ability to lead and change an organization at the strategic level struck and inspire me. I am confident that the U.S. Army War College would pave a way for me to become a strategic leader like

According to the Introduction to Strategic Studies Course Directive, “This year presents an opportunity to walk in the shoes of senior leaders making difficult and complex decisions before you begin wearing them upon graduation.’’ From the above sentence I can conclude that, this paper could be the beginning of my journey to wear the higher level leaders’ shoes. As I am now starting preparation for a future senior leadership assignment, I have to equip myself with the required knowledge and skills in order to act as senior military leader.

I am ready to transition from direct and organizational leadership to the strategic level. Successful strategic leaders attain a high level of self-awareness to ensure their relevance and effectiveness in addressing adaptive problems. As an Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) senior leader I will work alongside joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) stakeholders at the strategic level within the next 12 months. A large portion my work will occur within foreign countries. My relevance within this environment will manifest from the trust of others, which is an integral output of my character, competence, and personality. Using the Right to Lead Assessment Model (RLAM) as the framework for my self-assessment, I identify a strategy to address weaknesses in my character, competence, and personality. I will implement this strategy as a student at the Air War College to deepen my self-awareness and ensure my readiness as an ARSOF officer to serve as a strategic leader and succeed in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment in the near-future.

A requirement for leadership and strategic ability began early for me. As Commanding Officer of a Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program, I was in charge of organizing over 1,000 annual community service hours and oversaw a group of 120 high school students. With a former Parris Island Drill Instructor in charge of the program, I was not only expected to define the program’s success, but was also held accountable whenever that success did not come to fruition. Throughout this experience, I refined what it meant to lead others and acquired tools for doing so. The natural progression in my personal strategy was to become a career United States Marine Corps Officer, retire from the military, and volunteer for youth organizations.

The purpose in establishing competencies for leaders should be to better define what functions leaders must perform to make themselves and others in their organizations effective. Many competency definitions include reference to clusters of knowledges, skills, abilities, and traits that lead to successful performance (Newsome, Catano, Day, 2003). Yet competency labels are typically expressed in either process or functional terms. This can lead to confusion as to what competencies actually represent for leadership and organizations. Competency frameworks or models should serve as the roadmap to individual and organizational leader success. The value of competencies

Prior to attending the Business Internship course, my knowledge and understanding on successful business leaders was very limited. Although I had heard of countless success stories in business, I had never actually understood what it took to achieve such measures of success. However, it wasn’t until we had the privilege of hearing from four different business magnates in weeks 6 -9. Each of the business leaders gave an hour’s seminar and which was aimed at providing insights into their personal lives, working experiences and the core essence of 21st century business leadership.

In class, so far, we have discussed many different topics about leadership. One being different leadership theories. The one that I feel most represents the leader I want to be in the future is servant leadership. When we discussed servant leadership it was defined as this leadership model is based on the leader and the followers wanting to serve others. Basically, this means the servant leader you put your focus on the needs of others before your own. The followers goal is to serve clients and the leader’s goal is to serve the employee and implement the organization mission statement. The leader supports other employees by noticing their goals and provide the proper support to help them reach those goals. This