Module 9 - Conclusion

My original definition of leadership is an action by a person or group of people to revolutionize change within parameters of practical circumstances to improve or transform into a new reality. Instead of identifying leadership as an action, I would refer to leadership as process a person or group of people establishes. Learning about the various theories of leadership helps me conceptualize leadership that involves fundamentals of context, self and others. Leaders must assess skills they believe are needed for effective leadership being that, the most important would be to engage with followers on the how they perceive their leadership and adjust as necessary. I think leaders should explore different leadership approaches to be a well versed to lead in any type of environment, seeing any obstacle from more than just their own perspective of leadership, to adapt to changes that may affect them personally and the organization. 

There is no universal definition of leadership, but, there must be common bound forged between leaders the signify concepts that could measure effective leadership, and performance success because of strong leadership. My own view of leadership prior to this class was that there were only two kinds of leadership approaches. The two were transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership was the easy to comprehend since most businesses I support are all about, “did we make our numbers” and profits. You can’t help but to admire the business models of big corporations like Walmart and how their leadership models have changed as they expanded into other countries. Sometimes your organization model must prioritize factors that were otherwise not priorities at your home base, for example the problem based (PBL) learning the East Asia for Walmart to consider. 

The type of leader I aspire to be, is one that allows for growth of followers to exceed my own. I would like followers perceptions to be assessed periodically, engage follower’s to participate in the decision making process, be supportive and coach followers to factor in the external environment. My advice to followers as a leader would be to always investigate your own reasoning when making a decision, who it impacts, seeing from another perceptive and explain to someone else the process, in addition to how you came to the result. One of my weakness is not bragging enough about myself and work ethic when it comes time to brag during an interview or opportunity for promotions. I would like to advise others to practice finding a balance between humility and egoism.

When a new person joins the team, I try not to convince them of the way I view current work environment problems and process they are about to experience when learning a new job, just support them to learn as they practice, keeping them informed of standard operations, and sharing a few examples that have helped me. Sometimes, I noticed for some, my approach doesn’t work, as they need reassurance they are going in the right directions, with a select few who needs everything shown to them before they do anything. 

As I grow as a leader, I would like to express more frequently how I’m able to adjust my leadership approach for some follower’s to reach their goals, and lay out goals for the team to meet. I want to harness the power, to expand the thought that all followers can be leaders, to reach back to not expand on things others leaders have started and to not forget to share their lessons learned to those willing to lead after them.   

Module 7 - Inner Work

I think of my education as an opportunity to prepare for the real world. Practically speaking, we are in the real world, therefore, what is the real purpose? As my elder’s would say, “you must understand were you been to know where you are going”, and that’s concept of inner work, to determine what path to travel in life. Some people believe their path is already laid out, you just have to see it. While others think to do what you can now and somehow it all come together. My thoughts are that every person in the world has a purpose and question “Will they every find it or not”?

My thoughts expressed above has once changed, similar to literature on the purpose of higher education. Such occurrences or experiences have caused me to pause and evaluate ways to align with how I perceive myself. Schultz (2008) reflected in her research the purpose of higher education is to change one’s capital, as in chains their physical, economic, financial, social, cultural, human and/or intellectual capital (p. 69). Schultz (2008) touched on literature acknowledging  aim of colleges, including Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693), and Yale (1701) was originally to educate the clergy. Columbia University's objectives in 1754 included the study of nature in relation to God, while Cambridge University was originally created to train clerks to serve the King of England (p. 68). When Bill George elaborated on what kind of inner work is needed for authentic leaders, I felt he was generally speaking of gaining self-awareness that I found interesting to react by saying “we all start somewhere, and usually it starts with our societal interactions”.  

I have read in popular media that the most influential childhood ages are between 3-7 years old. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, at the pre-operational stage (2-7), children gain knowledge through imaginary play (Ghazi, Khan, Shahzada, & Ullah. 2014, p. 71).. They try to use their senses and acquire opinion of other people (Ghazi et. al, 2014, p. 71), in addition to objective morality where the child’s sense of right and wrong (and the amount of guilt that comes with it) is determined by the amount of damage that has been done, not the intent or the motivation behind the action (Hurley, n.d, para. 5).

