My personal leadership style and leadership philosophy have been in the process of developing for basically my entire life. However, only within the last year or so have I really examined myself as a leader and what leadership means to me. My leadership class this semester has encouraged this examination because it exposes me to an abundance of different styles of leadership and different ways of thinking about leadership. When I first began the course, I felt that the trait approach to leadership was most likely the right one because I loved to think that people are innately born with the characteristics of a “leader”. However, as I learned about other approaches and styles and really pondered leadership, I discovered that I hold leadership to be something deeper than just a set of innate qualities or characteristics.
I wrote a detailed “journal” entry about my leadership philosophy and mission a few weeks ago, which I posted on the Reflections page of my blog. In short, my mission statement was this: “My mission is to better myself so that others may see encouragement and inspiration in me. In this way, I can touch many lives around me while continuing to grow.” My leadership philosophy is based upon the theory of transformational leadership, which is also discussed on this blog on the Leadership Theories page. I believe that leadership is something that begins with you. You must first be comfortable with yourself and who you are before you can truly lead and influence people. Leadership is about taking the raw material of a person and helping them to grow and become strong leaders that will make a difference.
This diagram describes how all of these pieces are a part of my leadership philosophy. Ethics, beliefs, and morals are important because those things are my foundation. Everything I do, I do because of what I believe and the values I have. Similarly, personal experiences are important to my leadership philosophy because they have provided me with the knowledge I have now. My dad use to say that “people are products of their own experiences”. I know that is very true for me because my experiences have shaped how I look at the world. Confidence is important to my leadership because I feel that to be a good leader you need to be confident in who you are and your ability to lead and transform your followers. Finally, communication is an integral part of my leadership philosophy because in order to establish a good and effective leader-follower relationship there has to be excellent communication between everyone involved.