Based on my experiences from this class, I have decided there is no "definition" of leadership. If there was a definition, everyone would feel as though they had to conform to a certain idea. To me, leadership is all about being yourself and finding how to strengthen yourself through experience. I remember Matt saying in class that being a good leader is not about arriving at a destination, but about continuously learning from others and evolving your own leadership skills. Every blog post in the class will have a different take on leadership and what it means to them. I received a comment from Matt on another blog post that really opened my eyes. He said "not every leader comes from the same mold". I wholeheartedly agree with that because most people see a leader as someone who can grab people's attention and gain followers. After experiencing this class, I realized that I can be a good leader as well and use my personal strengths to lead in my own way since I do not fit this general mold. 

To be an effective and successful leader, I think the most important thing to do is to understand your personal strengths and expand them to make them great. The reason I think this idea is so important is because if you understand yourself, you can understand and work with others much more easily. As humans, it is easy to become frustrated with others if they do not think or act in the same way that you do. In this course especially I think everyone learned that we do not all think or act the same way. This is a simple thought, but sometimes it is easy to forget while we are hard at work on an activity or a project in every day life. As individuals, all we can ever do is control ourselves. And I think that if we understand how we as individuals think and act, we can maneuver how we work with others. With experience after experience, we learn more and more about ourselves and others and we can piece together the leadership puzzle. 

I think a great takeaway I had in this class is my argument with Adrian. As the class knows, I get embarrassed whenever I have to talk about it, but the truth is, it really was a lesson learned. I remember last year in high school I had a similar mini argument with another peer. I connected both of those mini arguments in my head and realized just how similar they were and how I had made an exact same mistake by losing my temper and being too sensitive. I absolutely hate conflict and my top Strengths Quest strength is Harmony, so I want to avoid a situation like that in my future. After thinking about it, I now understand that the only thing I can do to avoid one is control myself and my reactions, and control my sensitivity to diffuse the situation. These are lessons learned for me are now a part of my personal definition of leadership.

My philosophy of leadership differs tremendously from my view of leadership at the beginning of the course. I came into the class thinking I would be at the bottom of the totem pole compared to other students and would need a lot of work in order to gain enough confidence to have that "strong voice" that I mentioned once in a discussion. I knew deep down inside that I would never be that person, but I thought that was the "definition" of a good leader. After experiencing the activities and discussions in this class, I understand that I do not have to fit that mold, and to be my own version of a good leader, I need to understand my own strengths and expand them so that I may work well with other people. With this knowledge under my belt, I am much more confident in my own abilities to be a leader and I hope that everyone else in the class had similar eye-opening experiences.

Inspiration from Ethan :)

Thinking about this week’s blog prompt proved to be difficult to pick from. We have had a lot of conversations throughout this class and it was hard to pinpoint one single comment, thought, or action that changed my view of leadership enough to write 500 words about. That would have to be one really strong comment, thought, or action to stick with me that much. So to find my perfect example, I decided to think about the class that we did the pipe and golf ball activity in. This class changed my view of leadership in such a strong way. It really affected me personally and I feel like I learned a tremendous amount about myself and others in regard to leadership. In this class I was personally complimented by both Stephanie Reddaway and Sandeep Sehbi in the group discussion. I would like to thank both of them for their offerings of such kind words to me. Those will definitely stick in my mind moving forward in my life.

Moving backwards to the beginning of the activity, however, I was personally amazed by Ethan Rhodus. His ability to grasp the leadership position in the group activity was impressive. What I thought to be a hard task was made so simple right before my eyes. I don't think he was really trying to become the group leader, so I don't believe he went into the activity with a strategy. If he was to use a strategy, however, it would have been to be genuinely nice to people. He also used the technique of positive reinforcement to inspire and encourage people to work together. His kind words, patience, and helpful instructions really brought everyone together and he had everyone on both teams listening to him and treating him as the natural leader. Ethan really showed what a great leader should resemble.

I really think that people take such acts of kindness and patience for granted. It is so easy to forget to treat people with this outward kindness. It is even more difficult to show patience in situations that are on a time limit. Ethan showed me and many others that to remember to use these courtesies is key in creating great leadership.

I personally struggle with my patience sometimes, especially in timed, large group situations. I will definitely remember this lesson learned throughout future circumstances. I now think that holding patience and kindness are the most important qualities of a leader. Without these, a leader cannot stand and gain the respect of their followers. They cannot gain the trust and quality hard work of their followers either. This simple positive reinforcement makes followers happy and willing to put forth their best effort.

The most important part of this technique is to be sincere. I hope that anyone trying to obtain this leadership quality will not think of it as a technique. Ethan’s sincerity really made people unite. I hope everyone in the class learned this lesson from Ethan as well, and I would like to congratulate him on his success.

