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Marine Corps 14 Leadership Traits

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Beginning in late August of 2016, my life changed completely because it finally had purpose in it. Since joining the ERAU Battalion, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a Navy and Marine Corps Officer. Other than getting physically more fit in terms relative to combat with the Marine Option Platoon, I have also learned a whole lot about leadership styles, actions, and techniques used to motivate your subordinates. Since there is a wide variety of leadership terms and procedures, I chose to evaluate my leadership strengths and weaknesses with the Marine Corps’ 14 Leadership Traits: JJ DID TIE BUCKLE. I feel that this can be used as a good foundation for any leader to develop and enhance their skills. Additionally, I will also be …show more content…

Identifying my leadership weaknesses was easier for me to identify than my leadership strengths, especially in the Marine Option Platoon, as my single mistakes caused the failure for the whole platoon. For me it then became a game of not being the first person to mess up so that no one could blame me for everyone being punished. Even through this petit game, I learned what worked best for me, leadership wise, and what I need work on. Based upon the 14 Marine Corps leadership traits, my worst leadership trait is by far knowledge. I learned from day one that I was a whole step behind everyone else when it comes to military knowledge for both present information and historical matters. My plan of action to improve this leadership weakness has shifted between my freshman and sophomore years thus far. During my freshman year, I chose to ask as much as possible while memorizing the knowledge. That was not effective as I thought it would be. This year I decided to write everything down into my notebook and review it weekly. This has worked a whole lot more thus far since I write it, see it, and read it. Another leadership weakness that I have is confidence in knowing what to say in front of a large group of people, or people I don’t personally know. This is not because I am …show more content…

One such leadership strength is initiative. I am always looking around for something to do, complete, or work on. This is mainly because I’m a kinesthetic leaner and I like to do everything hands on. When I get bored, I start cleaning something. When I see a task that needs to get done, I start promptly. This can be a great trait and a sometimes a bad one as well. Some processes need to wait to get done because of a part that has been ordered or something along those lines. However, I feel the need to work on it any way even though I know it needs time before it can be completed. There are several examples within NROTC related events where I have done this as well. Overall though, this is one of my strongest leadership traits. Another leadership strength I have is unselfishness. This has become one of my strengths mainly because of my parents. They have always sacrificed anything for anyone at any expense. I’ve been taught to always put yourself below everyone else when performing a task. By doing this I get to do most of the work on a group project or for planning a Battalion function. However, this does have its pros and cons for me. The pro is that I get to stay busy by doing work. The con is that I end up doing most of the work which ends up forcing me to complete time sensitive tasks with hardly any time at all to ever complete them. My third and final leadership strength is integrity. I have always said what I

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