Tao Of Personal Leadership Summary

According to dictionary.com leadership is defined as, the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a group: Its synonyms include guidance, influence, control, direction and supervision. These are all qualifications that are needed to be an effective leader. All characteristics are not necessarily needed at the same time and do no need to be used for each subordinate. This paper will identify my personal leadership philosophy along with theories to support my leadership style.

Casse, P. (2014c). The new drivers of leadership. Training Journal, p. 27. Retrieved from academicguides.walden.edu/library

Participating in the course Foundations of Organizational Leadership presented many opportunities to enhance and enrich my perspective on leadership as well as develop my own unique leadership philosophy. By observing the theories, models and cases presented in Northouse, Kouzes and Posner textbooks, I was able to learn through the experience of others what a true leader should represent. While considering the strengths and weaknesses of each theory, I am able to implement a leadership style with an effective approach tailored to many different types of learners. In addition, witnessing both the triumphs and failures of various businesses and leadership styles, helped me confirm my personal stance and aspirations towards becoming a leader. By implementing what I have learned from the course and textbooks, I will address in this paper what specific leadership theories, styles and models have contributed to forming my own leadership philosophy. In addition, I will also define the values, qualities, strengths and weaknesses and ethical considerations that pertain to my stance on leadership. By integrating a faith based approach as the foundation of my leadership style, I hope to implement my new philosophy into my current and future career path.

Phase 1 of the Personal Leadership Philosophy Paper presented the opinion and supporting information establishing that; leaders are products of opportunity, birth and environment, but of these; opportunity influences great leadership the most. Furthermore, it was discussed that assigned leadership is a cancer to corporate America and this point is illustrated in the following example. While employed at Deloitte and Touché Consulting Group (DNT) we engaged ARCO, a major oil and gas company, to develop and implement an email migration strategy that consisted of 1200 Arco users at their subsidiary company, Vaster Resources Inc. In the initial meeting we were introduced to a gentleman, we will call John Smith for the purposes of this paper,

Lao-Tzu’s “Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching” and Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of a Prince” both have the ultimate goal of making better leaders. The tactics that each writer chooses to present as a guide for the leader are almost opposite of each other. Today’s American government would benefit from a combination of the two extreme ideas. Lao-Tzu’s laissez-faire attitude towards the economy, as well as his small scale, home defense military is appealing to a liberal person. Machiavelli’s attitude towards miserliness and lower taxes, while being always prepared for war, would appeal to a conservative person. The writers are in agreement on some issues, such as

My father once told me that, “everything we do— be it in academia, at work, social or family life—we are guided by principles, beliefs and values that collectively form our ideology of life.” I believe that every leader, to a certain extent, is shaped through her individual personal experience. Although in some cases, we may not realize to what extent our personal assumptions and beliefs shape our ability to lead or be led.

As a leader, it is important for us to have a simple, profound leadership philosophy. I have decided to go about this by answering six prompts of my core beliefs and behaviors which are, I always…, I spend a lot of time…, I value…, I am curious about…, I respect…, and I listen… These six prompts form the basis of how I see myself as a leader and a person.

In developing this idea of what leadership is, I examined what was most important to me in being a leader. Since leadership is such a broad term, this could not be a process whereby I could generalize leadership for everyone. Rather, the task is to determine who I am as a leader. I asked myself, what is it that shapes the vision? What are the factors that comprise a leader, and what makes these things add up to create something larger than ourselves as leaders? Thoughtful reflections on these things lead me to generate the following definition of leadership: Leadership is about more than simply having followers; it is not a title, and it is not achieved by just following a few principles. Leadership is complex, though at its

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

Confucius said, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand” (Confucius). I know this quote from my background in education, however whether Confucius realized it or not, it greatly applies to leadership as well. Leaders are often held on a pedestal and recognized in their achievements and their mistakes, but never for their day-to-day work. Applying the quote to the actions of leaders, when we hear the words of effective leaders we don’t often remember them. There are obvious instances where we remember significant words of leaders such as, “I have a dream,” (King) but how many can remember the everyday words of leaders that are not special cases? When we see effective leaders we remember them; for instance, I could walk around with a picture of Steve Jobs, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, or Barack Obama, and most everyone -- if not everyone -- would recognize them, because of the leadership roles they hold. We see their body of work and we remember their work, but once again we do not witness the everyday interactions that go into this body of work. Finally, recognizing it is what a leader does that is important, because it creates an understanding and that is what stays with people. Leaders actions, these day to day interactions, how they live their lives and how they are communicating these lessons to others, is what needs to be understood. Supporting this theory, I turn to the words of Maya Angelou, “I

Leadership is a very broad topic; I never knew just how many different traits and skills that it takes to become an effective leader. Some of which I was familiar with, and others that I was not aware of, but now from taking this course, they all seem to be necessary for the role of leadership. The attached paper, will explain of some of the important theories and concepts that I thought were most important to be able to become and effective leader.

If one has no leadership ability, one cannot be a leader. If one does not make what his or her followers consider the correct decisions to achieve their goals, no one will have faith in the leader's abilities and, consequently, no one will follow and without followers, there can be no leader. Another important criterion which one must have in order to be a leader is a person who leads a crowd in the direction where the goal can be accomplish as well as someone who acknowledges a problem and finds solutions to it.

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.

“The Prime Minister’s Powerful Better Half” is an article about a powerful women named Ho Ching, the Chief executive officer of Temasek Holdings. This summary will provide responses to questions about Ho Ching’s influence based on this week’s reading materials. It will explain whether or not Ho Ching is an influential leader, what types of tactics she uses to influence others based on a portion of her speech, and list her sources of power and characterize her motives. Finally this summary will explain whether or not managerial differences based on gender play a role in Ho Ching’s influence.

Leadership is something that can be taught (Northouse, 2015. There are some valuable theories, which will be discussed later in this paper, how a leader can develop into having a strong influence in any daily aspect of their lives. Also later in this paper it will be discussed the various styles of leaders that can affect the behaviors of the actions of each leader. Each leader can learn these attributes or some of them just have the natural capability of being a leader.