Leadership Philosophy

             To me, leadership is about working with a team of people to reach a common goal and along the way, grow and develop as a person. I add the last part about growing in developing because something that I have learned just in the 7 weeks that our class had known each other, we have all grown and developed more than I thought was possible. Because of that, I think we are all stronger leaders, therefore, leadership doesn’t start and end with reaching goals, it involves self-reflection and striving to be better.

My personal philosophy on leadership for my life is to be a positive influence on those around me by encouragement, an optimistic attitude, and staying grounded in my faith. Everyone has a different philosophy for how they perceive leadership in their life; this is what I love about leadership, everyone views it differently.

After taking the StregthsQuest assessment in the fall and even throughout my experiences in this class, it was no surprise to me that my number one strength is belief. Having strong beliefs has defined who I am my whole life and it is, essentially, the way I view and approach life every day. My belief system and faith is relevant to how I see my life’s role and purpose. I started to notice that there was something different about me in junior high and high school when the people I was surrounded by said I was extremely positive, happy, “smiley”, and had concrete values. I embraced these strengths at a young age and use them to make those around me feel good about themselves in hopes that my positivity will become contagious and a way of life for others. I even realized throughout this class that faith is something that is a huge part of my life. Throughout certain exercises, I often thought of how my faith experience has impacted me and how I view leadership.  

            My closely held values of staying concrete in my faith and what I believe in, trust, and attitude shape how I make everyday decisions in my life. My faith is a way of life for me and my decisions revolve around my views. I believe trust is the foundation and most important aspect of every relationship. I also believe attitude is everything; a positive attitude on life can make each day better just by noticing all the good in life.

            I believe that leadership is a continuous-learning process, as we have seen in this class, for example. For every organization that I will work with, I will consistently form individual relationships with my team before I try to lead them. I will strive to engage and inspire my team by modeling behaviors and actions that I believe are crucial to the success of the organization.

            My philosophy differs now then from the beginning of the class by realizing I need to thrive on my strengths and what I am passionate about to be the more effective leader I can. This directly relates to my leadership philosophy as it is composed of my strengths and what I find passion in. In the beginning of this class, I was too focused on my weaknesses and how that makes me a less effective leader. I am thankful that this class has taught me to leverage my weaknesses by continuously developing my strengths. The takeaways that I learned from this class were very impactful and will stick with me for the rest of my life!

Knowledge is Power

“Knowledge is Power”, I can’t remember what class session is what said in and I want to say that Ashely Gerlach is the one who shared this idea. I always use to think of this phrase as annoying, to be honest. I thought of it in a way that means, “being smarter is better”. I realize though that my interpretation has nothing to do with knowledge is power. I shared in my first blog that I have discovered that learning about leadership is a continuous and ongoing process. There is always something new to learn about leadership. I really appreciate how in this class we have been learning key leadership skills through class exercises instead of just listening to lecture. We learn more when we are actually practicing the skill, but I think we learn the most when we share our ideas with each other. There have been countless times in our class when someone will share their thoughts and I think to myself, “I never thought of it that way.” The more we are able to see leadership from a different side, the more power we have to influence others around us to be the best version of them.

I think power can be looked at in two different ways in leadership. Some look at power in a way that they want to have control over others while others see power as a way to have a positive influence on others. I don’t look at leadership as having power over followers and making them be “robots” and do what I tell them to do; I look at leadership as a way to impact the followers lives. I especially love how we have looked at leadership from a follower’s point of view. The knowledge that I have learned about followers will allow me to influence any followers that I come into contact with in a new way.

I like how the relational model plays off the “Knowledge is Power” idea by having “empowerment” as a key component of the Relational Leadership model. One of my favorite passages from this chapter is, “Power is not finite and indeed can be shared and amplified.” This passage can be viewed by two perspectives. Knowledge is never finite, especially when it comes to leadership, so the more we learn, the more power we have to share. At the same time, the more power is shared and amplified, the greater the outcome is. I believe that the best results are rooted from more than just one source. Collaboration is key and when we share power, others want to do better just because they feel that they now have ownership.

I never thought that a three-word phrase would have such an impact on how I view leadership. I am grateful that Ashley (or whoever shared this) shared this idea with the class because it made me think and reflect. I love that there is always something new to learn about leadership.