What I Learned in My Leadership Class

As a graduate student approaching her final semester in school, thoughts regarding my leadership abilities in the soon-to-be “real world” have occupied my mind lately. To further explore and develop my ideas about leadership, I decided to develop my personal leadership theory. So, I asked myself the following questions: What makes a successful leader? How do you recognize a leader when you meet one?, and lastly, what is my theory of leadership? With this last question I thought about what leadership meant to me personally and how I personified it in a role of authority. While I had given thought to how I led, I had rarely taken the time to fully understand what my personal leadership theory entailed. Throughout the length of this paper I will analyze how my leadership skills, traits, values and elements from both Authentic Transformational theories help me to shape my leadership philosophy. In doing so I hope to define the leadership values that influence the way I view and practice leadership.

One of the hardest part of a principal is the first few months of school. There is a lot of anxiety and if main focus should be setting a good example and building positive relationships with staff, parents, and other community members. In my opinion, the theories we have learned in Chapter 2 and 3 of Practicing the Art of Leadership by Reginald L. Green are good practices to have so that relationships can be built to improve the needs of the school. Once a principal has established trust and build relationships, one can start thinking about implementing goals and the vision they have for the school.

“In leadership literature, more than 100 different definitions of leadership have been identified” (Rost, 1991). Through these hundred ways, we all interpret leadership differently. Before this course, when someone asked, “What does leadership mean to you?” The answer was simple. Prior to taking this course all leadership meant was being in charge. Under the teachings of this course I have gained a new interpretation of leadership, and an overall sense of what being a leader means. In this course we took the StrengthFinder assessment. When taking the assessment, I really thought about the way I am and began understanding the asked questions. I realized that I now understand how to improve situations, and I have become more well rounded in understanding the differences in individuals and their ideas. After realizing this, I continued taking my test; the results, amazingly, coincided with what I had just noticed.

Q1: What have you leaded about yourself throughout this class? How have you changed? Reflect on both the strength you have discovered and areas you need to improve on regarding leadership. Think about our Character Traits of the Week, collaborating with others, problem solving skills, critical thinking, etc.

Leadership is the process of reciprocal, transactional and transformational. In the course of a person is allowed to influence, inspire others to facilitate and achieve the target of groups and individuals. Leadership traits began to focus on the leader's own leadership scientific analysis. More specifically, it seems to distinguish the leader from the society to followers. (Richard rt al.,1996:167) Theorists, scholars and practitioners often have different definitions for leadership, therefore, each have different views on the meaning of leadership. Some researchers consider

From the beginning of human history, the need for an individual that could carry more than his share of the weight, while possessing a quality that made others try to imitate them, has been essential for progress and endurance. The definition of leadership is a person who could lead and inspire others. At these times, the tendencies of human naturedemonstrates compassion, community oriented and egotistical individuals. Understanding the concept of cooperation, individuals also discovered the need for an exceptional type of person to lead and guide them, using their expertise to the advantage and benefit of the group.. Strengths, skills and abilities are the deciding factor for an exceptional leader. The introduction of industrialization and technological advancement ushered in a new workplace environment and the need for leaders in the workplace, and our local communities. With changing times, so did the meaning of leader change. From being a strong general with the goal and ambition of decapitating the enemy, to being responsible for organizing and managing employees to function and execute tasks in the best interest of the organization. Because of the uniqueness of individual personalities and character traits, leadership can be very difficult to generalize. Instead, a leader is one who is endowed with a charismatic personality, talented and can influence others to follow them.

It was Thursday, August 25, at eight in the morning when I walked into my second leadership class ever. The first class was just reviewing the syllabus so to me this was the real “first class”. We discussed The Leader’s Companion by Gardner and how there is currently a cry for leadership. I heard that there was a need for leaders at all levels and that can be achieved by studying leadership. After hearing that I understood there was a problem, I wanted to be the adequate leader the world needed and I first needed to gain a good understand the information learned in class. Throughout this semester I have learned a lot about myself, group interactions, and my leadership identity, which all come together to enhance my understanding and appreciation of leadership itself.

