This I Believe Essay

 This I Believe Essay (25%) 

This essay should reflect the culmination of your thoughts about leadership. Rather than crafting a statement about your beliefs in general, you are asked to write a concise summary of your core values and vision about leadership, using the quotation from Warren Bennis (shown below) as the starting point:

 

“The point is not to become a leader.  The point is to become yourself,

and to use yourself completely – all your gifts, skills and energies – to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming.” (Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader).

 
 

Be sure that your essay covers the questions shown below:

 

• What is your vision?

• What are 5 core values that you choose to live by? (Ex: Peace of mind, Security, Wealth, Good health, Happiness, Family. Respect of others, and Trust)

• How are you becoming yourself?

• What do I feel are my greatest strengths?

• What strengths have others who know me well noticed in me?

• When I daydream, what do I see myself doing?

• What talents do I have that no one else really knows about?

• How might your style of leadership impact your career choice?

 

Additional questions that will help you focus your assignment include:

 

• What qualities of character do I most admire in others?

• Who is the one person that has made the greatest positive impact on my life?

• Why was this person able to have such significant impact?

• What I look at my work life, what activities do I consider of greatest worth?

• When I look at my personal life, what activities do I consider of greatest worth?

• What are my important roles in my life?

• What are the most important lifetime goals I want to fulfill in each role?

Prepare an essay (1200 words minimum) that summarizes your core vision and thoughts about personal leadership.  I am looking for authentic vulnerability and honesty.

BECOMING A LEADER

Becoming a Leader

Ye Sun (Maggie)

Department of Business, Trinity Western University

MBA 594: Leadership and Ethics

Dr. Blair Whitmarsh

November 29, 2020

Becoming a Leader

Many people wonder what leadership is, what effective leadership means. Although we often strive to be leaders, many people are still unaware of how to become leaders. I believe that leadership entails guiding individuals or teams to realize specific goals through motivation and direction. Leaders should encourage and inspire others to succeed. Additionally, there are several necessary skills and competencies that one must cultivate to become influential and great leaders. Fortunately, through practice and given the time, anyone can develop these competencies. I view leadership as being very necessary for my future career goals and success. Strong leadership skills can bring us great respect and credibility, make us effective managers and decision-makers, and help us motivate and inspire employees (Johnson, 2020). Specifically, the essay is a concise summary of my core values and vision about leadership, using Warren Bennis’s perspective that leadership means self-awareness at all times.

Self-Awareness, Leadership & Career

Many people wonder about what it takes to become a leader. The leadership field is fast evolving. Thanks to the high transparency that technology offers and several reliable studies and high-quality literature on leadership, it has become incredibly easier to distinguish between good and bad leaders just from the word go
. However, this development has meant that we now need newer models to evaluate todays and future leaders. Warren Bennis (1989) posits that self-awareness and knowledge of how they impact others is the path towards effective leadership. Awareness enables us to deliver sustainable values and positively influence others. The author argues that leadership emanates from us doing things that we love and care for. Secondly
, unless we entirely give our best and leverage our potentialities completely, we can never bring to light our leadership visions. Ultimately, our love for what we do, coupled with our ability to express our capabilities fully, leads to our learning, understanding, and practical uniqueness, and thus, excellence. Thus, in summary, he posits that leadership both comes from and is all about personal excellence. Unfortunately, many leaders would out-rightly fail Bennis’s measures because only a few of them have and manifest personal excellence.

Bennis’ work has greatly influenced my approach to becoming a leader. I have learnt that effective leadership means knowing oneself, having a peace of mind, knowing others very well, teamwork, and always working towards the collective goal. Ideally, since no person is perfect, I have always tried to learn from the people around me. One person who has always helped me to be self-aware and work towards perfecting my strengths and managing my weaknesses is my mother. As a leader in a local business organization, she has often handled some of the toughest business situations that in my opinion, require deep self-knowledge and teamwork. Additionally, she has always reflected great social intelligence, does not often take offence easily, and prefers action rather than talk. These are some of these qualities that make me admire and envy her in equal measure.

