Monday, November 16, 2009
Journal Eight
If I had a magic want that could help me become a better leader, I would definitely use it. I would make myself a strong, independent women that all people believe in. I would make it so that everyone had faith in me and were able to see all of the abilities that I have. A leader who is the highest role model for me is my mother. She definitely practices what she preaches and lives by high standards. She is the most honest person that I know. No matter what she has encountered in life she has always lived by high standards. When my parents were divorced and my father was doing things that weren’t right to me and my sister, my mom never said anything bad about him. She kept her grace and even though I am sure she had feelings that weren’t nice towards my father, she kept her mouth shut. Also, throughout my whole life she has practiced what she preaches. The main thing that she wants from my sister and I is honesty. I have never had my mother lie to me in her entire life. She is the most truthful honest person I know. She also preaches for us to be hard workers and to get things done. Both of these are things that she always does. A good leadership quality that she
has shown me is to get the responsibilities that you have out of the way before you do anything else. Also, she has always said not to procrastinate. And she does all of things in a perfect way. Over time I have realized that if I possess even half of the qualities that my mother does, I would be a great, successful, great person and wonderful leader.
Journal Seven
I hope that when I am eighty and reflecting back on my life, that everything is viewed in a positive way. Especially the type of leader that I was in life. I hope that I have grandchildren and children who speak nothing but positive things about me and the person that I am. I think that my main successes will be my children and my marriage. I want to go and earn my Masters in Business Administration after this semester is over. I hope that a success I have by the time I am eighty is to be a business owner of a law firm or some type of business. I want to have my name be part of a business. And when anyone says the name of the business, have people talk about me in a very positive way. I want people to say that I was a great boss that understood their wants and needs, got everything accomplished and we had fun along the way. I think that I will be viewed in a bright light and have people think highly of me. I want to always present myself in a positive manner. I think another success is that I am a polite woman, a strong woman, and I over came certain beliefs of barriers people have in women. Some of the experiences that I need to take in order to take my leadership to the next level is to continue with my education and get an MBA. Also, work in a professional business environment to begin that part of my life and to understand the way in which those businesses operate.
Journal Six
There are many qualities that I bring to leadership. One is that I am an honest person. Also, I have many different things going on in my life and I know how to balance all of them in a positive way. I think that this is a good quality to have in leadership because people need to be able to handle many things at once, and handle it in a timely, positive manner. Another quality that I bring is that I am direct. I do not beat around the bush and I usually handle conflict in a proper way. When something is not going right I can voice my opinion and try and fix things. Times when I have personally felt discouraged in exercising my leadership skills is when I have felt overwhelmed with all of things I need to take care of. I can get tired, stressed and over whelmed and if I am caught at that particular moment, I may not be so positive in doing a lot of things and getting them done. Instead I may discourage people to not do so many things. I have also been discouraged at my current job as manager. My boss tends to not deal well
with conflict and would rather hide from things instead of dealing with it. So there are times when I am told not to deal with certain situations, and instead let things feel awkward and not taken care of. I have been encouraged to exercise my leadership skill of being honest at all times. Everyone likes a person that is honest and that should always been encouraged. While I think that I have many qualities as a leader, I do want to develop further certain things. I want to be able to balance things better. I also want to further my knowledge in communication skills and how to deal with different types of people. I think that I have things I can work on, but I am a good leader with great skills.
Journal Five
The leadership that I have had in my family has given me a blessed view and I am very lucky. My mom is the best leader I know, along with my grandparents. They always led by example. My mother is honest, caring, gets things done right away and never procrastinates. While my grandmother is the sweetest person that I know. She has never been judgmental and is always there when I need advice. She never leans in one direction, always hears everything, thinks about things for awhile and then comes up with a great plan or idea to fix any problem. For me, these were the two main people that I have considered leaders in my family. Although, in my large circle of family there are two other leaders that many people in my family have viewed. These two people are my grandpa and uncle. My grandpa started a company from the bottom and grew it into a huge successful company. He has shown leadership through the type of business man he is. My uncle has been a leader through his emotion and strength. He has suffered from a brain tumor that is too dangerous to do surgery on. He has seizures and has had to give up a lot of things in life. Through all of this he has found God. His religious beliefs are great leadership skills for the members of my family.Growing up, I did have leadership from both genders right at home. While over time, my dad was not the best example of leadership, as a young kid he was. I had my mom and dad, both great people and both great leaders. Leadership in my home was defined as being an honest, hard working person. It was about getting things accomplished and being a successful person. Leadership was also defined in my home through our sports teams and showing good sportsmanship. We were all into sports, and made sure that we were always team players. That showed me a lot about leadership through the years.
