Final Reflections on Leadership

            Before trying to formulate all of my experiences from this class into an official philosophy of leadership, I thought it best that I look back to my first blog post of the term, in which I explained what I thought were the most important elements of effective leadership.  In that first blog, I stated that the most important elements of leadership were adaptation, as in a leader's ability to adapt their leadership styles to varying situations and learn from their mistakes, and communication, as in being able to effectively communicate with followers.  Looking back at this now I understand that while these are important leadership elements, understanding leadership goes a lot deeper. 

            After our class discussions and activities, I now have a broader understanding of all the main elements of leadership.  The first two, as I said before, are adaptation and communication; however, there is more to them than I originally explained.  Adaptation means learning from your mistakes, understanding different situational circumstances and adjusting your leadership style accordingly, and lastly, understanding differences in the people you are working with and reacting appropriately.  Communication involves practicing active listening when dealing with followers, providing constant constructive feedback, and making sure that you communicate clear objectives so your group understands your purpose.  The next leadership elements are being inclusive, empowering, and ethical, which I believe are all interconnected.  I believe this because in order to empower your followers, you have to be both inclusive and ethical, as in treating followers with respect, dignity, fairness, and involving them in decision-making processes.  The last element is being mindful of your purpose.  To do this, you have to focus on being process oriented when it comes to short term goals, while avoiding subjecting yourself to tunnel vision, and remembering the big picture and keeping long term goals in mind.  With all these elements in mind, I'd say my philosophy statement describing leadership is this:  Leadership is a multi-dimensional process by which an individual works with others to accomplish a common goal through the use of effective communication, adaptation, empowerment, and the creation of a common purpose.    

            These elements that comprise my leadership philosophy have all been displayed at different times during our activities in this course.  In every activity, we were able to see how important communication is to succeeding as a group, whether that was in a large group setting like during the golf ball pipe activity, or in a one on one setting like during the, well, I can't remember the name of it, but the one with that weird product that we had to assemble over the phone.  We saw how adaptation, empowerment, and having a common purpose were important during the pipe activity as well.  Because there were so many of us trying to work together at the same time, we all had to make adjustments to one another and our different leadership styles.  We saw how when working in a large group it can be easy for some people's opinions can get put aside, which quickly has the opposite effect of empowerment.  Finally, we saw that when we all united behind the common purpose of just trying to get the golf ball through the pipe, we were able to put personal differences aside and came very close to achieving our goal.