leadership map and portal

I truly enjoyed putting together my learning portal. I got to play around on the web and do some research into websites that inform me about the things of interest, or websites that provide me with useful information.  To complete this assignment I first I started by writing down the website I liked the most, from there I started looking through my bookmarks for other useful pages that I don’t use on a daily basic. Once I had those website, I began looking through the website for sites with interesting articles, useful information and things that would be interesting yet educational when burning time on the computer. I found a bunch of interesting sites that gave updates organizations I cared about or articles about international or local issues. I even caught myself wanted one of the links from my learning portal when I was on campus today. For my map, I tried to combine how I was already was as a leader and find qualities that I admire and would like to have.  I ended up with four key terms and four basic photos that I feel define my overall views about leadership.  Using a computer program to design the map felt a little confining to me; or maybe I just need to learn Microsoft doc better. Overall this project helped me organize my thoughts into something concrete and clear. Before I had a lot of theories floating around in my head and various leadership qualities that I admired. Now I have a more organized perspective on leadership.  

The Charismatic leader

·      The charismatic leader theory is the idea that with charm and personality one can be a great leader

·      Charismatic leaders guide their followers by using charm and self-confidence.

·      Their personality attracts attention and gains admirers.

·      This type of leader is skilled as reading the environment and the emotions of other people

·      They have the power to inspire and transform the people they lead, yet with poor intention they can be the forces of devastation, as seen with Hitler
·      Charismatic leaders are great at spreading a vision to their followers

·      It is also typical for them to form their group to be distinct from other groups

The path to leadership

This photo represents the path that I am on as a potential leader. 

me, myself and leadership reflection

How I view myself as a leader has definitely changed during this semester. I view myself as having potential to be a great leader but not there yet. I notice that I enjoy being in the leadership position and lead groups throughout my daily life, but am beginning to question my natural styles of doing so. It is easy to criticize past managers and recognize when others are leading in an incorrect manner, yet to see my leadership style from a third person perspective is quite a challenge. I would hate to be jumping into the leadership position, when my leading techniques are less than ideal and harming the group mentality. Since learning in specific about each theory, I have caught myself leading people in a manner different than how “my ideal leader” would. I feel there is always room for improvement and I am trying to find errors in my leadership style and then correct them. Yet I have noticed once finding errors, it is hard to change that behavior, because it is something done unconsciously.  Before I make huge changes, I think I need to learn more about what kind of a leader I want to be. I came to this class with a broad idea of what I like in leaders, and now have a clearer idea of what kind of leader I want to be. Not only do I have a better idea, but am beginning to understand more the behaviors that “my ideal leader” would have.  I truly have faith that after this class I will be in a much better position to lead people in the way that I want to be lead and in an admirable way.  If leadership where a path, I would say that I am well on my way, but still with a long journey ahead.

Midterm and class reflection

When analyzing the characters in Where the Wild Things Are and looking for specific leadership theories within them I feel I learned a lot. I learned how to identify leadership qualities from observing somebody. Prior to watching the movie, I had a good overview of the theories, and could think of some past managers that used such theories. But now I feel I would be able to pinpoint someone’s natural leadership strategies and tendencies and then also help them improve it. There were times during the movie where I would identify a character utilizing a theory, but I also caught myself noticing how they were not using it correctly or how they could have improved and used a different technique.

         I learned that leadership can be found everywhere, and when looking for the leader in the group, that I should not just look for one person. As I noticed in the movie, and as I am beginning to realize in most situations in life: there are many leaders within a group of people, and those various leaders will lead in times where they feel they are useful. While max (main leader) seemed to lead when the group moral was down, KW (another important leader) seemed to lead the groups overall opinion on various matters.

         I feel as though I learned a lot about leadership during this first section of this class. All of the theories discussed in class, were new to me. While I already had a broad view of leadership and learned various theories from management courses and previous HTM classes, I learned the more about the behaviors of leaders. Another important that that I have learned in part to this course, is that there are many different types of successful leadership. Prior to this semester, I had a more black and white view of leadership, that there is bad leadership and good. But now I am realizing more that bad leadership is often incorrectly matching leadership style to the situation. And that someone who is a good leader at one job, may not be at another. It’s more about adaptability than having a set technique of how to lead everyone. But overall I la great deal of information during this first section that has helped my learn about myself as a leader. 

Where the Wild Things are

Transformational

James MacGregor Burns, who was born in 1918, is known a presidential biographer, political scientist, historian, and most importantly for his work on leadership studies. He was one of the first authors to write about understanding leadership with a philosophical approach. Mr. Burns did ground breaking work in bringing light to the ideas of transformational leadership. Instead of concentrating on the traits and actions of great men leaders, as was done before, he looked into the interaction of leaders their style of working toward mutual benefit. His work is said to have changed how we view management and leadership in the workplace and out. 

