What a leader is to me

"In your own words, based on your experiences in this class -  define "leadership". Additionally, write a philosophy statement that describes the components of effective and successful leadership." What experiences in this course, in your job, in conversations with others, campus involvement, etc. contribute to your philosophy? How does your philosophy now differ from your attitudes toward leadership at the beginning of the course?

To  effectively describe what  leadership is, let me first tell you what it is not. It is not control, it is not power; leadership is not being the boss or making the final decision. Leadership is more like the ring leader of a circus. One who's job it is to not only showcase the talent of others, but to create the big picture and enable the others in your group to play off of each others strengths. Leadership is not being the one that talks first, or over everyone else but someone who listens to others and helps to make the best idea become a reality. I learned a lot about this during this class because I was in a room full of leaders. It was difficult to see at first, but after a couple activities, it became clear that it is not always that one person has to lead, but that there could be multiple leaders within one group.

When I cheered in highschool, before we went out on the floor we said this chant that stated "for 2 and 1/2 minutes 20 hearts will beat as one," as corny as that sounds it is true. It means to put all differences aside and come together for a common purpose, to hit a perfect routine. This relates a lot to leadership because a large portion of the time you are going to be working in a group with a lot of different personalities and you will need to come together for whatever common purpose you have. This relates to class in many ways, we obviously all come from different majors, ages, backgrounds, and yet we all had to come together to complete the tasks that we were given to complete. One activity that really stood out to was the star activity, this was easy to identify that we used everyones different strengths to complete the creation of the star. David came up with the idea and I used my big mouth to get his idea implemented into action. All in all that it's not a leader that's so important but the team, showing me that what a leader really is is just a member whose duty it is to assist in the creation of a team, not a group of individuals.

The road to becoming a better leader

"What is a comment, thought, or action from one of your classmates this semester that has re-framed your perspective on leadership in some way. Why? You are also welcome to reference passages from the readings."

One action that struck with me was when we were playing who's owns the zebra who drinks the water. When Anna got confused over something I thought was common sense and I reflected my thoughts in my tone of voice. Anna's reaction to my response was, well... Unfortunate to say the least. She just sat back in her chair and said "fine, I'm done with this. I'm just going to sit here." And As she sat back in her seat I just realized how much people's attitudes toward others really does have a big part in teams and groups.  This thought was then reinforced when I was the observer on the phone call scenario where you had to diatribe how to put it together on the other line.

 In the leadership model we learned in class and pull from our readings, this really effects the inclusive aspect and also the purpose aspect. The way you express yourself and allow your attitudes and emotions to play into how you lead a team or even how you are even just a member of the team can make someone feel more or less included. If I would have asked Anna to explain herself instead of shutting her down we would have not only got more done but maintained a better relationship, communicate better, and maybe gotten it done successfully.  I learned that I need to gain skills such as communication, and patience to be a better leader.