Exploring Leadership Seminar
A class to improve my leadership skills, meet fellow honors students, and explore leadership theories.
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What the Experience Involved
For the Exploring Leadership Honors Seminar, I attended a lecture-based class once a week. I learned about different leadership theories and participated in activites and projects to test how the theories hold up and to learn more about what leadership means to me.
What I Learned
In this seminar, I learned about leadership theories, personality tests, and how people work together, discovering the pillars of the business world and pinning them directly against each other. Learning one leadership theory after another showed me smilarities between them, but also accentuated the differences that exist in this field.
Impact on Me
I came into this class with questions about how I can become the best leader I can be, hoping I would get some road map that would guide me to become succesful in the future. However, I instead have discovered that there is no one path to leadership. Leadership is complicated and there are countless people who all have different things to say on why someone is known as a leader. I know, my road map dream has been crushed, but I think, in the process, I've gained skills to navigate various follower types and situations and insight into how to solve problems among a team. I've learned what great leadership has looked like for others and in the past, how to step back and think differently about situations, and, most importantly, what leadership might look like for me. I know I still have a lot to learn about leadership, but I'm excited to try to put my skills to the test and who knows, maybe someone will make a leadership theory based on my combination of pieces of past theories and own innovations, that will be taught in a similar leadership class, in years to come.
My Current Leadership Philosophy
Introduction
Leadership, in all its forms, surrounds us every day. This abundance of leadership leads to a multitude of leadership theories (some discussed in this class and some not) and the term itself being hard to define. This idea that leadership can be many different things means that my idea of leadership has changed throughout my life. Through this class, I have learned that I am not alone in this fact. This idea that the leadership we seek changes throughout our lives and life experiences, led me to my personal leadership philosophy that: as one grows older, they move more and more towards leadership based on authority and stray away from the idea of leadership as a process to accomplish a common good.
I believe this experience/ time-based philosophy on leadership helps better define the term according to our life’s experiences. This understanding of how age affects leadership perceptions will allow me to be a better leader in the future and allow other leaders to focus on theories that benefit both authority-based (big “L”) and process based (little “l”) leadership (namely servant leadership and adaptive leadership coupled with the need for trust, emotional and cultural intelligence, and a skills-based approach)- especially when working with multi-generational groups. In this paper, I plan to expand upon how my personal values and beliefs, leadership style and approach, and understanding of leadership principles and theories feed into this philosophy and led me to its creation. Furthermore, I plan to discuss my own areas of improvement that I plan to address from this point forward.
Personal Values and Beliefs
Two of my key values are honesty and good communication. I would be lying if I said I was always an honest person. In my childhood I was very often dishonest, but hated the feeling of lying so deeply that I would admit my fault soon after. In fact, the people that showed me compassion and understanding during this time, even when I had done nothing to deserve it, (namely my dad and second grade teacher) were transformative in my understanding of people and my need to give and receive honesty now.
At this time, my view of leadership was shaped by the great (but largely whitewashed) figures we learned about in school and my own role models, who combined forged a definition of leadership that was largely process based (or conducive to little “l” leadership) for me. I looked up to people like my grandparents, my mom, my teachers, and Jesus as they were honest and kind people who gained respect due to their desire to help everyone and make everything better. Probably most integral to my understanding of leadership at this time, however, was my relationship with both of my grandfathers. Both my grandad and my grandpa would communicate with me like I was an adult. They told me what they were thinking and feeling, asked the same of me, and allowed me to explore my curiosity without bounds. This deep communication has shaped and continues to shape my idea of leadership today and is thereby integral to leaders in both an authority and process-based means.
Leadership Style and Approach
These values of honesty and good communication are evident in how I approach leadership and my leadership style. Based on my self-assessment results for both True Colors and Myers Briggs (ENFP-T), I am an empathetic leader. This makes sense as in terms of personal beliefs, the ideas of change and second chances have always been integral to my understanding of people. In particular, my involvement in classes like criminal law and constitutional law and activities like mock government and mock United Nations have made me believe a firm believer in the idea that people can change, and that forgiveness is paramount in relationships.
When I began taking leadership positions, I was in middle school. My peers often asked why I cared to be in leadership positions when it made no difference in the short term. To this, I would respond that everything I do in middle school affects high school and everything I do in high school affects college, which ultimately affects my future. In this way, I only really saw authority-based leadership positions as a means to an end (being my desire to change the world with my future career). Because authority-based leadership wasn’t my true definition of leadership at the time, I would focus on pleasing everyone (common with ENFP-T types) and would give group members a lot of freedom in their involvement.