Secondly
, with
a lack of self- and team-awareness, it becomes tough for us to trust and form an effective relationship with others. People who lack self-awareness tend to take criticisms personally and quickly become defensive and aggressive. This trait’s implication on leadership is that it deters honest and open cooperation, and makes everyone verbally and physically cautious when around the leader. To date, I still believe that any fear-based leadership is failed leadership. In most cases, leaders who want to be feared instead of respected or those whose respect is built on fear have deep personal insecurities inside them and lack self-awareness. Thus, they hide behind the veil of fear and terror (Green Peak Partners, 2010). Although self-awareness is often considered an afterthought when companies recruit senior managers, it is one of the most critical factors that determine any leader’s future success (Green Peak Partners, 2010). I believe that self-awareness is a leadership value that enhances our chances of hiring people who can complement our strengths and compensate
for our values, and make us open to better ideas from others.

Strong leadership can help us manage many issues. I believe that being an effective leader would enable me to recognize my capabilities and leverage or improve them quickly. By becoming a leader, the team members will promptly read the leader’s potential and help highlight areas needing improvement. The capabilities often get reflected or multiplied during meetings, projects, teams, etc. Developing effective leadership skills enables us to understand the organization’s direction better, increase our team’s motivation and unity, and attract and retain more members.

Personal Leadership Vision and Values

I want to share my personal leadership values and visions. I believe that every great leader must have a vision or a game plan. A leadership vision includes one’s leadership goals, mission statement, and qualities that one wishes to possess and/or achieve (Zmorenski, 2020). My grandest leadership vision is to steer my organization to the greatest heights possible by engaging all the employees with a tangible and compelling vision. I currently see myself as a transformational and empowering leader. By empowering, I mean that my job is not to empower people by ordering to do things but rather to have them empower themselves by inspiring them to see, understand, and appreciate themselves and what they do. Leadership is about the very people we lead, and to perform the leadership task we must ‘‘…make [an] emotional connection on a very real and human level in every interaction” (Burnison, nd). Additionally, I value passion, authenticity, adaptability, resilience, respect, service, personal development, dedication, honesty, influence, vision, and empathy. Other core values that define success are perseverance, humility, hard work, risk-taking, and confidence (Connors, 2017).

Since the other values are self-explanatory, I will explain what I mean by being authentic. In leadership, authenticity entails having and showing honesty, naturalism
, and genuineness to everyone. Great leaders are often open to new ideas (Indeed, 2020). Authenticity helps create an environment where everyone feels empowered, authentic, and comfortable. Thus, such an environment fosters creativity, transparency and innovativeness, and is ultimately high productive (Indeed, 2020). One way through which I demonstrate authenticity is by continually developing and living by my core values daily. Additionally, we live and practice these leadership values in human societies where deep cooperation is needed. Accordingly, forming positive relationships and happiness, always striving for good health and security, respect for others, and peace of mind, makes us dwell well in these societies. Since no one wants to be led or be around toxic and unhappy people, I believe that we strive for personal happiness in whatever circles we form around us.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Many people say that I share several qualities with my mother, and that I shall one day become a great leader. For instance, they say that I connect with people at a personal level very easily. They also say that I am empathic and decisive, flexible and reflect deep moral values. I also know that I am a very ambitious person and have a clear vision on where I want to be in the future. I also believe that personal leadership is based on values like self-discipline, spirituality, integrity, honesty, kindness, open communication, and legacy building (Leadership Excellence, Inc., nd). I believe that once armed with these, anyone can realize whatever leadership goals they might have, both personal and professional. Despite these several strengths, I also have many weaknesses that could affect my future leadership. First, I am a workaholic and a high-achiever who does not trust very easily. Since I am difficult to impress, the trait could affect me in my future leadership roles in that I might find it hard to delegate critical tasks.