At ages 2-7, we start going down a path to become more self-aware but not ready to internalize the moral perspective. I learned at an early age, its not always good to follow the crowd. I almost got caught up enjoying something only because my friends enjoyed it. Every year, the 4th graders put on the Nutcracker, a annual even. Children are selected to be dance performers such as like bakers, arabian dancers, candy canes, sugar plum fairies etc. I was picked to be an arabian dancer like my friends, putting work into the moves, only to find out after a few rehearsals, they just wanted the role because of the outfits. I decided from then on any decisions I make to be committed to the entire role, not just a piece of it. I continued to grow, still following some of my friends but learning to internally process the reason for my participation, rather I ended up doing it or not. 

As I grew, I learned to communicate outwardly, leaning on my intuition, because during a high school field trip, following my peers off the bus in a line, I felt a sudden urge to stop, and when I did a bus moved right in front of me. I thought for a second, wow that could have gone differently as I happened to be moving from behind my bus view mirror before stopping. The teacher at the time was caught up in a conversation not looking my way, therefore, I was on my own. Just like an authentic leader, attributes and components focus on self awareness, self-efficacy. I’m a fan of borrowed experiences and what I mean by that is, I can take someones word about a situation to assess my decision without a physical experience. Borrowed experiences to me is honest feedback. 

I believe honest feedback can come from close family, friends or strangers. I rather feedback from a close family and friends because they know you longer, but I have noticed that I can tell a strange more, because you don’t have worry about them perceiving you differently being you just met them. Usually I exchange numbers with a few strangers depending on the conversation but as soon as we converse a few times after, then I don’t hear from them anymore. 

I typically recall stories with strangers that are significant because of shared experiences with  family I would bring them up in a story, as if we do know each other. When I express too much I offer some relational transparency, expressing real motives. 

Furthermore, I'm becoming more self-aware to be more authentic, exhibiting attributes of an authentic leader. It’s natural for me to gravitate to other leadership approaches but I feel more connected at this stage of my life to be more authentic, understanding my next steps in this life journey.  I have practiced approaches such as mediating to incorporate the inner work of internalizing moral perspective, balanced processing and self-awareness to enhanced my leadership abilities to be more transparent. Putting my inner work as a priority is easily said then done. It’s important to be consistent, and I lack the consistency at times because it’s encouraged in our society to show the work, rather than the inner work.

Ghazi, S. R., Khan, U. A., Shahzada, G., & Ullah, K. (2014). Formal operational stage of piaget's cognitive development theory: An implication in learning mathematics. Journal of Educational Research, 17(2), 71-84. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1786828918?accountid=27203

Hurley, A. (n.d.). Cognitive Development: Overview - Saylor. Retrieved September 25, 2016, from http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/psych406-5.3.pdf

Schultz, J. L. (2008). Purpose of college: Integrative literature review. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 24(2), 68-76. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/217770583?accountid=27203

Module 6 - Leader from the Past

There is one leader who set my career path in motion. My third grade science teacher, Ms. Young, exhibited transformational leadership, helping me transform with a self determined sense of identity. She was more of an introvert intellect, confident about her style (natural not too flashy fashion) and joyful personality to teach others. At times, I would stay behind in her class to feed the animals, help post up artwork in the class, thinking I can’t wait until tomorrow.

She was nurturing, breaking us into small groups, engaging with the us, even taking out outside the classroom which to me was good enough because who wants to stay in one place for more than 3 hours. She was attentive to our needs taking time to review concepts that were challenging and then encouraging us to take the lead. For example, expanding our values at home, being open to exploring and learning nature to understand the impacts of nature. She gave us accolades for our work, something my parents till this day have saved my artwork no matter how bad or good it was since grade school.

She showed us the beauty of nature. I love the smell of the outdoors after the rain, and I’m not usually fearful of the bugs that come out afterwards. She communicated the expectations to the class, using emotional appeal of awe with tactical learning. Learning by practice gave me inspirational motivation to go forward to pursue further intellectual stimulation beyond her class. For example, I choose to making my final science project on the study of earthworms exchange of gas and longevity, combining what I learned from her class with the current teacher at the time. At one point, I wanted to be scientist because of all the knowledge gained from plants and species, I thought what a great way to spend your life studying your environment. 