In high school, I focused on my empathy and leading my groups based on my own technical knowledge and ability to share it. I spent a lot of time studying and trying to better the organizations I was involved in and trying to mentor my followers to better themselves. This idea of mentorship and wanting to help others is why I resonate so much with servant leadership and theories that align with it.
Conversely, as I have entered co-ops, I feel more of a pull to gain authority-based leadership positions themselves, instead of seeking authority-based leadership as the means to an end of process-based leadership. As I’ve begun to enter the workforce, I’ve seen the need for good authority-based leadership for the success of companies and thereby their employees. I also believe the external pressure I feel to be a top performer has increased drastically and is thereby pushing me to value success in a monetary and title-based lens rather than my previous happiness and societal betterment ideals.
My personal changes to my leadership approach were mirrored by my peers when I completed the “Future Leader” project. As I interviewed members of various age groups, I saw this same shift from process-based leadership to authority-based leadership as they joined the workforce, which is ultimately the foundation of my leadership philosophy.
Key Leadership Principles and Theories
If my philosophy is genuine, leadership theories that lead to successful authority based and process-based leadership are especially important as they will be valued by all age groups. This is why adaptive leadership and servant leadership are integral to my ideas of successful leadership. Every good leader that I’ve seen (be it family members, bosses, professors, etc.) has been able to adapt their style based on the individuals they are leading. It is my contention that this personalized approach to leadership makes individuals feel valued and see the benefit of being a part of the team. Furthermore, being a good leader is not about being seen as amazing in your own right, but about being able to create a strong team.
Being successful as a big “L” leader and as a little “l” leader relies on trust. If followers do not trust you as a leader and if you cannot trust followers to accomplish delegated tasks, the team will be unable to accomplish anything. This need for trust is further based on servant leadership as without it, you cannot adequately serve your followers. Additionally, this trust amplifies the need for honesty, good communication, and high cultural and emotional intelligence for if leaders do not seek to understand followers, they will not be able to serve them well.
Commitment to Growth and Development
These needed skills of good communication and cultural and emotional intelligence can, of course, be learned. As I discussed above, I am a firm believer in a person’s ability to change. Due to this, I believe skills such as these can and should be continually improved by leaders. This also confirms my belief that good leadership is skills based, not trait based, and that I can continuously improve my leadership abilities.
With that being said, I plan to continue to evolve my leadership throughout the rest of my life. This class has helped me see that I need to be a bit firmer with people, focus more on gaining trust when leading instead of just accomplishing tasks, and that I can be both an effective big “L” and little “l” leader, with focus on servant and adaptive leadership. I have focused a lot in my leadership thus far on what leading can do for me and less on what leading can do for others. I believe this self-centered view has led to a lack of followers. Moreover, I believe I need to look more at the short-term benefits to me and followers rather than thinking so far in advance. Lastly, I will stay keenly aware of traits like age and of my follower’s life experiences to adapt my leadership style to better suit them. To continue to improve my understanding of adaptive and servant leadership, I will continue researching these theories and learning how best to implement them into my own style.
Additionally, I plan to continue to improve my skills of good communication and cultural and emotional intelligence through organizations, training, classes, and experiences that will broaden my understanding. I plan to continue leading in both an authority based and process based way but focusing more on the what I’m doing to be a good leader versus just going through the motions. In particular, I am planning on joining the honors discussion group for leading community-based organizations, asking for consistent feedback on how I can better serve my teams, and improving my cultural and emotional intelligence through university resources and asking for more advice and help from the leaders in my life.
Conclusion
In conclusion my philosophy is that as we grow older, we shift from valuing process-based leadership (or little “l” leadership) to valuing authority-based (or big “L” leadership). This philosophy means that leaders must focus on theories and skills that apply to both types of leadership (servant-based leadership, adaptive leadership, gaining members trust, and focusing on skill development to move ahead instead of innate traits) especially when dealing with intergenerational groups. I plan to focus on improving and continually studying these leadership theories and skills to ensure I am the best leader I can be. I believe this leadership theory will make me more certain of my leadership approach and better equipped to lead in both kinds of leadership. I also believe this philosophy will help to weed through the masses of theories to make me the best leader I can be and focus on leading in ways that align with my style, strengths, values, and goals.