The lack of delegation could lead to us
feeling overworked and burnt-out. Additionally, it also often leads to frustrations amongst team members, send the image that a leader does not trust other team-members, and ultimately slow down productivity. Since I would not like to be part of such a failed system, I believe that I have to learn to trust and delegate. Self-knowledge and acceptance, and learning to trust others more, makes to delegate more tasks to our teams (Schroeder, 2020). Secondly, I always find it irresistible to please everyone because I find it hard to just say ‘‘No’’. By always trying to serve everyone, I often end up exhausted. I also become inconsiderate and impatient with the employees at times, and some of my close friends have regularly confided in me that the employees often complain about this weakness. Thus, I hope that I will try to be more patient and understanding in the future.

Conclusion

Self-awareness and self-acceptance are critical aspects of leadership. Thus, I always strive to try to understand myself and the people around me. I also want to categorically state that leaders must ensure physical fitness and wellness. Currently, I have managed to keep myself physically fit because I participate in several sports and attend the gym. Although I believe that it would be very hard to maintain the same level, I have resolved that I will continue to focus on family, physical exercise, reading, and wellness issues even in the future. I look forward to creating a personal daily physical exercises program and accompanying my family members for a weekend hike and run to maintain and sustain a positive or favorable psychophysiological balance.

I know that I shall do better in my new engagement because I always believe that practice makes everything perfect. Finally, I must end by warning fellow or aspiring leaders that outstanding leadership is not about being bossy, a bully, or having a feeling of entitlement, hoarding power and responsibility, or being self-absorbed (Green Peak Partners, 2010). Additionally, leaders must always disengage with others responsibly and constructively. With self-awareness, learning, and practice, anyone can become a great leader
.

References

Bennis, W. (2009). On Becoming a Leader. Basic Books.

Burnison, G. (nd). Mission First, People Always. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from Korn Ferry: https://www.kornferry.com/insights/articles/mission-first-people-always-leadership

Connors, C. D. (2017, April 28). 5 Core Values that Define Success for Every Individual. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Medium – Mission.org: https://medium.com/the-

mission/5-core-values-that-define-success-for-every-individual-5b0e45e779ca

Green Peak Partners. (2010, June 15). Research Results: Nice Guys Finish First When It Comes to Company Performance. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from GlobeNewswire: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2010/06/15/1209139/0/en/Research-Results-Nice-Guys-Finish-First-When-It-Comes-to-Company-Performance.html

Indeed. (2020, September 23). Core Values of a Great Leader. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Indeed Career Guide: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/leadership-values.

Indeed. (2020, October 5). What Does Leadership Mean? Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Indeed Career Guide: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-

development/what-does-leadership-mean.

Johnson, R. (2020). How Can Leadership Skills Help You With Your Career Goals? Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Chon.com – Hearst Newspapers, LLC: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/can-leadership-skills-career-goals-39135.html.

Leadership Excellence, Inc. (nd). What Is Personal Leadership and Why Does It Matter? Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Leadership Excellence Now: http://www.leadershipexcellencenow.com/blog/what-is-personal-leadership-and-why-

does-it-matter

Schroeder, M. (2020, February 17). 10 Ways To Always Be Yourself And Live Happily. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from Lifehack: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/

communication/10-ways-always-yourself-and-live-happily.html

Zmorenski, D. K. (2020). Why Leaders Must Have Vision. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from ReliablePlanet – 2020 Noria Corporation: https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29109/leaders-have-vision

�This is a bit colloquial. What’s another way to put this?

�If you are going to use “secondly”, you should be sure to use “firstly” early, so that the reader can clearly track your points.

�Again, you should use “firstly” somewhere above to highlight your first point in this thought.

�I think you mean “with” here.

�This doesn’t seem like the right word here.

�If you use “first”, you should also have at least “second”! You only need to use these words when you are listing ideas that are related; otherwise, you can omit them.

�I don’t think this is the right word here. What do you mean?

�Who is the “us” in this sentence. Leaders? Or do you just mean “me”.

�Maggie, this paper is extremely well-written and thoughtful, covering your ideas on leadership. Great work. My only real advice is that you check carefully that you have covered all of the points laid out in the assignment instructions. Check the syllabus for more details. You want to make it clear that you’ve thought about and discussed all the questions, including ones like:

When I daydream, what do I see myself doing?

What talents do I have that no one else really knows about?

Again, well done. Let me know if you have any questions.