Leadership Course Paper

To define leadership in a mission statement is difficult for me to do.  To truly be a leader, I feel I should be myself and enable my abilities to be used to help others.  An ancillary value is to create a distinctive personality that may have absent during your time period.  This is not an easy task to complete while growing up in a world where I have not been so isolated that nothing has been able to influence me and my thoughts.  My habits and tendencies are an amalgamation of things I am comfortable with and some things that I have seen others experience with positive results.  See the derivative of that route is the man writing the paper but how he is to be defined may not be up to the author.  That was the discussion introduced by Dr. Riggio on whether leaders of born or made (2009).  I still think a mixture is possible being that I was born with the innate abilities to adapt to what was presented and made myself without the direction of authority.  I have drawn from multiple influences and molded myself to what I feel is best to form a responsible human being but I do not know if I can actually be categorized as a leader.  But I can determine my purpose as trying to introduce myself in a new forum with hopeful expectations.  There is a saying that you only get one chance to make a first impression, the missing contingent of that statement is the amount of opportunities you get placed at new scenery.  I feel every occasion is the time where I can be hopeful about what it may bring.  This allows me to optimistically present myself as a positive entity to an environment that was not previously aware of my presence.  It is also a genderless aspiration which can fall to all the assignment discussed in the Paradoxes of Gender written by Dr. Lorber in 1994.

In becoming a leader, I can lead with a good image of self and to further develop that concept is an around the clock job.  This coincides with the values I chose to be important from the list on www.stevepavlina.com.  Deference, excellence, peace, realism, resourcefulness and warm-heartedness were my choices since they are important to who I am and who I want to be.  Deference is important to understand what has come before you and to have a certain level of respect for others.  Being a leader is more than what you can be on your own but how you interact with others as well.  Appreciating others is a characteristic that can be enjoyed by more than the person you directly express it to.  Excellence in academic standards would be great.  Accentuating the best and highest qualities you have is just as significant for leading.  I feel peace is essential as a component to maintain stability.  Stability with peace is conducive to both one’s sanity and being able to participate with society in a productive manner.  Realism is vital to being authentic and touching the lives of others.  One can become known with exaggerated accomplishments and falsified tales but the imagined persona may not last very long without credibility.  Realism allows the facts to simply be what they are.  Then those who value that can tell the tale and enable one to receive recognition of some sort.  Resourcefulness comes from the old saying that a wise man not only knows the answers but knows how to find the ones he does not.  I am an avid user of the dictionary, the thesaurus, the encyclopedia or Wikipedia and the internet to find information that I do not know.  At this point it has exceeded doing this for research for a school assignment but also for anytime I hear or see something that I just want new information on.  Constantly learning and increasing my personal intellect is a goal of mine as well.  Lastly, there is warm-heartedness.  Besides being an intellect, I would be thankful to be construed as loving and kind.  It is very important to me to be a decent person and that falls in line with the personality type.  These are crucial to how I see myself and what I would like to be seen as by others. 

The surveys report completed for this assignment divulge that I have a very democratic leadership style as well as high to very high administrative, interpersonal and conceptual skills.  I am pleased with the results of leadership style as opposed to receiving a high score for authoritarian and laissez-faire.  Democratic is not exactly in the middle but it is somewhere between being incredibly controlling and extremely relaxed.  It promotes cooperation and interactive dialogue when determining what the best course of action should be.  Getting high scores in each of the skill categories is something I am proud of.  To me, this says I have a wide range of ability.  If I am able to show a natural cognition for managing situations, connecting with people and creative ideas then I have a good foundation for what I can do going forward.  The last survey concludes I use avoidance to minimize the conflicts I have encountered.  Now this I must say is absolutely true.  At this point of my life, I believe in allowing individuals to basically be who they are.  When I clash with someone in a negative way, my first response is to remove myself before contesting them over who is right or wrong.  I am not so rigid that I am stuck in my ways but I do not see myself attempting to do much competing.  Nor I am very willing to compromise, accommodate and collaborate with people that I have already went through problems with especially if they were the cause and instigator of it.  That may not be the best way to resolve an issue but it is an accurate summation of what I have done so far.

After reviewing the Frostburg State University Leadership Competency Model, I identify my strengths to be developing a sense of purpose and understanding and influencing culture.  Developing a sense of purpose is constantly on my mind.  I try to remain doing something constructive and positive the majority of the time.  When there is an obvious lull or missing activity, I begin contemplating about what I need to do next.  This was the synopsis of Dr. Holba’s idea of leisure leadership (2011).  See I should go beyond being current to attempting to get ahead by filling the void with creativity in a way.  This can apply to both short-term and long-term planning as I devise a plan to moving forward from whatever my current circumstance might be.  Understanding culture is also something I am capable of.  From a positive and negative aspect, I can get a genuine sense for my surrounding atmosphere.  When I am the genesis of the positivity then I think I can exhibit influence and have a similar impact.  If it is negative then it would just be the opposite.  My weaknesses seem to be building and maintaining relationships and facilitating group processes.  I find it difficult creating and continuing lasting relationships of any kind.  To give a concrete reason on why that is means I should be able to correct it.  However, I cannot provide a definitive cause but I always know when it is going to happen again.  It could be my passive nature that allows the relationship to run its course rather than making it go in a direction through force.  I also have trouble with facilitating group activities in a productive way for everyone.  To do this properly I think someone should be able to include each member of the group to perform what they feel best at to make the task easier for all members of the collective.  That idea usually results in me picking up the proverbial slack and filling in whatever is missing on my own.  I would take on more than my fair share but we are still seen as equal members by the end of it.  The valuable lesson learned is that if one person does not want the group to fail then they will do what is necessary.  This can be a form of leadership or the captain going down with the ship.  That does not correspond to the group project of this course but it has happen before and I already assume it will again.

