As I go through my first semester here at Baylor, I have been blessed with the opportunity to learn a lot about leadership through this course. Throughout my life, I have been put into leadership positions where I have had to learn as I went. I made many mistakes that helped me learn what to do and what not to do as a leader. I had hands-on experience that has been invaluable to me in my current stages of life. However, as a member of the Leadership program at Baylor University, I have gotten to learn about leadership in a way that is very different than I have learned in the past. This way of thinking about leadership has given me the opportunity to really develop who I am as a person and a leader. After learning about several different styles of leadership, the two that have stuck out to me the most are transformational leadership and servant leadership. Transformational leadership is when the leader focuses on their followers and on how to motivate them and encourage them to become the best they can be. I love this because I feel that one of the most important part of being a leader is realizing that your followers come first. Your followers are what make you a leader and make you who you are as a leader. So focusing on your followers and how to best improve them is a vital part of the responsibility of being a leader. This brings me to servant leadership, which is actually very similar to transformational leadership. Servant leadership has the same goal of being involved in the lives of the followers and helping them improve, however, this style focuses a lot more on the service side of things. This particular style focuses on what a leader can do for their followers in order to help them improve or get where they need to be. I think that these two styles go hand in hand and also represent my goals as a leader very well. I hope to be able to develop these styles even more in the coming years of my life so that I can go on to be a leader that people will remember as caring, passionate, and having a servant’s heart.
Category Archives: Development of a Leadership Philosophy
Leadership is Worth A Thousand Words
In this photo collage, I have put together 3 pictures that I feel represent my leadership philosophy well. The top picture is one from my mission trip to China this summer. This picture was taken after an English corner where I was able to share the Gospel with 4 Chinese students. This is part of my leadership philosophy collage because this was a time in my life where I was chosen with a select group of others to go and lead others to Christ in the world. This is something that I actively pursue in my life and will apply it to my leadership style and abilities. The next picture is the one on the bottom left. This is a picture of me serving my community. I absolutely love serving others, especially through community service. This is included in here because I hope to lead by example, as a servant leader does. Part of that is showing that I care for my community very strongly and want to help improve the world. The third picture is last but definitely not least. This picture depicts a single cross standing up tall and proud. This picture represents my faith-centered way of living my life. It clarifies that everything I do has a faith-driven purpose. I want to establish myself as a leader with my roots planted in Christ from the beginning so that everyone can know who I am and what I stand for. I will not deviate from these beliefs no matter who or what tries to get me to do so.
Leadership Diagram
This diagram is a representation of my leadership philosophy and, basically, why I do the things I do. As you look at this diagram, you will notice that “faith” is the core of my life and everything else I do comes from that. The reasons I have for everything I do come from the word of God. He dictates how I should lead my life. I am not going to pretend that I have it all together and live my life perfectly every day because I know I am not and that I do not. However, I do strive for this every day and hope to glorify the Lord with my life, as shown in this diagram.
Why not “Do Something”?
This song came on the radio the other day and I had heard it plenty of times before so I started to sing along to it. However, I did something a little different this time. I started to listen to the words more intently and discovered how powerful of a message this song really carries. The chorus sings “If not us then who? If not me and you? Right now. It’s time for us to do something.” which rings a powerful message of taking initiative and doing something about the pain in the world. This represents great leadership abilities because the leader (in this case, it is Matthew West) in the situation is encouraging people to be leaders in their own communities and do something of worth for them. He wants to see a change in the world and he knows that it cannot simply happen by itself. He is going to DO SOMETHING!