Relational Leadership Reflection Paper

Kouzes and Posner (2007) emphasize that leadership has a relational nature. Successful leadership is a function of how well people interact and positive relationships between leaders and their followers are important for getting things done (Truesdell, 2011).

I am excellent at relating to people and understanding why individuals make certain decisions. My ability to acknowledge and validate the emotions and actions of others has allowed me to create a positive repertoire not only in leadership positions, but also in daily situations. The key to my leadership style is close relationships with those I’m leading, which I usually create through frequent conversations or individual meetings. I believe that leadership is not a competitive ladder where I am above others, but instead a connective web in which I am the center of those I oversee. I have learned to be straight-forward and firm in setting rules and standards, while also being compassionate and understanding to individual

As a Jewish student in college and Greek Life, it is nice to know that there is a place to go like Hillel where people will understand you on a cultural level. It is important to me to give that comfort to any student who may feel like they are missing that religious and cultural companionship that they may have had at home. The privilege of being a part of the JIGL Leadership Council would give me the opportunity to reach out to students that have a lot in common with me (UCSB students, Jewish, and Greek affiliated) and help them get involved in Hillel through fun and philanthropic events. It also gives me the chance to get to know more students and enrich my time here at UCSB.

As an ethical and successful leader I believe that one must remember is that you should always considers your followers over yourself. Without them, you are not able to get anything done. You are best able to gage if your being a successful leader if others are willing to follow you to accomplish positive change. If you are always considering others then it is easy to maintain an ethical approach because you make yourself more aware of what could be viewed as unethical within not only your contextual view but also others who think differently then you. The Relational Leadership Model is useful to build the mindset for thinking about others if you focus on the ethical and empowering side of the model (Komives, S. R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T. R, 2013). The way your treat those around you makes an important statement to your leadership style. Over all we do see men and woman in the field of museum work but the way they are treated is vastly different. Male curators will be involved in a more science and research field while women will usually fill the maintenance and care role. These two positions area not equally respected though they both use the title of curator. To maintain a collection is admirable but why collect if no information is obtained. So the woman in these positions are just a stepping stone for a researcher to come in and reap the rewards of intellectual discovery. The difficulties to practicing this form of leadership is that it is impossible to consider every

My leadership philosophy is constantly developing over time. There is not one leader that stands out individually, however there are many traits from my past leaders that I use. The traits used by my past leaders help me in the development of my philosophy throughout the years. There are several values that I think make the perfect leader. These attributes are the values of humor, the will to always improve, and trust. With these three values, one can always improve the organization while maintaining high standards and moral.

Throughout my younger years, my mom worked weekends so I would stay at my aunt and uncle’s house. The weekend is an opportune time for homeowners to do various maintenance, so my position became my uncle’s little helper. I was the world’s most curious helper, always asking “What’s that?”, Why are you doing that?”, “How’d you do that?” and, my uncle’s favorite, “What are we going to do next?”. Since that time I’ve lost(and thankfully grew back) some teeth, gained some years and height but I kept the curious, helpful, and task oriented personality. Unfortunately, I can’t be my uncle’s helper forever so now my task is to find a fulfilling path.

The article titled Relational Leadership written by James Freeman takes a look at the impact of Child and Youth Workers in the lives of youth, specifically the work of Brian Gannon. Brian Gannon is an experienced Youth Worker who took on a leadership role at St. Johns Hostel in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967, at the age of twenty-seven. St. Johns consisted of sixty four boys, with many of them left alone in the aftermath of World War I along with the influenza epidemic. Outside of the care provided for the boys, the program offered them a life parallel to anyone living in the city. Activities such as afternoon sports, free time and contact with friends and family outside of the institution were provided and endorsed by the institution for the boys. Gannon’s approach to working with youth focused on the following things highlighted in the article: “creating smaller living groups for the boys, less regimented routines, more experiences of childhood and adolescence in everyday life, and a focus on developing meaningful relationships with one another” (Freeman, 2015, p. 37). In other words, Gannon’s main goal was to lead and guide the youth so that they are given an equal chance at succeeding in life. Gannon is also a co-founder of CYC-Net where he has published a collection of approximately two-hundred child and youth care practice hints, each hint containing a background theory and a how-to element. The article then analyzes an excerpt from the works of Gannon, complimenting

I would like to be chosen to go to leadership academy, so that I can help our unit achieve high standards and be recognized as an outstanding NJROTC. The reason you should send me to leadership academy is this, I will help the unit succeed as a team by making sure that people in leadership positions take charge and do what is right. Being a leader is what everybody wants to do, but you cannot become one without training to prepare the path.

As an ASB leadership student we represent the student body, manage the finances of other clubs with our business meeting, but the part I enjoy the most is we organize events such as dances, meetings, pep rallies, and assemblies. Pep rallies is where we can express most of our creativity from how we organize our class section since we make banners, decorations, as well as coming up with class rival games, getting clubs to perform, and introduce that season’s sport teams. As one of the ASB Co-president, our job is to come up with an organized schedule and finalize it with performers and given time for each part involved. Organizing the schedule with performances, announcements, and games involves thinking for the student body in what they’ll enjoy seeing more of. Coming up with games is where we think of new games we have not done in the past as well as creating ones people have never heard of to get the crowd going. After creating the games, we test them to see if we need improvements or any changes to what we made.

An emerging leader is more likely to be an “I” leader as opposed to a more established leader who embodies the qualities of a “We” leader. One of the reasons an emerging leader is prone to be an “I” leader is due in part to society’s focus on personal accomplishments and contributions throughout a person’s early life; programmed by society to relish in their own personal accomplishments. On the other hand, a “We” leader has come to the consensus, through experience and self-actualization, that serving others propels you to becoming an authentic leader. Authentic leaders are servant leaders who shares power, puts the needs of others first, and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible pg. 181.

Want to learn how to be a leader within the REALTOR® association? The Leadership Academy is the way to reach your leadership goals. The MAR Leadership Academy provides REALTORS®, actively involved within the association and interested in expanding their horizons, with the opportunity to develop strong association leadership, professionalism, and life skills.

Resistance to change is a very common attitude amongst employees of an organization. Whether the employee has been in the organization for many years or just starting, research has some explanation why some people may be resistant to change and how can it be avoided. In the field of nursing, McMillan and Perron (2013) found that rapid continuing change within the workplace can cause some nurses to become overstressed, exhausted, and have a feeling of being “burnt out”. Becoming stagnate in the profession of nursing has become all too common. By failing to change, learn new things, and refusing to see how policy and procedures can become improved, the end result ultimately effects patient care (Siviter, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to understand the significance of resistance to change related to nursing and focus on what can be done to improve the attitude of those who are resistant to change in their practice.

James Kouzas and Barry Posner state, “Leadership is important, not just in your career and within your organization, but in every sector, in every community, and in every country” (2012, pp. 7). This quote is a good example of the significance that leadership can have not only on one’s personal life, but in their professional lives in terms of how and with whom they interact with. When it comes to my own leadership skills, there are three specific areas that I could personally improve on: communication, looking at the future, and relationship building. These are three areas that are important when it comes to understanding my own leadership style and how they relate to five of Kouzas and Posner’s leadership components: Model the Way,

Leadership skills can be learned and practiced. It is not necessary to be an outgoing or charismatic person to be a good leader. A good leader learns from the different circumstances that their life presents and uses this to enhance their leadership skills.

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