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
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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.
What comes to mind when you hear the word leader? Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy? According to Webster's Dictionary, a leader is "one who leads." After participating in the Leadership Program, I have learned that a leader is hard to summarize.
Navy Leader Development Program (1990) suggest that "To lead you must first be able to follow: For without followers, there can be no leaders". One thing that is often overlooked concerning successful leaders is they were successful followers before they
Leaders are look upon as role models as they guide us with their motivating, influence to accomplish tasks. There are a lot of leadership styles; when leading, it is based on the situation. When I was in the military, I encountered with many different styles of leadership. A leadership that I considered meaningful is a Transformational Leader. The transformational Leader in the military with their inspiring charisma of motivating, influence creates a visualized path that produces energetic characteristics that inhere to new changes, developments, and possibilities.; by demonstrating authority, the Transformational Leader in the military utilizes their power to inspire and motivate people into trusting and following their example; this as
As an army chaplain, I see leadership as a responsibility that must be upheld regardless of the situation. That means I should be able to demonstrate a good example of a true leader. My name is CH (CPT) Idowu, Oyedeji a C4 student at USACHCS, Fort Jackson, SC. I am writing this paper to share my view on what leadership philosophy should look like.
Leadership is defined as the position of a leader, the ability to lead. I assure you it is much more then that. Being a leader is not easy, I have learned from personal experience. Being a captain of a football team is hard work. It takes guts to stand up and be a leader.
Transformational Leadership: Something Old, Something New, as presented in the CMJ by Lieutenant-Colonel (LCol) Peter Bradley and Dr. Danielle Charbonneau, contains views on how
There are several leaders that I have admired in my career over the years. One in particular that stood out was a Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force who I served under. He was a very intelligent and vibrant leader who placed importance in military customs and core values. He was one whom I emulated in the military because of his task –motivated leadership style. He focused on the goals of the organization with the emphasis on service before self. The implications of his style of leadership lead me to believe that there was little to no relationships formed with lower ranking airmen. He was always able to get the job done because of the driven culture he represented. I learned a wealth of knowledge and information from this particular leader; I was able to create a balance by embracing his style of leadership and relating it with my style, transformational leadership. I believe it was successful, because of my efforts to focus in on the mission and create a balance in inspiring, influencing, and motivating Airmen across the globe.
There are many models of leadership that exist across a range of fields (e.g. social work, education, psychology, business, etc.). The ability to transform an organization successfully requires a different set of attitudes and skills. Transformational leadership is an approach where a leader utilizes inspiration, charisma, individualized attention, and intellectual stimulation with their employees (Iachini, Cross, & Freedman, 2015, p. 651). Transformational leadership helps to clarify organizational vision, inspires employees to attain objectives, empowers employees, encourages employees to take risks, and advocates the seeking of alternative solutions to challenges in the workplace (Transformational Leadership, 2015). It allows the leader to engage and motivate each follower identify with the organization’s values and goals.
During my college experience, I decided to enlist in the United States Coast Guard Reserves. I left for basic training the summer after my sophomore year and took on a completely different kind of challenge. In this environment, I was surrounded by many leadership styles, some of which I had never seen before. There were leaders that were outspoken, driven, hardworking, and motivated to
“Military leadership qualities are formed in a progressive and sequential series of carefully planned training, educational, and experiential events—far more time-consuming and expensive than similar training in industry or government. Secondly, military leaders tend to hold high levels of responsibility and authority at low levels of our organizations. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, military leadership is based on a concept of duty,
Leaders who were very successful, used the authoritative style of leadership. These types were not very like or popular with Soldiers. Leaders who used this style barked order without little or no guidance back by the underlying threat that if directions were not followed to the number of their direction that administrative correction would follow. These leaders never led by example, never had the higher physical training scores, did not have the higher competency levels leaders are supposed to have and really used their position as a motivator to get task
To me, leadership is more than a title. It is more than just being in charge. Leadership is honestly, learning, listening, and most importantly application. Leadership means going the extra mile or two, doing the right thing no matter who’s looking, staying encouraged and encouraging other even when times are hard and you have every reason to quit. Leadership doesn’t mean you’re rich, well known, liked, or respected but it does mean you are a passionate, caring, and authentic. Leadership means you care about something so much you are willing to risk everything you have for this belief or idea. Leadership is doing whatever you can in your power to make things better for those around you.
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
Not all leaders are famous like Martin Luther King, most leaders are ordinary people; you can walk down the street and run into someone and not know that they are a very powerful leader. I personally know of a good leader that is an ordinary person; my father. Although some people believe that leaders are born and not made, I believe that anyone can become a leader if they have enough courage and are thick skinned. There are many words that people come up with when they are asked to describe what makes a good leader. The most popular characteristics used to describe a good leader would be a good listener, responsible, and decisive. When you think of what makes a good leader you should also ask what kind of education they have and what
Leadership is a difficult word to define and according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary leadership is the “office or position of a leader” (Miriam-Webster, 2010). This definition is definitely not one that I would ascribe to when discussing leadership. My definition of leadership is “the ability someone has to motivate and empower others to achieve a goal.” Some may add to this definition, others may discard it altogether and have a completely different definition. In the end, leadership takes on many different forms depending on who is doing the defining and we end up asking ourselves, what is leadership and why do we care?