My Personal Leadership Style: Theory And Decision Making

According to dictionary.com leadership is defined as, the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a group: Its synonyms include guidance, influence, control, direction and supervision. These are all qualifications that are needed to be an effective leader. All characteristics are not necessarily needed at the same time and do no need to be used for each subordinate. This paper will identify my personal leadership philosophy along with theories to support my leadership style.

As a graduate student approaching her final semester in school, thoughts regarding my leadership abilities in the soon-to-be “real world” have occupied my mind lately. To further explore and develop my ideas about leadership, I decided to develop my personal leadership theory. So, I asked myself the following questions: What makes a successful leader? How do you recognize a leader when you meet one?, and lastly, what is my theory of leadership? With this last question I thought about what leadership meant to me personally and how I personified it in a role of authority. While I had given thought to how I led, I had rarely taken the time to fully understand what my personal leadership theory entailed. Throughout the length of this paper I will analyze how my leadership skills, traits, values and elements from both Authentic Transformational theories help me to shape my leadership philosophy. In doing so I hope to define the leadership values that influence the way I view and practice leadership.

Phase 1 of the Personal Leadership Philosophy Paper presented the opinion and supporting information establishing that; leaders are products of opportunity, birth and environment, but of these; opportunity influences great leadership the most. Furthermore, it was discussed that assigned leadership is a cancer to corporate America and this point is illustrated in the following example. While employed at Deloitte and Touché Consulting Group (DNT) we engaged ARCO, a major oil and gas company, to develop and implement an email migration strategy that consisted of 1200 Arco users at their subsidiary company, Vaster Resources Inc. In the initial meeting we were introduced to a gentleman, we will call John Smith for the purposes of this paper,

My personal leadership philosophy reflects a desire to develop subordinates and create an efficient, purpose driven environment. A leader must create a clear vision which followers can understand in order to meet all the requirements of their unit. A leader must lead with the end in sight creating goal driven activity. I believe the way to measure the success of a leader is through the success of their subordinate leaders. Therefore, a leader must constantly develop their subordinate leaders. Passion drives success making it essential for a leader to create buy-in to their plan at every level. It is inevitable that a leader will have to make correction and in order for this to have a positive influence on the organization the correction must be clear, quick, and recoverable. My personal leadership philosophy focuses on these three main points; care for Soldiers, clear vision, development of subordinates, and positive corrective practices.

Philosophy is "the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge or conduct."(Stuart Berg Flexner and Lenore Crary Hauck, 1993). Leadership is the process of influencing others to accomplish the mission by providing purpose, direction, and motivation. Command is the authority a person in the military service lawfully exercises over subordinates by virtue of his rank and assignment or position.(FM 6-22) My leadership philosophy has been developing thru my Army career. I have use the NCO creed as a pillar for my Leadership philosophy. The outcome of my performance is a direct reflects of my subordinates. My ideas will not always the best, that is why my Soldiers have a open door to provide any feedback.

The path to a personal leadership philosophy is made up of three parts. Each individual aspect is a facet of a complete whole. Much like a timeline that includes a past, present and future, my personal philosophy consists of a foundation, action, and growth. If you do not understand where your foundation of leadership came from, you will have problems acting in a leadership capacity. Also if don’t pay attention to how you are acting as a leader you cannot know in what ways you need to grow. Why should I spend the time and effort in developing myself as a leader? The Gunner’s Mate rating has a strength of just over 600 members. Maritime Force Protection Unit Kings Bay has 31 Gunner’s Mates assigned to it. I have a full five percent of the Gunner’s Mates in the Coast Guard that I lead. During my four year assignment at MFPU Kings Bay, approximately 55 Gunner’s mates (9.2 percent) will have been under my leadership. I see that as an enormous responsibility. As a young Gunner’s Mate I saw my senior leadership as people capable of effecting great change on the rating. Now today I am in the position to have that same impact.

"Where there is no community, trust, respect, ethical behavior, it is difficult for the young to learn and from the old to maintain" (Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002, p. 68). The founder of servant leadership, Robert K Greenleaf; believes that every person ought to own values that could support and guide others. Greenleaf 's theory "the servant leader is a servant first; it begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve" (Dierendonck & Patterson, 2010). In order to serve, people must comprehend values, which are a person 's ethics of behavior shaping his or her vision. In addition, values could be distinct from taking the survey created by Milton Rokeach; which consists of the most important morals and beliefs and how it influences people, organizations, and society (Johnston, 1995). Furthermore, servant leaders have personal models of leadership; which are the advancement of personal growth and values. My personal model of leadership reflects and creates a purpose on my values and belief, which are trust, responsibility, equality and loving; demonstrating how it impacts an individual, interpersonal, organizational and societal. In conclusion, once people comprehend their value and decide their personal model it will define them as a servant leader because it does not matter if it is today or tomorrow, the values will then have the same principles (Lee, Fabish & McGaw, 2005).

