I often find myself in leadership positions quite unexpectedly. There I am, minding my own business, happily going about my own work and helping others. Then at some point I get a call to come down to the managers office. I often make those trips worried that I might have done something wrong. As I sit down, the manager will smile, and give me the wonderful news. I have been chosen to lead. The problem with that is I suffer from a bad case of "lack of self confidence-itis." Yes, I know that is not a real disease, but a lack of self confidence is what ails me.
The first time that I experienced this problem was when I was 12. Granted it was in a religious capacity, but it still was a leadership position. I was called to be the president
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Every decision or opinion that was asked of me, I responded in the form of a question. I tried not to make eye-contact on a regular basis for fear that I would say or do something wrong. I finally talked to our department manager and asked to be moved to another area of the department. He tried to convince me to stay, praised me for all my hard work, honesty and dedication to the team but I had insisted. Unbeknown to me, the other supervisor had been defrauding the company, making our team look incompetent to our upper management, and turning the employees we managed against me. Had my department manager been able to discuss his real concerns, I might have reconsidered. I also might not have felt so incapable in my abilities.
The third time I experienced a lack of self confidence was in another church related position. This time I was called to be a teacher for the class of ten and eleven year olds. You will never guess what happened next! You guessed it, I felt like they had made a mistake. I wondered why I was called to teach. I am not a teacher! I can't be a leader to these children. I am still learning myself! This feeling was made much worse on the first day that I taught. I was not more than ten minutes into the lesson when one young man started to complain. He said that he was bored, that he didn't want to be there and that he didn't want to listen. Once again I was feeling a bit in
A time I held a leadership position was this year for DECA. I was an involved member of DECA as a freshman, and I had been thinking of running for the vice president position as a sophomore. What really solidified my reservations was when the DECA teacher, Mrs. McGhee, asked me to run for an office. She told me that she noticed I was an invested member and that I would be a good asset to the board. I was so thankful she made this comment because that position in DECA was one of the things that really sparked my interest in leadership, and it helped me to learn more about how I lead. I was stressed at first because I was the first underclassman to ever be in a DECA officer position. When I showed up to the first officer meeting the next year,
Because I am a shy and reserved, I have never thought of myself as a leader. Since it takes me a while to open up to people, when I am put in social situations I never know what to do. The summer before my freshman year my family moved to a new town, so starting over did not help with my confidence. I was not a confident person to begin with, so walking into chorus class in a new school and a new town and singing with people I did not know was terrifying. The chorale, the
In the changing business environment, leaders of all organisations may face unprecedented uncertainty, especially the technology advancement and changes among the employees. To survive and succeed, leaders should have some necessary attributes. Meanwhile, some changes for leadership skills have to be made to confront the challenges.
Being a leader has always been extremely important to me. The past few years I have held many leadership positions to deepen my skills as a leader. Some of my most notable leadership positions of high school were that I was the secretary of my class, the secretary of my school’s National Honor Society, a member of the Youth Council for the Teen Leadership Corps, and a Student Ambassador for my high school. I have recently been chosen as a Peer Leader for the College of Business Administration (CBA), meaning that I will be available to help incoming freshman with whatever they may need as they make the transition to college. I was also chosen by the dean to give a speech at one of the largest high school visits for the CBA in order to inspire students to choose to come to Bowling Green. This was a very important experience for me because I had many high school seniors come up to me after the speech and ask me questions and reached out for advice from me. It is important to me that people value my advice because I believe that giving good advice is an imperative part of being a leader.
