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What Is The Making Of A Leader Essay

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The Making of a Leader
In the first eight years of my military career (overlapping time when I was a member of True Victory Deliverance Tabernacle), I exhibited transactional leadership more than transformational leadership. This is perhaps attributable to being a young leader in direct senior-subordinate relationships with young soldiers. While teamwork was always important, the emphasis at the time was more on accomplishing the mission than on creating harmonious relationships. Looking back, I also employed this type of leadership in church settings (which was somewhat natural since the churches I attended at this stage of my career were in military environments) with mixed results. When leading fellow Christian soldiers within the …show more content…

Unfortunately, some military and ministry leaders never learn this lesson and thus hold onto direct leadership tendencies despite no longer exercising direct leadership roles (like pastoring a 500 person congregation and trying to personally counsel all members).
My understanding and appreciation for transformational leadership occurred during my participation in Syracuse University’s MBA program with a 30 person cohort of military and civilian financial managers. It was further nurtured a few years later during a year long military school where I completed studies on transformational leadership, underwent 360 degree leadership assessments, and was assigned a mentor who stressed the idea of vision-based leadership. At this juncture, I also learned that any leadership philosophy or vision has to be compelling and easily understood. In every military assignment following this mid-career schooling, I articulated and posted a one-page philosophy focused on who we are, what we do, and why we do what we do. I also repeated elements of this philosophy in meetings, speeches, and documents. Even recently, in working with various ministries, such as a military care and share ministry as well as a young men ministry, I was able to assist ministry leaders in clearly developing and articulating the ministry philosophy and vision.

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