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.

Everyone has a set of values that shape their actions, and furthermore, their leadership skills. In class and throughout chapter 4 of Exploring Leadership, we discussed how these values vary in each leader. One of the examples that we discussed in class was not changing the rules of the game: an example of this is one of my professor’s; it was her first semester teaching so she didn’t have a realistic lesson plan. So two weeks we ended up changing the format of the class from tweeting at her to posting on the discussion bored and it confused everyone by changing the rules of the game so much. Another example of a value that we touched upon in class that affected leadership skills is religious views; I immediately thought of Chick-Fila and how they are closed early on Wednesday for church and all day Sunday.

Another way values are important in leadership is because your values affect who you are working with. Who wants to work for a company that has a completely different set of morals and values as you do? Of course not, it would be a horrible experience to consisantly clash with your company’s moral and ethical values.

One of the things that I really enjoyed was watching the short video in class about the first boy dancing on the hill, looking pretty ridiculous until his first follower came and truly started the dance movement on top of the hill. This stood out to me because it reminded me so much of myself. I always am the first one to do something and I never realized how appreciative I need to be for a good group that complements one another and functions like a group, just how the first two boys danced in the movie.

One of the values that I have that affect my leadership capabilities is my need for efficiency. This effects my leader skill of being a more direct when I have to confront a situation. However, sometimes I need to make sure to take a step back and make sure I am not trying to control the situation and try not to act in a competitive manner.  So as you can see my drive to be efficient has its positives and negatives sometimes as well. In class we discussed how knowing what to look out for and being able to use your value set to create an effective group.  An example of a class activity where my drive for efficiency and to complete the task right pushed me to my more competitive leadership style and in that situation it was not appropriate leadership method.

Another value I have, I gained from the era that I lived in. In class we talked about different leadership styles and when they were being used. Because of the time that I grew up we were being more inclusive than previous generations. An example of this is gay rights. The up and coming generation is a lot more inclusive to differences in people and how that can be used to benefit the group as a whole.

From cheerleading to simply leading

In the first half of this semester I was an accounting and economics major, but after not excelling in my intermediate accounting class, I came to the realization that I would have to change my accounting specialization to finance in order to keep my GPA high enough to get accepted into 

the graduate program of my dreams at UC San Diego in California.

 After talking to my advisor, I found the only 3 credit hour class, that started in the second session, that fit in my schedule was the one and only ESHESA2570. After the first class, I realize that I may have added the class to stay a full time student and to keep my GPA high enough to get accepted into UCSD, but I wanted to take the class for a different perspective then most. Instead of becoming a better leader, I actually wanted to learn how to become a better follower.

When I cheered in highschool, in order to accelerate at the more difficult tumbling techniques I had to go back and perfect my basic tricks in order to gain power and be able to harness that power in order to pull out higher level tricks. This is what I need to do with my leadership experience. I need to go back and re-teach myself how to be a part of a group and make sure that I don't cross the line from a leader to a controller.