Senior Strategic Leadership Reflection Paper
As an Army leader, I have learned to appreciate the sense of accomplishment, yet guard against premature celebration when my leadership and guidance has gotten my team to the finish line. As General George Patton said, “A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.” In my early days as an Army officer, I wanted to know the “secret” to successfully leading men in this organization through challenging waters to the top of the objective. However, I have now realized that there is no single “secret”, it is a journey of experiences, teachings and yes failures that will eventually “transform me from a mid-career officer to a senior military leader.”1
The challenge is to open my mind and grow from a tactical/operational perspective to that of a much more broad, open minded and all-encompassing perspective, that of a strategic leader. Two mission specific outcomes of my training, experiences and self-assessment that I see in my future are strategic advisor and senior leader at the strategic level. I will describe where I believe I stand now in regards to my goals and the path I have yet to embark upon. I believe I am on course to accomplishing my goals of transforming into a strategic leader who scans the environment’s horizon, assesses the available information and decides how best to use it for the benefit of the organization and its future.
This paper will describe not only where I come from regarding leadership but
As a former assistant clinical director of a physical therapy clinic, one of my tasks was to guide and motivate the staff on reaching our annual goals that was given to us by our organization. One of our goals was to average 3.6 units per hour, which if treated a patient for an hour, it will equal 4 units. Therefore, having a strategy to achieve this goal was necessary. Strategic leadership relies on interdisciplinary knowledge and insights about leadership and human experience and uses a variety of methods of empirical and conceptual inquiry. Furthermore, strategic leadership uses systematic methods in developing strategies, making decisions and taking action (Morrill, 2010, p. 108). The way that I performed
Leadership goals should always contain methods of a continuous process of learning through education, training, and individual experiences that help ensure that the message will be communicated in a confident and competent manner when leading troops. Soldiers tend to follow leaders that demonstrate and live the Army values, while displaying their confidence in every decision that affects change. Leaders are not born as organizational or tactical leaders; but grown by their genetic determinism, which is inside and the characteristics they work toward; that mold is which type leader they will become. Not just anyone can lead; you must have the desire to lead, be willing to make the commitment to being a leader, and prepare yourself properly, then you have the desire to become a leader. (Fulton, 1995).
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 any type of leader is never easy. The job comes with endless responsibilities including, but not limited to, taking care of your subordinates, getting the job accomplished, maintaining unit cohesion, all while keeping your superior leadership happy. Because of these reasons, we find both good and bad leaders everywhere. While Simon Sinek’s book Leaders Eat Last is not completely centered on the military, everything he says about leadership all relates directly to something in the Army Leadership Requirements Model.
As an officer in the United States Army, it has been imperative for me to understand every facet of leadership and why it remains important to be an effective leader. During this course, I have learned some valuable lessons about myself as a leader and how I can improve on my leadership ability in the future. The journal entries along with the understanding of available leadership theories have been an integral part of my learning during this course. For all of the journals and assessments that I completed, I feel it has given me a good understanding of my current leadership status and my future potential as a leader. All of the specific assessments looked at several areas in regards to leadership; these assessments covered several
SFC (Ret.) Mark C. Daw is the subject of this Leader’s Legacy paper. SFC Daw served for over twenty years in the United States Army Signal Corps. SFC Daw served during the Cold War in the Berlin Brigade, in Operation Desert Storm, in Bosnia during Implementation Force (I-FOR), and in Operation Iraqi Freedom 04-06. A career paratrooper, SFC Daw’s leadership style involved leading from the front at all times, superior tactical and technical proficiency, a hand of discipline tempered by wisdom, and developing his Soldiers professionally and personally. SFC Daw’s example serves as one worthy of emulation by all Soldiers, regardless of expertise or field. I am the Soldier I am today because of SFC Daw.
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.
Purpose. This memorandum outlines my vision on leadership as a senior noncommissioned officer. It also defines my leadership philosophy and principles towards seniors, peers, and subordinates. My philosophy reflects the foundation of my personal and professional beliefs that makes us successful Soldiers.
After serving over 15 years in the Ohio Army National Guard, I have experienced many different leadership styles. Some styles have had a positive impact on both my personal life and my military life. While others, have had a negative influence. My experience with different leadership styles has taught me what type of leader I strive to be and highlights the impact I have on others as a peer and leader. These experiences helped define me as not only a leader, but as a person. I have been given the privilege of influencing young Soldiers and our future leaders. As a leader I value integrity, hard work, and service.
The purpose of this paper is to identify Colonel (COL) Jeffrey D. Peterson, Armor Branch, Retired, as a legacy leader who had an impact on me through all attributes and competencies covered in ADRP 6-22 (Army Leadership). His selfless service and his discipline are key components of his character that I strive to emulate. His long hours doing the same things that his Soldiers were doing, whether conducting PT in the morning or taking the pulse of Baghdad and Ad Diwaniyah during his tactical command post patrols, established his presence and professionalism beyond reproach. His steady career as a senior professor at West Point after his squadron redeployed in 2007 speaks to his intellect and his academic commitment. His example helps to
The primary challenge for leaders in the Army is taking a group of individuals and molding them into a team. The framework that is employed to the
It is important for a leader to understand that completing essential tasks to meet mission goals, personal development, and providing future leaders the tools to procure success are all equally important and should be balanced. Times may call for one responsibility to be a higher priority that the other, so it is imperative that leaders are able to differentiate what skills apply to certain situations. “Strategic leaders, for example, must control personnel development, evaluation and certification, and assignment and utilization processes in ways that motivate aspiring professionals as they progress through a career of service,” (TRADOC, 2010). The cycle of learning, training, and accomplishing goals creates a culture of duty-oriented Soldiers with dedicated character and leadership
Field Manual (FM) 6-22 defines leadership as “the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization”. The objective of this paper is to communicate my leadership philosophy of how I hope to lead the Soldiers within this organization. To fully understand my leadership, I will provide you some background on who I am and how my leadership styles have developed:
Those military officers who are destined to become a leader are trained within the organization for the most effective use of manpower and resources. The Army uses a philosophy of leadership developed over the last several decades by subjecting Army personnel to the philosophy of command. This philosophy is stemmed from the “Golden Rule” of leadership. One’s values, ethics and virtues are needed from the beginning and are continual resources for making a good leader. One the basic comparisons between the military and higher education leadership is the progression of one’s ability to have a “vision” to complete the mission or operational responsibilities (Beach, 2015; Martinez, 2011).
1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.ANSWER