Reflection Paper On Leadership

community are at the Youth Center. I am an active member of Torch Club. I am currently the Secretary of Torch Club, so I write down all of our ideas and such. Wbat we do in Torch Club is we help the community and provide occasiona l bake sales to others at the Youth Center. Also, I am an active member of the Rota Tiburones Swim Club. I am a Great White, in numeral form, level 4. I practice 8.5 hours a week, with practice at 6 in the morning before school on Mondays and Thursdays. At competitions, I have to make sure that I set a good example for the younger swimmers on the team. When I lived in Alexandria, Virginia, I was a part of a competitive gymnastics team. I had been doing gymnastics for 6 years, and was a level 6. I had to be very committed: I worked out 14 hours a week with Saturday to rest. I had to work very hard, and I also had to set a good example for the level 2s, 3s and 4s. It seemed that I bad to set a very good example for others, because how I competed affected the team's all-around score also.

Being a leader in today’s United States Air Force is more than supervising subordinates or leading a project or program. A leader is someone who influences others to achieve a goal, they are typically men and women, though not perfect, strive to display ethical behavior, virtues, and character strengths in their actions as they battle their own vices and idiosyncrasies (crse 15). Not only must all Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) posses these abilities, they must be able to articulate them and pass them on to their subordinates, mentoring future generations of Airmen to strive to be better than they are today. Today, I believe I am on the right path as a leader; ensuring tasks are completed on time and encouraging, and utilizing my subordinate’s

Leadership has always been a topic of social interest and one that many have found difficult to define. Throughout history there have been various forms of leaders, each with vastly different styles and purpose. In short, leadership is a series of interactions between leaders and followers in the attainment of a greater goal. Dating back to the earliest records, military success has always been attributed to exceptional leadership (1). The better led force is almost always victorious over a less adequately led one; for this reason leadership has been has always been maintained as a forefront in all branches of the military. In the U.S. Army, “leadership is defined as the ability to influence others by providing purpose, direction, and

I have long observed many leaders in my time since enlisting in the Coast Guard from an early age. I have seen the good leadership styles and the bad. Each observation is equally important as it helped build my foundation and principles for which I choose to lead. Leadership to me is the simple fact of establishing guiding principles for others to follow. If done correctly each individual that is affected by my leadership should have a positive experience. I have had many great leaders in my career that have had a great influence on me.

Throughout the time of my mental evolution, I have come to understand leadership as the influential ability an individual has among a community of people in order to implement their vision. Notably, Robert Evans stated there are three sides to every story. Theoretically, in a role of leadership those sides are: the constituents who are impacted by a leader’s decisions, the primary account of the leader, and the emotional chemical reactions between the leader and their constituents that resulted to the leader’s final decision. This quote helps to explain why in my theory of leadership I believe that in order to obtain influence, an individual should seek to understand the chemistry of emotions and the development of human life in order to achieve an open mind. For this belief, everyday I seek to redefine perceptions of people and life that was rooted in personal presuppositional theories in order to best advance forward in a sustainable inclusive direction.

The leadership activities I have been able to observe, participate in, and help to lead are as follow. Several times I observe others in communication, pastoral, spiritual care, leadership training, engagement in diversity as in preaching, and in the handling of conflict. Other areas I observe others are in performing of water baptism, officiation of wedding, child dedication, and chaplaincy training.

As part of the end of the school year and in order to celebrate the successes of our students and staff as well as build relationships between the community and the school, Theresa Bunker holds an annual community involvement activity called Camp Bunker. This year, as part of my practicum experience I was tasked with leading the planning and preparations for this week long event. Three months before the event took place, my team and I began preparations to make connections with the community including the fire department, police department, and several businesses to make this event successful, fun and memorable for the students. This required me to lead my team of teachers to make contact with several community members and organize the team to take on various responsibilities. Through this leadership action I was able to learn to delegate responsibilities, keep people accountable, and solve logistical problems as they arose.

Before attending the introduction into leadership I assumed that I was a very good leader. I attained the leadership award at my high school, in the softball program I was known as a leader by both my coaches, teammates, and in newspaper articles. Given that I have all these awards for being a leader I assumed that there was nothing else to learn about being a leader. I know that you can always improve if you practice something, but I never realized that there are different ways you can lead and still be effective. Throughout the course, it has opened my eyes to different models, theories, and ideas that can help me improve my skills not only as a leader but as a follower as well. I have learned that there are different leadership styles along with followership styles, self-awareness along with personality dimensions, and motivation models along with theories.

Throughout the semester, I’ve been able to define and fine-tune my philosophy of leadership. Multiple activities and assignments have enabled me to create an overarching philosophy that can be applied to professional and personal situations. Through the review of The Center for Urban School Leadership’s 13 Core Competencies and various leadership theories many aspects of an effective leader are evident and necessary. First and foremost, I believe leadership is a privilege. It’s a privilege to guide others and shape thinking and actions around the established vision and mission. Additionally, my philosophy encompasses a team aspect as well. Great leaders surround themselves with quality and effective individuals to aid in a variety of situations (Cockerell, 2008). This idea of a team approach is one that has democratic tendencies. Allowing for others to have a voice in how situations are handled and what outcomes are expected. My philosophy is also build on the three pillars or trust, respect, and integrity. Trusting others with responsibilities. Respecting others opinions. Showing integrity in all situations. Although my philosophy has been much better defined over this semester, I’m also aware that it is an evolving process. As instances in leadership continue in my career, this philosophy will change and be adjusted based on positive and negative experiences. A great leader needs to be reflective and realize when some aspects of leadership may be necessary over others

It was great to hear speakers, who are well in their careers, talk about how they got to where they are and the steps and obstacles they faced to get there. Mr. Jay Jacobs, Lt. General Ronald Burgess and Dr. Carl Stockton were different nonetheless, but they all had a general concept, character. A person with good character shows attributes such as integrity, honesty, courage, loyalty, fortitude, and other important virtues that promote good behavior and habits.

Leadership has become an ever changing concept for me. I have seen my idea of a leader evolve as a result of professional opportunities over the years. Currently I see leadership as an area that involves both the leader and the followers. Keeping that in mind, I reflected on my own leadership journey by examining my evolution as a leader and exploring those characteristics that have afforded me the most success and those that have demonstrated challenges.

My license defines my role as a teacher, but I am not a transmitter of knowledge, I am a facilitator of knowledge. Enter my classroom and you will find what to some appears to be chaos. Students are talking, debating, instructing, questioning and most importantly, learning. How you might ask, can a student learn anything in such an environment? The students in my classroom are owners of their coursework. Each day, students are in an active learning space where I encourage small groups of students to engage in topical research projects and activities to deepen their understanding. You will rarely find me in the front of the room lecturing on a topic.

As an involved student within the campus community, I have found myself participating in the same activities with different groups. Among those activities is one surrounding leaders – numerous leaders are presented to the group, then people must decide if they believe that “leader” to be a true leader. During the various times I have done this activity, I have noticed that my answers do not necessarily change, but my justifications differ greatly each time. My view of leadership is forever changing with my lived experiences, physical environment, and mental challenges. For me to adequately explain/convey my current stance, I must explore my leadership journey up until this point of my life.

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