I stuck more to the technical side of science, transitioning to engineering because more clubs/societies were created and combined together as science clubs. I was encourage to join because of my science teacher who created a supportive climate, engaging with my parents on my progress in the class and helping me recognize my potential much like another teacher later on. My 6th grade teacher,Ms. Harris, passed out a test for the class to complete about civilization through centuries. After grading, she passed them out visibility frustrated, and before handing me my test, she made an announcement to the class telling everyone I was only person to score 100. Talk about pressure and getting stares from friends, complementing me on my studies, and since then I can’t recall if I maintain satisfactory grades or not. 

Overall, I wanted to emulate Ms. Young, at one point I didn’t want to leave her class. She will always have great respect and credit to my educational development.

Module 5- Mid-Term Reflection

I interpret Talglam’s ideas that leading is about promoting develop. From the six theories discussed in the class, only two stand out that center around the development of follower, and those are path to goal theory and Leader Member Exchange (LMX). Neither of these theories I have heard of before taking the class. The other theories such as trait, skill, situational theory centers around the development of leader skills to assess and lead accordingly. With no doubt these conductors Talgam discusses have the skills to be in the podium, but the execution, in other words how their message gets across are different. 

Whalen (2007) stated, communication does not happy in your mind; it materialized in the other person mind (p. 13). I also recall about 55% of communication is through body language. Each conductors interpretation of how to lead was different with the first clip of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the conducts fingers were jiving with the movement of his wrist and a smile on his face.  When asking the audience about him Talgam (2009) stated he was happy and the important thing is this happiness does not come from only his own story and his joy of the music (03:16). Talgam (2009)  continued the joy is about enabling other people’s stories to be heard at the same time (03:16). 

Majuru & Grigore (2015) examined a comparatively analyze, at a distance of centuries, gestures and examples of good practice regarding the social mechanism by means of which a young person might be calibrated into a leader of his / her generation and presents several performance models that may contribute to the development of those leaders that society needs so much (p. 161).  Leaders can give anything up, but responsibility (Majuru & Grigore, 2015, p. 161). Talgam’s interpretation of the second conductor, Muti’s, style was commanding and a bit over clear. I interpret this as the directive style of leadership and when asked Muti, stated he is responsible for telling the only story to be told as he understands it. Furthermore, I believe as a leader its okay to be clear, but manage it enough to know at some point your vision can be reached but not in the way sometimes that is in your control. The LMX theory leadership making in three stages and it seems Muti and how others believed to be stuck in the stranger phase. Muti lacked opennesses, but had conscientiousness, two of the big five personalities from the trait approach. Leaders must acknowledge they receive knowledges as much as the followers are building up theirs and should leave some things for the follower to control so the leader can level up their knowledge. In my experience, I have seen leaders engage followers at the same time they are taking in new information. This is encouraging but at the same time the leaders momentum to lead slows to moderate neuroticism and then falls into delegating to a point the leader then moves into another role. I started to think about that as Talgam introduced the third conductor.

This conductor was intriguing because his concern was more about the ensemble listening to each other, and he conducts closing his eyes at times. Talgam then flashed back to the first conductor, Kleiber, with his bold moves, Talgam (2009) interpreting that he his opening a space for another layer of interpreting (12:49). He goes on further to talk about partner building. Muti was ask to resign do to the lack their of from his orchestras interpretation of them as partners but as instruments when they are much more. Leaders must acknowledge space for growth and error. I’m a strong believer in learning from mistakes and when Talgam played a few instances of the Kleiber eyes moved when a soloist didn’t perform as intended acknowledging authority still exist but not enough to make people partners. 

Kleiber not only creates a process, but also creates the conditions in the world which this process takes place (Talgam, 2009, 16:24).  There is no one universal process for effective leadership but I do interpret leadership as a partnership in ways that collaboration is key but when something goes wrong, there is someones everyone turns to for support. The last video had the conductor who closed in eyes folding his arms, at most over time I imagine leaders get to a point when they are just observing those they lead doing what they were taught effectively, that they are leaders in their own right. His face expressions were moving to the music, seeing the pleasant gestures of not lifting the baton, and the orchestra is telling the story. 

Talgam (2009) concluded doing without doing (19:01). In my opinion, most of Talgam's interpretation parallels with the theories mentioned above, and I learned leadership takes into account the behaviors of the follower, sensing what works and doesn't work for them. For example, with the orchestra being partners then just instruments. If they saw themselves as more then, they would shoot to be on the podium but they are find with spreading their passion and skills from where they are in the orchestra. Leadership is about considering not only what you are good at and effectively executing but acknowledging was does work for those following. 