My father once told me that, “everything we do— be it in academia, at work, social or family life—we are guided by principles, beliefs and values that collectively form our ideology of life.” I believe that every leader, to a certain extent, is shaped through her individual personal experience. Although in some cases, we may not realize to what extent our personal assumptions and beliefs shape our ability to lead or be led.

Before this lecture and assignment I never gave it thought about different leadership styles and what type I have or will deal with in the past, present, and future. This paper also gave me chance to break down how I’m a different leader depending on what situation I’m put in. As of right now it would be difficult trying to put my leadership style because I’m always in different positon that allow be that to specific leader. Right now I’m in a great position that allow me to lead other in the direction that benefit them and the

Leaders are some of the most influential individuals in any society. They have the ability to influence those around them with various leadership styles including coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. Effective leaders consistently adapt to the environment around them to either enhance or correct any situation facing them. Within these leadership styles the most effective style has been considered that of the authoritative style. This style brings individuals together, builds self-confidence, and easily adapts to the environment around it.

According to Schwartz (1997), Goizueta joined Coca-Cola at a time when the company was in trouble. Slowed by bureaucracy and with an eroding stock price, the beverage maker was slowly loosing its market share to rivals like Pepsi. An inspirational leader, Goizueta was able to turnaround the beverage maker and before his exit, the company had become one of the most recognizable brands in the world. His managerial style as Rowe and Guerrero (2010) point out was more intellectual than hands-on.

Leadership is dynamic, charismatic and fragile all rolled up into one. There are many words that describe leadership and leadership is defined differently by all. As I sit and type this paper I realized the date, 28 Aug. On this date 10 years ago, I was thrust into a roll that would define my leadership style. Hurricane Katrina made land fall over the city of New Orleans (NOLA) on 28 Aug 2005, this storm created havoc and destruction never before seen in the United States. I was in charge of 12 Coast Guardsman and 3 Coast Guard Airboats in which we would crew. Upon arrival in NOLA we were joined up with the 82nd Airborne Division and assigned 12 Scouts from the 2/505 platoon. These men were on the heels of returning from battle overseas and had been home for less than 30 days. Again these soldiers were thrust into action, but now they had a completely different mission. Joining forces with the Coast Guard and conducting door to door urban search and rescue was now the priority. Over the next 27 days we all grew to trust and count on one another and from the deplorable conditions in which we all suffered it lead to my leadership philosophy.

My personal leadership philosophy is based upon a few core values that I follow. I live by honesty, hard work, loyalty, and strong support and care for family and friends. Some of the key attributes of a good leader are: providing direction and guidance, inspiring followers to always do their best, show courage and confidence to stand up for your beliefs, have a passion and commitment for what you are doing. A good leader will share their vision of success with the group and make sure everyone understands the direction that they need to go in. The leader needs to make sure that each member knows their expectations and how important their efforts are in reaching the goals of the organization. This means that a leader must empower others to have a sense of ownership for their work. This is accomplished by giving clear goals and objectives and then giving them the freedom to complete their objectives without micro managing them. Another leadership trait is the ability to motivate and inspire the group. The leader needs to be the spark that ignites inspiration and passion for the job. This can be accomplished by positive reinforcement while rewarding and recognizing good results. Good leaders will always lead by example and demonstrate the values of honesty and integrity. There is no grey line between what is right and wrong. To me honesty is being truthful to others while keeping your uprightness of character. It is matching what you say with what you do. A leader will always

I’m predisposed to this leadership theory or style because of its consideration for awareness of the element(s) of reality, that is, life experiences and some other factors, and the adaptability to each environment one finds self. This leadership theory presents itself with the understanding that organizations are different from one to another, and as a result of the differences in structures and the kinds of people that can be found around organizations; the most important leadership capability is the ability to adapt to the environment. There is no one style that fits all, but this style helps to better lead as there are times when one may need to exact authority and at some other time, one would need to show humility. Because we all come from different backgrounds, have difference life experiences and different role models, our values, preferences and priorities become shaped over the course of lifetime. Instead of trying to fit into expectations of people about what a

My leadership style is about how I treat under me with respect, approachable and willing to listen with different suggestions in decision making. I want to have a cooperative teamwork, little supervision, and motivation with professionalism. There is always room for training in developing skills and expertise and encouragement to go above and beyond.