Reflect on your understanding of leadership. How has it changed over your time in PL? What do you think of leadership now/What does leadership mean to you now?
Growing up, I was always told by those older than me that I was a “natural leader.” As I got older and had more experiences, I could see myself fulfilling that role more clearly, and as a goalkeeper at a high level I practiced leadership regularly. Before PL, however, I would describe my leadership as “raw.” I had never been educated in leadership theory and I had not studied predominant leaders and the ways that they led. After doing so in PL I now understand how to evolve my own style of leadership into a more refined, and balanced one.
Describe your leadership style referencing Strengths, leadership theories/styles, etc from class.
Above, I defined my own leadership style as “balanced.” This concept is important to me. I believe that no leadership style should be blindly accepted or completely dismissed. In the words of Emperor Palpatine: “If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects.” I believe that there is a place for positivity and negativity in my leadership style. Mistakes are mistakes, and people should not be made to feel bad about them. However, mistakes due to lack of effort should not be dealt with the same way. One of my greatest strengths in leadership is how I encourage, inspire, and push those who are not succeeding to the extent that they or I would like them to be, and how I can help those who are lacking effort into understanding how and why they should be doing better.
What facilitated the change in your understanding of leadership? Upload at least 1 additional artifact as evidence and discuss WHY you chose it/them. Describing WHY you uploaded something is more important than the item itself.
My final paper in CPPL200 was a really enlightening experience for me. All we were told to write about for this paper was to identify an issue and come up with a plan for how to produce change. I chose to write about how to create a healthy balance of all aspects in my personal life. School, work, social life, mental health, hobbies, etc. Putting down a solid strategy for this in writing helped me to think about this issue in a different way than I had been. In leadership, It is important to be able to understand how to approach problems in different ways. Leaders must be able to think in innovative new ways, and this paper was helpful for me in understanding that aspect of leadership. Furthermore, it is crucial for leaders to have a balanced and healthy personal life. In order for them to see problems clearly and to think like a leader should, they must strive in creating a healthy personal life.
How have you used an element of leadership learned through PL in your life? (either a formal leadership role or a personal interaction).
In the beginning of PL, we read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, and we listened to a Ted Talk in which she spoke about “The Danger of a Single Story.” My understanding of that idea is this: we must strive to our fullest potential to always try and paint an accurate picture of something based on as many sources of information as possible. We must stay away from generalizing based on little information and we must always try to grasp a full understanding of whatever we are trying to understand. In my life, I try to do this as much as I can, and I try to encourage others to not fall into the trap of the “single story.” I figure that the more effort that people put into understanding issues and the more nuance we are able to see in them, the more productive we are as a whole in solving them.