Majuru, A., & Grigore, A. M. (2015). How to build a leader? Manager, 21(1), 161-169.

Talgam, I. (2009, July). Lead like the great conductors. Retrieved September 11, 2016, from http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam_lead_like_the_great_conductors

Whalen, D. J., & Ricca, T. M. (2007). The professional communications toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

MSLD 511 - Module 4 Locus of Control

Followers with an internal locus of control believe that they are in charge of the events that occur in their life, whereas, those with an external locus of control believe that chance, fate or outside forces determine life events (Northouse, 2016, p. 119). I like to think of myself as having a balance of both internal and external locus of control, exhibiting both participative and directive styles of leadership. Completing the Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale Test, my score was 10, and as a result I have more of an internal locus of control. Reading some of the selections, I agreed wholeheartedly with, and others, I felt I had to close my eyes and pick. For example, I believe there is a connection between how I study and the grades I receive, versus saying I don’t know how teachers give out grades. It was difficult to choose most people don’t realize the extent which their lives are controlled by accidental happenings, when I believe, some people are just in the right place at the right time, in other words, luck does happen. 

Chen, Li, & Leung (2016) stated that general self-efficacy and internal locus of control are conceptually related as both reflect a positive belief about personal control over success. They are positively correlated and show positive effects on various desirable outcome (Chen, Li & Leung, 2016, p. 123). People high in internal locus of control believe that they themselves, rather than external factors such as their supervisors, are in control of their outcomes (Chen et al, 2016, p.125). Society as a whole, is taught memorable slogan’s like only you can stop wildfire? or you can make your dreams come true, in other words everything point to “you” as the individual where as, when in true reality its not just you, there should be some acknowledgement that there are external forces at work. When acknowledging the external environment, managers are able to influence organizational learning to change and adapt as needed. Complexity and great diversity in environmental factors, complicates the decision-making equation and removes certainty from making decision which is called uncertainty (Bahmani, Farhadpoor, & Hamidi, 2014, p. 2).Organizations both affect societies and their surroundings, and are affected by them (Bahmani et al,  2014, p. 2). 

Having a high internal locus of control gives us great confidence in ourselves to get to reach our goal, but in reality, motivation from others can encouraging because we can be indirectly effects by it, later to realize the importance of it . This can done through words, actions or more specifically when learning a new job. Chen et al, (2016), stated the provision of supportive supervision implies that supervisors play an important role in determining subordinate outcomes such as recognition, praise, and the amount of merit pay, which disconfirms internals’ belief in their control over personal outcomes (p. 125). Favorable external factors, such as charismatic leadership and leader consideration, show less positive effects and unfavorable external factors, such as organizational frustration, conflict, and work stress, show less negative effects on internals (Chen et al, 2016, p.125). Subordinates high in internal locus of control are less attentive to and receptive of their supervisors’ influence, rendering supervisor support less effective in elevating their intrinsic motivation (Chen et al, 2016, p.125).

The downfall of high internal locus control is lack of projecting that same level of responsibility put on yourself on others. In other words, this could add more stress and less support from others, if it not balanced out with external locus of control. The question would be how to balance and handle it, and depending on the situation that comes with those having high internal locus of control finding a way to build trust, that turns into loyalty that others will do treat them the way they would treat themselves. A sense of tranquility is needed to know when you can change things in life to make it better, and learn when to wait for something to happen to make it better, but always learn from when in both case there is a chance a happening to be worse than better, from your doing or others. 

Bahmani, Z., Farhadpoor, M. R., & Hamidi, M. (2014). Perception of the characteristics of external environment of organizations and its effect on managers' environmental scanning in using information resources. Library Philosophy and Practice, , 0_1.

Chen, T., Li, F., & Leung, K. (2016). When does supervisor support encourage innovative behavior? opposite moderating effects of general Self‐efficacy and internal locus of control. Personnel Psychology, 69(1), 123-158. doi:10.1111/peps.12104

MSLD 511 Module 3 - Directive and Supportive Behaviors

Northouse (2016) explained directive behaviors clarify, often with one-way communication, what is to be done, how it is to be done, and who is responsible for doing it (p. 94). I exhibit directive behaviors in two ways, currently training a new hire to perform specific roles I do, which are more investigative, and as a training coordinator.