Video example of transformational leader

A Martin Luther king speech is a obvious example of a transformational leadership. His speeches are full of inspiration, intellectual stimulation and he is undeniably someone with idealized qualities. The movement he brought on was an undeniable transformation, that needed such a strong, determined and vision oriented leader.

My slum dog millionaire slide show to illustrate a transformation from helpless and hopeless to empowered 

This photo is to represent the before scene, which was quite hopeless in regards to Jamal's future

This is to represent the young character spark for life and not being at the mercy of what he was given, but instead taking charge of his own life.

This photo is in the middle of Jamal's transformation process, he was made headway, but is facing unfamiliarity and challenges

His hard work is paying off, as he unexpectedly won a million dollars with his great knowledge and perseverance

and in the end, he gets the girl too ! Which is to represent the whole transformation/ his success

Blanchard Examples

In one of my past jobs as hostess,I was in contact with three managers of the restaurant. Each managers' different leadership style affected me in different ways. For a little background I worked at this job for about a year so we can say my confidence and readiness were very high in this position. Because of my competence in this position a good leadership match would be participating or delegating, luckily two of my managers did just so. I felt they had confidence in my experience and trusted me with tasks and solving problems. This made working with these managers and my feeling about my position to be very positive. Unfortunately I also experienced a mismatch instance of leader follower perspective that proved to be unenjoyable. This manager who was new to managing this restaurant preferred to control every aspect of everyones' position so it would match his specific preferences. I would classify his leadership style as telling. Instead of trusting my opinion and giving me freedom within my job, he micro managed my every move. Because of his mismatched telling leadership style, I felt like he didn't respect me as coworker, which in the end, led me to look for a new position where I could feel more valued and independent. 

Contingency vs. Situational

        Both theories take into consideration the type of leadership needed for each different situation but approaches it in different ways. Situational leadership states that different leadership styles are needed depending on the employees readiness, motivation and confidence. For example an inexperienced employee in housekeeping would benefit from a telling type of leadership, because there is low readiness in the employee because this is a new position. Also the tasks are clearly specified and basic but need to be told in order for the employee to complete the job successfully. But if there was an experienced chef a different type of leadership would be more appropriate because of his readiness and confidence in the position is much higher. For example a delegating or participating would be more suitable.   

       The contingency theory through a basic assessment places the leader down into two different styles, they either have a human relations orientation or a task orientation. Once the orientation is known, the leader’s motivation type can be further understood as either being derived from interpersonal relationships or by successful task performance. For example a task orientation manager would value an employee who fallows tasks perfectly and is organized while a manager with human relations orientation would appreciate more an employee who is friendly, cooperative and supportive. 

Funny, Simple, yet so True

I came across this youtube video and thought it was very appropriate for our class. 


Enjoy !!! 

 Not only did I get a couple laughs out of it, I also enjoyed the narrator’s points. My favorite was the appreciation he gave to the first fallowing because as he said "they are crucial to the success of a leader, but do not receive enough credit” He broke down the leadership process quite simply in relation to a half naked man dancing at a concert. While this was not a leader starting a revolution or saving lives, he did quite a miraculous job on leading a large group of people into sweet dancing bliss  ! 

maybe a little lost about lost

First off, prior to this assignment, I didn't know why people were talking so much about lost, and well after watching about 10 trailers on youtube, I think I might be tuning in to season 7, Talk about Dramatic!!!

Through the trailers, there was one voice/character who I feel is a good example for path-goal leadership. This was the person who was persistent that all the lost characters were not on this island by coincidence, but had all ended up there for a reason. I believe he made this message clear by employing the path-goal method. His goal was that there is a higher more powerful reason they all ended up on the island together. And in order to understand that reason he directed everyone on a path starting with clarifying his theory, and finding supporting evidence.

The next theory, Leader Member Exchange, I believe is present in every group setting, but especially with the season Lost. Relationship were build between the 15 characters first with phase one and as the group got to know each other more they went onto phase 3 of a partnership, confident negotiations and overall a strong relationship.

I think I will have a better grip on the themes in lost, once I tune into the upcoming season :)

One Similar, one not so Similar

Overall this person’s blog has themes of leadership that represented authority, knowledge and integrity. All these qualities seem like the makeup for a wonderful leader, yet also the leader described is very different from my ideas of leadership. For example this blog took the time to discuss her given archetype of ruler. I learned that she is someone who takes charge, is organized, likes order and also is always there to assist with other situation and give advice. Before reading her blog, I tended to associate the “ruler type” as someone who is powerful, in charge, and has structure, but I never considered this trait to come along with assisting others in their daily struggles. This idea opened my mind and made me consider the ruler type as a more caring character :) I enjoyed her perspective.