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

What is leadership? How does society define as good and bad leaders? What are the traits most embodied by the successful leaders? These questions, along with many other, have been the topic of debate for centuries. Defining leadership in hard terms can be a challenging thing. In one hand, soldiers in the Army, for instance, can recite the definition of a leadership that came out of a publication. On the contrary, most soldiers will struggle to define what leadership means to them, in their words. However, troops in any organization can quickly identify who is a bad or a good leader. They know what right looks and feels like, though, putting it into terms can prove to be more challenging, and goes to demonstrate why it is

Leadership is a human quality made up of inborn and acquired attributes that can influence and transform the behavior of other human beings. This essay identifies leadership attributes and behavior of one individual and will attempt to explain how his influence on the people touched by his leadership style and behavior shaped my personal leadership style I will use a process of analysis that will integrate prevalent leadership theories to support reasonable conclusions. However, the judgments, assertions and conclusions are limited to a personal but objective observation of the actions and behavior of one individual over a segment of his lifetime.

I also believe that an effective leader plays a significant role in promoting and molding individuals’ readiness as it relates to motivation and commitment. As such, I developed my leadership assessment with these points in mind. The assessment focuses on 14 attributes that I believe are important not only for a leader to be successful within the parameters of the SLT, but for most any leadership model adopted by a successful leader in the modern business environment. The assessment was completed by Bobby, my manager of nearly six years, and by Katrina, my highest-ranking direct report of nearly four years. Each was asked to assign a candid rating to each attribute using a one-to-ten (worst-to-best) scale as well as to make notes or offer any suggestions so that I may incorporate it into my leadership style in an effort to improve the areas of weakness and become a better leader. In addition, I did a self-assessment using the same criteria. It should be noted that while Bobby offered both a ranking and narrative feedback, Katrina completed the assessment using the numerical ranking only. The results were consistent in some areas and mixed in others, but revealed some valuable information that I can use not only within the context of this course, but also as my career is better defined over time.

My view on leadership has not changed very much from the beginning of this course. However, I have been able to learn more formal theories and ideas that support my definition of leadership. I have always compared leadership to management because though the two are different when it comes down to it, they do share a few similarities. My definition of leadership that I referred to throughout this course was: a continuous process where an individual motivates changes and inspires others to achieve a common purpose. This course really confirmed for me that leadership is an ongoing process and one is never done learning how to become a leader. This course made me realize though, how management is good, but good leadership is more important to a company. We look at several studies about how a manager’s leadership can influence sales, employee motivation, and so much more. For me, this reinforces my idea that being a manager is just not enough anymore, but one also has to be an inspiring leader for their followers. Leadership is taking what management does a step further by understanding their followers, encouraging growth, and inspiring a way to get there. Finally, this course confirmed for me that there are no set personality traits that make someone a good leader. Instead, there are traits that are common amongst leaders. This does not mean that those who do not possess those traits cannot become leaders, it just mean they may have to work a bit harder than others.

Leadership is a topic that has been widely studied and worthy of great interest because of its impact on both individuals and society as a whole. Exactly what constitutes a strong leader is a topic of debate. The term may conjure images of victorious historical figureheads such as Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan, but more subtle examples are found in everyday life, wherever there is group activity. Studies have identified definite styles and theories which define good leadership in any capacity.

The objective of this reflection summary is to expose critically how I could evaluate my own experience in relation to the theories and ideas about Leadership. In other words, how this lecture and insights changed my person notion, as well, how I could amplify my knowledge about this subject. But I assume, that the most important is to demonstrate how the application of Leadership skill in my career in future is relevant.

Understanding that leadership is needed within an organization and within the global realm, one must make a take inventory of skills needed and possessed. Being truthful with oneself will prevent over and understatements of available talents. A true self-analysis requires obtaining an original reflection of personal talents. This analysis includes the assessment of: (1) holistic leadership reflection; (2) leadership theory evaluation; (3) leadership genre analysis; (4) today 's’ leadership practices; and (5) self-improvement strategies. Honest assessments of current leadership characteristics available may provide a solid foundation for strategic leadership goals to be created (Sydänmaanlakka, 2003).