A team or organization looks to the leader as someone the expert. A leader who is self-confident and enthusiastic has the ability to connect with the team. There is a level of trust being built because the leader believes in him/herself. There are times I second-guess or underestimate myself. A couple years ago I took an Emergency Medical Technician Basic course and during a practical test I was instructed to splint a hypothetical broken femur. I began the procedure and decided to start over halfway through the test because I doubted my skills. The instructor stopped me and instructed me to continue. After I completed the procedure the test instructor had told me that I had been doing the procedure correct the entire time and I need to be more confident in my
Ms. Geis feels that to be an effective leader one must demonstrate with a high level of confidence, “even if I’m unsure of myself,
In fact,confidence is very important to each of us .Confident people believe in themselves,and because they believe,they achieve.You have confidence in yourself and your abilities.President Nixon,because of a lack of confidence,ruined his political career.In 1972,Nixon’s re-election campaign.Because of his remarkable achievements in the first term,so most political commentators are predicting Nixon will win by a landslide.Nixon himself,however,is not very confident.He can’t walk out of psychological shadow of the past few failure,extremely
Leading did not come natural to me at first, as I was shy and suffer from social anxiety to this day. However, I exposed myself to a plethora of activities and clubs which, in more than one way, forced me to take on some form of leadership role. These positions allowed me to work through the anxiety and become more comfortable branching out. Once I became the stage manager for my school’s musical after working with the program for three years, I began to get a feel for being in charge of something bigger than myself while also sharing the experience with my cast members. I gradually grew acclimated to the
As a child, I never considered myself the leader type. I was the youngest, not only of my immediate family, but of my entire extended family as well, and to top it all off, I was quite shy. I was content with remaining this way and did so for many years. At the age of ten, my family moved to a different state which only increased my timidity. Inserting myself into new communities was difficult and I tried my hardest to remain in the background. One of these new communities was a local 4-H club—I did not know it at the time, but involvement in this organization would play a large role in shaping my leadership skills. My club, Rock Valley 4-H, was a fairly small group, but still large enough to make me nervous when it came to taking leadership positions. After a couple years of involvement, I found myself elected to the position of Secretary. As such, I was expected to sit up front at the officer’s table, record minutes, write meeting reports, and read those reports aloud at the next month’s meeting. When I first began my secretarial duties, I had my mother request that I be able to sit amongst the crowd to record minutes and that my reports be printed in the agenda. Contrast this with a few years later, where I was the President of the club, calmly and confidently presiding over meetings.
Self confidence is an essential part of being in this profession. Having the belief you are in a particular role for a reason and knowing the people who put you there believe in you. The longer I am in education I become amazed about what I have picked up and retained all these years. The feeling that I have experience that is relevant and helpful is amazing. I have also realized that self confidence is also sitting back and being able to learn more and not feel like I am lacking in areas in which I should know more. The perfectionist side of me struggles with this. However, I am very comfortable around everyone in this cohort and do not feel the pressure to be perfect. I am amazed by how intelligent and insightful my classmates are. The way you teach this class has not been lost by me either. Thank
There is nothing wrong with being confident, but what if you are overly confident? Everyone has something that they are good at and it is alright if people are better at something than you are. It is never good to think of yourself as better than anyone else or that you are of higher power than anyone else. However, it is also not good to bring people down if they are not as good at something as you are, at least they are trying. If you are not the best at something that should not discourage you or make you want to give up on it, it should make you want to work harder to get even better. In the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burton uses the characters Jack Skellington, Oogie Boogie and Dr. Finkelstein to show that is not good to be egotistic for the reason that it could lead to failure in any type of situation.
In today’s competitive world, leadership skills are crucial for both personal and professional development. Leadership is an important function of management which helps an individual or a business to maximize efficiency and to achieve goals. Leadership has different meanings to various authors.Most commonly, leadership is defined as influence, that is, the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals. (Koontz). Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of either formal or informal group in the task of goal setting and goal achievement. A leader is one whose magnetic personality innervates people for some cause. Not by words, but by their actions is
A subject leader or middle manager plays a crucial role for every school or institution. The Teacher Training Agency (TTA, 1996, P. 4) illustrate that:’ Evidence from OFSTED inspections and other sources has shown that pupil achievement is higher when the role of the subject leader is clearly identified and effectively implemented.’ Considering the structural aspects, Morris and Dennison (1982, p. 40) suggest the role of the subject leader should be following:
Leadership is a term on which no one can develop a mutual consensus as it carries a different meaning for ach individual. Some people may consider a person as their leader who is capable of taking them away from hardships, some people may consider the one as their leader who is quite charismatic and can show them dreams of a bright future or some people may consider that man as a leader who can make them progress by devising wise strategies for them etc. There is, somehow, something very common in all the perspectives that are the philosophy behind the definition, which is related to choosing a best of the best person as their leader. Nobody wants to have a person as his leader who doesn’t have knowledge of the needs and aspirations of his
Some people have so much confidence that they are not afraid to do anything. Others are the complete opposite, and are scared of being judged or ridiculed by others. Self-confidence cannot be taught, but is reached by the individual when they decide to believe in themselves. In order to attain self-confidence, one needs to believe that they can do the task at hand. It cannot be accomplished overnight, but slowly gets stronger and stronger over a period of time. One of the major ways to obtain confidence is acting like one is confident, even when not. Acting will transfer into truly being self-confident and having high self-esteem. Another way to gain confidence is by talking to others.