Leadership Paper - Analysis and Wisdom

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I have personally become more aware and informed as to the history and study of leadership and through it, my desire is to use my new awareness of my distal traits, and how to situational apply and change my proximal traits based upon a group task to drive desired outcomes. I have come to understand that leadership is about influencing people and gaining the commitment of those individuals to follow you. You cannot lead if people do not feel they can trust you or respect you, this course has help me to crystalize in my mind the importance of these fundamentals.

As a leader I strive for level five leadership where in all situations I display a sense of compassion and humility combined with the professional know how and will to succeed in spite of the many obstacles that are thrown in my path. When I first read the Harvard Business Review article “Level 5 Leadership” I was in awe at the characteristics and traits identified for a level 5 leader as I believe when we think of the traits of the most effective leaders, we don’t initially think of humility as a trait. Knowing this, I am seeking to improve and change my approach to deepen my sense of empathy and exercise measured patience in the face of professional urgency. I have found that when urgent decisions and outcomes are needed, I lose some of the level of humbleness and patience necessary to effectively lead at the level I desire to operate within.

Throughout my life I have been taught to lead and as a result I feel comfortable in leadership roles. Growing up my mother would say “Be a leader, not a follower,” many situations in life, I have reflected upon this simple phrase and applied it in situations I would have otherwise sat back and fallen into a following mindset. After having taken many courses and training in the areas of management and leadership, it is evident to me that I enjoy people, processes and achieving the highest level of excellence in task outcomes. I plan to continue to align my life around the leveraging the highs and lows of my “Big Five” personality traits to bring out the best in people I come in contact with and to lead my company to one day go from “good to great.”

References

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Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (1999). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.

Perkins, Robert (n.d.). Leadership Outline [Powerpoint slides].

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The Big Five Personality Test. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.truity.com/test/big-five-personality-test

Yukl, G. (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.