I also came across a blog that had very similar themes present in my blog, for example, guidance, the need for inspiring others and teamwork. This was a very similar point of view, but what I found different was there was also an emphasis for motivation. I completely left this aspect out of my blog, but after reading further into it, I realize the significance of this trait. 

Overal Thoughts on PMAI

I thought this assessment used a very unique perspective on a traditional personality assessment. Throughout college I have taken countless amounts of personality tests which all have blended together into one. But this assessment sticks out to me because of the amount of helpful information provided. This didn’t just present the positive and negative qualities but also provided suggested actions and habits to that could help each archetype grow and develop themselves better.  I am truly fascinated on the theory that there are common stories being experienced and being told to other people. I found a quote within the information they provided that I thought was interesting and well said, “Although the potential characters within us are universal, each of us expresses them differently, endowing them with somewhat different styles, traits, and mannerisms.

I feel using this assessment can be extremely useful for any type of leader. This assessment can help leaders understand themselves more deeply and also see how others might perceive them. Because leaders influence others around him or her, it is important to understand their habits, faults and mannerisms in more depth. I feel as though this assessment can help leaders escape habitual patterns to improve and find a more improved path for their leadership. 

The Jester, Seeker and Creater

Jester: Enjoying your life and work; being here now

Seeker: Being willing to be different; having the courage to try new things

Creator: Demonstrating imagination, innovation, and cleverness

I find it truly fascinating that an assessment with no more than 60 questions could pinpoint my quirks, values and habits so accurately. When looking through the packet, I noticed that the two archetypes most commonly associated with early adulthood (caregiver and warrior) where what I scored the lowest on. I thought that was interesting, but unsure what that means.

My main archetype given to me what the jester, and I couldn’t argue against that. This type craves humor and playfulness and finds enjoyment out of unexpected things. I found this quote in the description that I thought was a beautifully said sentence on the jester’s positives “helping to free people from their illusions, depression, and a limited view of life's possibilities.” I paid special attention to the setbacks to my archetypes, because I feel as though criticism is rarely heard but often thought by those around you. The description touched on my inability to take difficult situations seriously. Overall receiving the jester as my main archetype did not come to my surprise and nor was this the first time hearing about the negatives and positive associated with this part of me. On the other hand, my second Archetype was the seeker, which gave me a new outlook on myself. I felt this quote summed up some positives very well, “you are wonderfully adventurous, independent, and self- sufficient, you refuse to live a cookie-cutter life.” Again I tried to pay extra hard attention to the setback, and all of them seem to ring a giant bell inside me. For example “When problems arise, your tendency is to take off and leave them behind” and it also described me as being a perpetual peter pan who wont grow up. Ouch, but I must admit they have a point.  And lastly I was given the Creator, who has a never-ending imagination and strives to avoid the ordinary and shallow, but with a weakness of over self-indulgence. I found that by combining my three designated archetypes into one whole picture I got a more accurate view of myself. Whereas when I first starting analyzing the each one individually, I found myself dismissing the validity if the characteristics didn’t match up. But looking back at the whole picture of my archetypes I can’t help but agree and learn a thing or two. 

Traits based Leadership

Traits based leadership theories argue that a the leader is born with traits that allow them to be a leader. While there is a lot of support for this theory, people are skeptical on how reliable this theory is for predicting a leader.

Cons

• This may discourage someone who doesn't have these traits from becoming a leader
• The traits are for a specific leader, not necessarily needed for all types of leaders
• Traits can be developed throughout ones life, not just given at birth

Pros

•  If someone does have the designated traits, it would easy for them to identify their leadership potential
• This theory does help great the traits that similar in many successful leaders
• Someone could use these traits as a guide to improving themselves as a leader

What I admire leaders

The fallowing list contains the traits that I admire in leaders. Some of them I feel like I already embody, but the majority are traits that I would like to work towards having. I came up with this list, by brainstorming quality that leaders I admire have.

• Dedication 

This is mandatory to gain to respect of one's subordinates when working towards a goal. This is the trait that I know I need to improve on the most. 

• Integrity

There are far too many examples of leaders without integrity. Everyone should strive towards having integrity in all actions, but most important when your actions influence more people than just yourself. 

• Honesty 

While it seems difficult at times to be completely honest, I believe through honesty one can avoid so many problems in the future

• Inspiration

All the leaders that I admire have this trait and spread it to the people around them. 

• Consistency

Without consistency, people may question your intentions and honesty

• Powerful 

This is a trait I strive to have, because I view it as helpful to being a leader and not just a great follower. 

• Balance

Balance should be created within everyone who is working together

• Respect 

Respect is so important in every one's daily life and especially when your mainly dealing with people, as leaders do

• Care

I believe that showing and having concern for everyone, will help one gain their respect

• Vision

A vision is so important, so everyone knows what they are working towards and why