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.