Reflection Paper On Leadership

Goal Two: Find staff who are providing exceptional care to patients and publicly recognizing one person per week by placing a note on the staff bulletin board stating who was “Caught Being AWESOME!”.

My EdD 801 course taught several aspects of leadership including a working definition of leadership in education, Grogan (2013), asserts that leaders are supposed to possess a clear personal vision. A sense of purpose is central to success, and center stage leaders

Mary used her gift of writing to effectively communicate her stance on women's rights, and help spread awareness for her cause.

Every person who enters the field of education has both the opportunity and an obligation to be a leader (Dufour, Marzano, 2011). Leadership defined by Owen (2002) is, “A journey of discovery. It is the expression of a person at his or her best whose aim is to transform something for the better and to develop this potential in others. It is not a solitary pursuit but one that harnesses the energy of those around you. Leadership is a process in which leaders and followers engage to achieve mutual goals. Prentice (2004) defines leadership as the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants. A great leader is one who can do so day after day, and year after year, in a wide variety of circumstances.

Leadership theory, or the scientific approach to understanding leadership, is a vast group of theories that try to explain what makes, or constitutes a great leader. There are many schools of thought on this subject and many pull from existing psychological theories, like Behavioral Theory, Developmental Theory, Personality Theory and Learning theory (Myers, 2014). There are three main leadership theories: trait theory, which suggests that some are born with certain traits that make them an effective leader, while behavioral theory focuses on how leader behave, while contingency theory addresses how the situation influences leadership.

There are many definitions for the term leadership. This term have different meanings to each individual. Leadership is defined as a complex phenomenon involving the leader, the followers, and the situation (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012). Leadership is a quality that one can gain through employment experience and/or through education and can also be gained through mentorship. There are many different leadership styles that a leader may fall under. Each type of leadership style has its own uniqueness that makes the leader fall under that particular

There is no one way to describe, what is meant by leadership and there are many elucidation of its meaning (Mullins and Christy, 2013). The Charter Institute of Public Development 'CIPD ' (2016) defines leadership as the aptitude to impact people by personal qualities and comportements, different leadership traits may be required in different situations. Other definitions of leadership are:

Leadership is an inventive process that aligns professionals with a goal, objective and or vision statement. It displays your belief in the work that you are outing in for others. Leadership must always emerge and support a visionary statement for what you as a person believe in. Leadership is believed to be the art of leading others to deliberately create a result. In leadership, leaders exemplify themselves as a guiding tool for others in this case for teachers. Leaders must show commitment and work ethic in this all that they do. They must by put their heart and desires into their work, and present the love of Christ to my fellow subordinates and co-workers in all that they do. Effective leaders must remain committed to their values in regards

What is leadership? Leadership is having the ability to give guidance to those that will follow. Those that follow will help to complete the mission. Leadership is an immature science and the body of knowledge in the field has developed through a series of fits and starts. Leadership is a soft science, just as anthropology, sociology and psychology. It can not be proven exactly what it is. Leadership is an art, the skillful application of leadership behaviors beyond techniques is much the same as the skillful application of brushstrokes by a master painter. Leadership is both rational and emotional. It involves both sides of human experience. It includes actions and influences based on reason and logic as well those based on inspiration

Based on the results of the above two assessments, as well as your own knowledge and experience, write a short reflection paper about your real or potential leadership skills and style. Describe your current strengths, your current weaknesses, and the education, training, skills or experience you need to grow as a leader.

Throughout this course I have come from having a general understanding of leadership to having a more specific knowledge of what is encompassed within this calling. Leadership is not a position to accomplish a goal, leadership is not a person who people revere, leadership is not a power that makes everyone submit. However it is an attitude everyone should carry with them realizing they can influence for good or bad in any situation. It is an action that does not sit still waiting for others to take up the slack. It is an approach to influencing, training, modeling, and passing the baton to the next generation.

Over the years, a great deal of time, and research has been dedicate to the study of leadership. Even with extensive data on the topic, many still disagree on what leadership really means. Hence, leadership is a word that has many different meanings and different researched theories associated with it. On a basic level, leadership involves having and establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with followers, respecting followers, and leading an organization with excellence while ensuring that everyone is part of the team. Leadership is also a method by which a leader uses his or her influence towards getting a group of followers to take ownership or buy into a vision.

During the past ten weeks, I have strengthened my concept of what constitutes effective leadership. Importantly, it is a leadership style that maximises the contributions of followers to achieve the desired outcomes for the organisation they represent. As Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy (2014, p.57) explains, effective leaders need to balance the drive to achieve a task with managing relationships. Therefore, it is essential for good leadership to not only focus on the task but develop, motivate and empower team members to strive for the achievement of task goals.

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