The situational leadership model reminds us to treat each follower differently based on the goal at hand (Northouse, 2016, p. 99). I find it difficult to train 1 new employee, after successfully training 2, when all 3 started at the same time. I define the successful training of the 2 employees by their willingness to learn outside of the standard training forums, presenting new ideas, offering to simply work distribution, staying focused on one topic, then inquiring about things that seem ambiguous even to me, which unfortunately, I try to tackle to reduce the amount of ambiguity through training meetings. For example, finding inventory is not easy especially, when it didn’t arrive to its intended location. You have to know who to contact. For new hires to work unique situations and come out victorious without needing an outline of what to do, shows growth in development. 

It’s difficult to understand why this one person, shows initiative only after asking what to do, and how to do it almost every time. In my opinion, this person is disillusioned about the degree of complexity of the work involved, commenting after about the ease of doing it after being told how to do it. This particular thought of why is a criticism of the situational model because research is unable to explain decrease in commitment, and for me, I personally believe the commitment was never there. The reason is because this particular person had limited choices to pick this job, due to internal conflicts from their last job. For example, this worker fails to take notes, and ask questions after explanation was provided from more than one person. My recommendation would be to transition this one employee to another team doing more routine work, and less investigative work. 

As a training coordinator, I provide the latest information to team members such as, process changes and initiate team integration between different functional teams to make team members aware of task performed by other teams. The typical response from attendees is positive, attending when they can, open to new information and knowledge. I would say now about 40% (out of 20) of the team is made up of new members who started back 3 months ago. 

When middle management leads a meeting, the style of leadership is authority-compliance grid aiming for results and sharing information they believe is critical to the performance of the team, with minimal human elements. Usually, meetings are comprised of company wide information, in my opinion, could be distributed through a memo or email. 

My goal as a training coordinator  is for middle management to support training meetings from a task relationship, stimulating participation to support team uniformity. Uniformity, in this context, is to increase team members familiarity with the structure mechanics of the enterprise system used program wide, in addition to referencing newly designed a work instructions. Manufacturing companies have a set of standard codes or instructions written that employees are expected to follow, much like a code of ethics but ,for executing functions, especially when personnel roles are hourly versus salary. 

Currently, training meetings have shaped work instructions specifically designed for team members as a reference, to formalize and share in the future with the customer. As of today, I’m leading a working group to develop a handbook with less than 50 pages to highlight common processes.Unlike directive behaviors, supportive behaviors are centered around team member support valuing their inputs and development. 

Supportive behaviors involve two-way communication and response that show social and emotional support to others (Northouse, 2016, p. 94). Supportive behavior, from my experience, stems from showing compassion for others, at work and at home. Working with people can be difficult in that you always deal with people on some emotional level. 

A sign of frustration from a customer can provoke different reactions from different employees. My response to frustration has been to acknowledge what the employee has done, what they could still do and ways to inquire on how to improve in the future. At times, I succumb more into emotion, for instance on a  recent call with a customer, complaining about the delivery times of product, that likely hasn’t been processed through the proper channels, my co-worker couldn’t speak on the matter anymore, due to the limited time they have known about the concern. I gave a words of encouragement to my co-worker that the customer is unaware of the background work involved and ignore the negative comments. 

As a friend and child, I lean more towards supportive behavior to develop and maintain relationships with family and friends. I probe for details inspiring emotional conversation sharing my woes and listening to theirs, comforting one another. I engage with friends and family hearing their advice, choosing to adjust or not accordingly. For example, a family member quits her job with no other opportunities lined up, I would find a way to be supportive, even thought I won’t necessarily make the same move. The beauty of having a close network of friends and family, is that we share many things in common and tolerate the many differences that evolve our relationships.  However, I can’t always act on supportive behavior as a friend or child. For example, consulting friends through disappointments in life (low self-esteem) by communicating opportunities to be satisfied such as, leaving the house demanding time away from the source of pain or heartache. 