I may not be very competent when it comes to communicating during conflict as my initial response is to withdraw from the situation as stated earlier.  This is either my greatest weakness or strength I just do not know which yet.  In times of conflict, I do not envision myself as the agitator or aggressor as to not inflame the problem further.  For me it is less about repairing then it is to find something else that is less strenuous to be suitably compatible.  Conflict stems from there being a difference that begins the practice of disagreement and separation.  I choose to avoid the process of mending and rather just begin again with something new.  This would be seen as an overt shortcoming by Niccolo Machiavelli.  Machiavelli indirectly alleges that even honorable men must deviate from their natural self to engage in combat with his enemy (1505).  The fact that I do not choose to do that will eventually lead to my defeat.  However for some reason I feel the compromise of character is not a battle worth fighting either.

Two examples that I feel exemplify leadership ethics are making the choice to be good and attempting to remain natural.  Making the choice to be good is inherently ethical.  This is like the clichés of being the bigger man and taking the high road.  You should not have to compromise your morality for a choice between good and evil or right and wrong.  And that transitions to being natural.  Legitimacy and remaining within your own scope of reality is incorporated into my model of leadership. 

Alfred Nobel once said that “contentment is the only real wealth” (unknown).  This statement means more than life is about happiness.  It can describe contentment as accepting and being grateful for what you have.  We can always crave more than what we have already attainted.  The wisdom is in the reason of the pursuit.  Is the quest based on gluttony or a different source of personal fulfillment?  I use this statement to decide what is vital to me and how to conduct myself in daily activities.  I always feel the need to improve who I am and better myself but I can also look in the mirror and smile about how far I have come already.  To me it is a process that should not have an end instead of a mission to reach a certain status. 

Five goals I am working towards in my career and life are becoming a college graduate, gaining advanced knowledge of my chosen discipline, establishing a reputation of an honorable and trustworthy person, being perceived as good in as many ways as that can be defined and introducing myself with hopeful expectations in every opportunity I have.  I am very near to my first goal of being a college graduate.  As I am writing this letter, I am in good standing in all of my courses and hopefully nothing will cause immediate deviation from that path.  After that, I plan to enter into graduate school to gain further insight of the discipline that is Computer Science.  Before I liked learning about the topics and concepts but I did not necessarily enjoy the process it takes to perform.  Now I have a greater appreciation for coding and the intricate art behind programming.  And I look forward to the Master’s program for a higher platform for thought on what is possible in this craft.  Something that is very important for my future is generating a better reputation.  Dr. Ulrich says that “history isn’t just what happens in the past.  It is what later generations choose to make of it” in her book Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History (2007).  There are many opinions and each is credible to those that support and believe it.  I want to get to a point where people cannot say certain things about me.  Instead of me addressing or clearing rumors, I want those types of thoughts to not even be possible because of the reverence I am justified to have.  That agrees with being good from the majority’s viewpoint.  There are a lot of titles a person can be given but good is enough for me to have from anyone’s perspective.  The alternative to that is bad or evil which I would gladly avoid.  And trying to introduce myself in a new forum with hopeful expectations sounds corny but I cannot reiterate it enough.  It is a goal of mine and will always be.  I do not think I can ever get tired of trying to do it correctly and I may never feel that I have done it enough.  In that case, practice only makes perfect and I am not close to perfection.

Being that graduation will hopefully occur within the year, I simply hope to have experienced that achievement.  Five years from that moment, I hope to have a graduate degree and a deeper appreciation for my field and chosen craft.  Over the next five years, I want to have a master’s degree in Computer Science and have much further advanced lexicon and portfolio of what I am capable of within this field.  Another goal I have for the near future is marriage.  I do not know where to start and I do not know when it will happen but maybe if I just begin the process of wanting it and thinking about it for the right reasons something will guide my steps in the right direction.  I feel love is something a person can find, develop and not only grow with but grow into it for another.  It has not happen for me yet but I would relish just what it takes to reach there.

Two obstacles that I anticipate going forward are the depreciation of who I am being a minority whose presence in society is not welcomed everywhere in addition to the challenge of being consistently beyond passable in a world where simply being satisfactory may not be sufficient.  I am not a minority is the sense of race but in the context of not becoming an obvious member of the conforming populace.  Sometimes I feel my value as a human being is dropping day after day.  It is somewhat like a stock.  Before encountering any racism or prejudice, there is growing competition among our own ranks to try to reach the next level.  There are times where we turn on each other and then complain that another race has replicated a similar act.  I face the constant clash of upholding a standard that I feel is necessary against whatever anyone else thinks is needed to get by.  Therefore my overall value is diminished as roles are amply filled with others who eagerly destroy people to build themselves.  The second part of that is to know what is good enough.  No matter what industry you are in, there is always a place for excellence.  The best you can do is not acceptable anymore with so many people readily available to replace you at any cost.  Loyalty is less valuable than talent and love is fighting with accessibility.  We find ourselves less content with where we are which leads to an inherited lack of satisfaction.  There is always something newer, bigger and better than whatever was previous.  It is only a matter of time before my services are no longer needed.