Values are critical to leadership. This statement could mean anything to anyone. Value (n): a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life. It would be impossible for everyone to hold the same values because there are infinite values a person could have. Everyone looks at life differently and therefore hold different values more tightly or loosely than others. For example, Hitler held a value that Jews should be eliminated and a value that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Though those are not outstanding, good values, they are the values he chose to hold. 

Yes, I do agree that values are important to leadership, but I would not say they are critical to it. I think that there are definitely some values that must be upheld in order to be a good leader. For instance, a leader must be ethical. Ethics, however, is also a relative term unless written in a formal document or contract. Our class discussion the first week of class included a talk about what is ethical and what is not. Judging by that discussion, everyone seemed to have a different interpretation on what could be considered ethical and unethical. For example, some kids in class thought it was acceptable to print from a student organization's printer whereas others did not.

Another typical value a good leader is said to have is his or her ability to influence people. Influencing people can be done in many ways. 5 of those ways we learned about in class are Avoiding, Accommodating, Compromising, Competing, and Collaborating. There are different situations in which any of these techniques can be the most useful. 

I think the most concrete value that should be upheld in leadership is to be goal-oriented. But even in this value, there are different ways to go about achieving a goal. A leader can take any of the 5 approaches mentioned above to influence people toward a goal. In essence, values are not at all critical to leadership in my opinion. However, a good leader picks helpful and ethical values to the best of their ability. 

My own personal values have quite a range, but they all branch off from my most important value: Respect. I believe that everyone deserves respect and that you should live your life respecting other people in every way. Even more importantly than that I think that everyone should respect themselves. I think that too many people follow along in life and don't really care where they are going or what they are doing. Self respect is such a simple value that goes a long way. It takes guts sometimes to maintain it because people will disrespect you and your feelings if you let them. I feel it is important to always stick with what you believe is right and stand up for yourself when you need to. Some other values I hold dear are to be hardworking, caring, and optimistic. I believe that all of the values I uphold branch from self respect. To be hardworking, you must respect yourself by working toward that goal and doing your best. To be caring, you must respect other people wholeheartedly. To be optimistic, you must care about yourself and others in that you see the bright side in things in order to brighten not only your own, but others’ days as well. To go back to the statement: “Values are critical to leadership”, I would like to reconsider my previous statements by saying I now believe that a good leader holds respect as a value both for themselves and others. This can be interpreted and branched in many ways but I think that by holding this core value, all of the other values in life can be positive and helpful in creating a great leader.

Why did I register for ESHESA 2570? My choice was driven by an insane desire to drop my physics class. Now I know that is not the "right" answer. I should not be so terribly honest by saying that I was ready to take ANY other class. I was willing to take 15 more credit hours of class if I had to! Just get me out of this wretched lecture, and fast!

I did, however, get to choose this class out of all the other Session 2 classes available. Yes, there were plenty that were closed, that I was ineligible for, and that conflicted with my schedule. When I read the description of this class, at first I decided that it wasn't for me. NO WAY am I going to get up and give speeches in front of a bunch of confident students who are studying leadership. So I scrolled through the rest of my options and did a mental yawn for most of them. So I came back to this class and said "You know what? Who cares if I make a few speeches? If I screw up? The only person who cares is me. The only person who will judge me is me, and maybe the teacher grading me. This class will help me with my people skills. It will help me with my confidence. I can learn how to become an effective leader. I need this class!" And so I signed up. This class is very similar to one I took this summer (Dale Carnegie--great course with an inspiring book) said: "You don't take a Dale Carnegie course--you live it!" I am ready, with an open mind and a confident mindset, to absorb the content in this class like a sponge and use it in my everyday life. 

"Leadership is a role open to anyone. 
Leadership is living by a personal set of rules in which you 
motivate others to do the right thing, 
be engaged in the world, 
and to listen to others and their concerns. 
Leadership is focused on the other person." 
-Chandra Johnson quoted from Chapter 1 of Exploring Leadership. 

This quote from the reading spoke to me. It gave me this sort of "ah-ha" moment. I think that leadership is very personal. No matter how much we talk about it in this class, the only thing that will be influenced is our own personal take on leadership. There is no right answer. There can't be only one right answer because there are so many different parts to leadership. I feel that everyone's view can change, but that everyone is going to have their own take on what is most and least important in their view of leadership.

I expect to maintain a clear and open mindset for discussions so that I can learn and absorb new ideas and tools to become a leader. I hope to get a new perspective and approach to leadership in order to find the ability in myself to be a leader in any scenario. I expect myself to always give my best effort and to stretch my comfort zone in order to make this dream a reality. I also expect myself to work well with my This Ohio State Life project team so that I may earn an A in this course.

I am very excited to be a part of this class and cannot wait to obtain skills to become a leader in my life.