On a typical work day, I have control over day to day decisions with little management interaction, or involvement, unless I bring it to their attention or someone else. This supportive delegate environment has it’s strengths allowing those with high skill, experience and commitment to work at your own pace but it puts a strain on employees and management relationship. This weakens management interest in the type of work employees perform on a day to day basis. When issues involve management, management is not as familiar with the type of work each employee performs individually developing, evolve and retain talent. The art of delegation only goes so far, by experience as documented by Rohlander (1999) below. As a manager, you need to define the task you want to delegate and consider how much authority will be required to reach a desired goal (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). Then consider who will be the delegates (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). Once you have made your decision, announce the delegates’ new roles to their team members (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). The art of delegation works to the benefit of work given to managers but doesn’t work as smoothly as work comes from employees that require management support. For example, budget increases, risk employees identify in their day to day work the impact overall team goal. 

Furthermore, there is lack of desire from management to evolve employee careers due to high turnover every year losing about 20% of the current team members instead, managers check attendance and with general understanding of the team primary functions, as minimal as just know who is one what sub teams. I find it troubling for managers to ask season employees, “what do you do?”, which screams to me poor authentic leadership after working in the same location for 2 years. A balance of directive and supportive behaviors is necessary to develop effective leaders coupled with developing authentic leadership and employee engagement. 

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rohlander, D. (1999). PEOPLE SKILLS: The art of delegation. Journal of Management in Engineering, 15(1), 12-13. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(1999)15:1(12)

MSLD 511 Module 2- Reflecting on Leadership Traits

Leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in another situation (Northouse, 2016, p. 20). I can relate to this describing two different experiences as a leader of two separate events. I approached the first event much like Stogdill’s research approach, using a survey to asses the position of others before planning the event. I received overwhelming responses, exhibiting one trait, social interaction engaging across platforms of social media, email and telephone. The second event required in person support to share ideas dealing with a compressed timeline, I exhibited the drive to exercise initiative in social situations. Before going into detail about each event, and the outcome as a leader, Stogdill’s research on trait characteristics he found both in 1948 and 1974, were insight, responsibility, initiative, persistence, self-confidence and sociability. I believe each characteristic is important to my leadership style. My style is of open-ness to include various points of view, reviewing the situation at the end and aligning actions. I find insight is important to trust your initial thoughts at times, adjusting as needed to the methods of trial and error. I have strong beliefs that may intuition is usually spot on when is comes to assessing my surroundings that has saved me only a minutes later when revealed accurate. Intuitive decision making can help magnify issues, but a good leader knows emotions can sometimes prevent you from seeing a broader view. Nosich(2012) revealed that emotions give us data, for example sometimes people have a narrow view of rationality (p.15). Suppose that while walking through a neighborhood at dusk ,you becomes afraid you are in danger (Nosich, 2012, p. 15). If they cannot pinpoint what is damages about the situation, they draw conclusion that their fears are unfounded (Nosich, 2012, p. 15). I say that to say, insight is good to reason through why we feel a certain way, responsibility is good to own the results of our involvement, persistence is good to know whether or not continue working towards change or find another approach until we are satisfied, self-confidence having faith to exercise our power and sociability to be engaging to all to find their own ways to contribute. 

Based on Stogdill’s findings, my actions do align with traits mentioned above. For example, I decided to host of  my first high school reunion. I made it known the reasons why, persistence I would add was key because within the time span of 9 months, it was important to keep consistent communication. Getting closer to the event, I started to detract from self-confidence in pulling it off because grand plans of hosting at a hotel was downsized after the selection of the date, timing seemed to be off for potential attendees, despite the date being the top selection in the survey. I didn’t believe there could be any other way to pull it off without doing it one way. I consulted with my team for some insight and reviewed my own beliefs before the event. The event occurred as expected in fact some attended and others didn’t but unexpectedly it gave attendees something to aspire to attend events like this in the future to add to their list of social events. Once I decided on a end goal, it was much easier to lead others in a clear direction, the same can be said in a second situation when no one agreed to developing flyers or sign up roster through a webpage for an event, I assumed the role. I found a website designed two or three designs, then when presented I was confronted with policy guidelines what not to do. I started to pull back from responsibility acknowledging that I was unaware of the policy, and taped in to sociability discussing this over with a proper contacts, and discovering my limitations but another ability to take over a portion of the responsibility designing a sign in form. I exhibited initiative to transition the task to another more fitting for the task giving insight and that person nailed it. Afterwards, I was told I did a great job seeing the potential in another as they executed the job flawlessly. 

My leadership style were quite the same in both situations unique to specific traits, however, being able to work through leadership traits Stogdell (1948 and 1974) listed is something that takes me back to an arguerable similarity between a trait and a skill, that they can be developed. 

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.