This leadership class has been very beneficial in helping me look at myself and see what type of leader I am and what type of leader that I want to be and how I can become it. The surveys and evaluations, including StrengthsQuest and the Leadership Performance Inventory. These tools right away helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses that I possessed as a leader. This helped me write my own leadership philosophy. I am hoping to build off of my philosophy even after the class has ended.
From StrengthsQuest, I learned that my five strengths are achiever, competition, strategic, positivity, and woo. Before this test, I would have agreed with achiever and positivity. But I would not have guessed the other three. After reading the definitions and talking about them in class to understand them more, then I began to agree and see why those three would be in my top five. Just by taking a simple quiz, I was able to learn more about myself and learn the ways that I lead best. I also liked how we got to talk and interact with others in class that did not have the same strengths and they were able to explain to us how they best exemplified those strengths and helped us understand how they work best.
One of the activities that I really liked in class was the one where we were put into three groups and each group had a person that was blindfolded in the square and as a group we had to maneuver the blindfolded person around objects so they could pick up the objects designated for our group. I felt like this activity truly exemplified being a leader. As a group, we had to work together amid the chaos that was other groups directing their person as well as the objects inside the square. That is how most situations can go. We have to work together if we want to accomplish difficult tasks.
Overall, I enjoyed this class and the new things it taught me about leadership and about myself. I have used some of the tactics that we have learned in class and applied them to my current jobs. I think that I am a better leader now and will continue to grow as a leader as I use the leadership styles we learned in class and apply them to my positions in life.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Monday, April 11, 2016
Peck's Theory
When thinking about a sense of community that I have been involved in, I think about the sports team that I have been apart of. From the beginning of the season to the end, the team is always trying to become closer and create a sense of a community, or team in this matter, that greatly aligns with Peck's theory. The team goes through a process to ultimately achieve their goals. I will reference my senior year of basketball as the community.
The first stage, the pseudo community, the team is in offseason training and we begin to see who the leaders will be. My senior year, we had six seniors and for a basketball team, that is a lot of one team. Along with the seniors, we had four juniors that had played varsity the previous year. The year before, our record was not what we were expecting. So our senior year, we really pushed ourselves and that helped us come together more as a group and a unit. I would say that the chaos stage occurred during our second conference game. We had been thinking that we could win a conference championship and that we had the team to do it. However, we lost our second conference game to a team that we definitely should not have lost to and the next night we almost lost to a team that we were better than. At this point, we could either give into each other fighting and bickering or we could regroup and refocus on what our goals were as a team. We chose the second option and that is where the third stage comes in. We came together as a team and had a team meeting. After that meeting we went on to have a great season and win the conference championship, our first in basketball in over 30 years.
Not only did we bring our team together as an authentic community, but the actual community came together behind us. Our games were packed every night with people that may not have seen a game in years. We felt good knowing that we had the community behind us and that by us coming together and not only winning games, but winning them as a team, we could bring so many people together. The game truly was bigger than ourselves.
The first stage, the pseudo community, the team is in offseason training and we begin to see who the leaders will be. My senior year, we had six seniors and for a basketball team, that is a lot of one team. Along with the seniors, we had four juniors that had played varsity the previous year. The year before, our record was not what we were expecting. So our senior year, we really pushed ourselves and that helped us come together more as a group and a unit. I would say that the chaos stage occurred during our second conference game. We had been thinking that we could win a conference championship and that we had the team to do it. However, we lost our second conference game to a team that we definitely should not have lost to and the next night we almost lost to a team that we were better than. At this point, we could either give into each other fighting and bickering or we could regroup and refocus on what our goals were as a team. We chose the second option and that is where the third stage comes in. We came together as a team and had a team meeting. After that meeting we went on to have a great season and win the conference championship, our first in basketball in over 30 years.
Not only did we bring our team together as an authentic community, but the actual community came together behind us. Our games were packed every night with people that may not have seen a game in years. We felt good knowing that we had the community behind us and that by us coming together and not only winning games, but winning them as a team, we could bring so many people together. The game truly was bigger than ourselves.
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