Journal Four
My family viewed leadership in a positive way. We have always viewed leadership as people who do good things for the world. People considered leaders in my family have been both sets of my grandparents as well as my great grandparents. My grandparents on my mother’s side have come to America from Yugoslavia. They came here due to the communism and the conflict between the different ethnicities within their country. They are seen as leaders because they came with nothing on their back. They have worked extremely hard to be at the place they are today. Today, their farm that they grew and developed when they came to the country was bought out by Foster Farms Chicken, as well as having a casket company that was sold to Batesville Caskets. Their leadership has been the path that my family strives to follow. They worked so hard and built two businesses from the ground up. They were always honest in their work, always modeled hard work, high levels of integrity and respect to all their employees and workers. While my great grandfather was the one that worked the casket company, my great grandmother was highly involved in everything. She is viewed as a great leader within our family. Growing up, leadership was defined through having respect for others, being an honest person, working hard and always putting in one hundred percent. I was also taught not to gossip and be direct in my ways. I think that the leadership that surrounded me was highly positive and effective.
Journal Three
During my early years, the people that had the greatest impact on me were my family members. I was around my family all of the time. As a child, your social life revolves around the things that you do with your family. I had an amazing family. I was lucky enough to have an older sister who is only two years older than I am. As a child, I think she had the greatest impact on me. I wanted to be just like her and I would try and run with her anywhere she went. I lived next door to my cousins, who were two and four years older than I was. Basically, I ran with a group that was bigger than me. I would try and be as brave as they were. I would go down the big kid slide with them, even if I were extremely afraid to do so. While my sister and older cousins had a large impact on me, so did my parents. They were my hero’s. I looked up to them so much and thought that their life was magical. I was fascinated with the jobs they would do, and how they could drive cars. Everything they did, I was amazed at and envied. As a child, parents are the one’s that no matter what they do, they do it perfectly. I wanted to be just like them. I would play house and pretend to be my mom, because she was perfect. (And in my mind, she still is!) Other hero’s that I had were the characters on the Disney movies. I loved Cinderella, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and Ariel. They were my idols. I would sing all of their songs and watch their movies over and over again. They were beautiful, smart, talented and always in love. As a kid, I wanted to be all of those things. I thought that life was about those traits; being pretty, falling in love, singing and living a magical life.Another person that I would always look up to were my teachers. As a kid, I loved every single one of my teachers. I thought that they knew everything. I looked up to them because they were smart. Anytime I had a question, they knew the answer to it. I think the traits that I enjoyed in my teachers were that they were always kind, helpful, taught me interesting things and were a leader figure. They were in charge of the classroom and everyone knew it. You never wanted to do wrong towards the teacher because everyone respected them. Those are all traits that even today are good to have. Even as a child, you learn so many things about the President of the United States. They are the head honchos in your life. They are the main heroes that people look up. When I was a kid, George Bush Sr. was in charge. As a kid, it is difficult and confusing to understand politics. All I remember was that we would study the Presidents of the past and present and look up to the things that they had. They had power, they ran our country and they knew all the right things to do.When trying to remember who had the greatest impact on me when I was young, my family was at the top of the list. Fictitious characters are typically thrown in to a child’s list as well. Today my list would still be similar, but I would take away the Disney characters. While they do have heroic traits, I would trade them out with other women figures. Such as Mother Theresa, Amelia Earhardt, and Sandra Day O’Connor.
Journal Two
At my current job, I am one of four managers. I was extremely proud of myself when I became the manager there. I was the first female manager in ten years. My main focus for management is to over see all of the waitresses. I have eight waitresses that I am in charge of. I hire them, train them, schedule them and make sure that they are fulfilling the needs of the owner. At times, it can be a difficult task. I have run into problems, because through the affiliative leadership style that I display, I have often become too close with the girls. There are times when we are close friends, and when I tried to manage them, they would not take it seriously. I have come to learn that although my affiliative leadership style is one that I am proud of, I cannot take it to extremes. I have learned that in order to be a leader, I need to display several types of leadership styles. I still am empathetic towards the staff, and they appreciate that as well as respect that. However, I have also become more of a coaching style. I try and maintain the working environment only, and try and teach and train the waitresses for future goals. I am also very authoritative. Throughout my management time at this job, I have become emotionally stronger and able to stand up for myself better. I have a very enthusiastic personality and I have been able to apply this towards my job. I am able to display our goals and strategies to the waitresses and they are able to commit to them and succeed.
Through this class, I have learned the importance of emotional intelligence. I believe that my self-awareness is one of my strongest abilities. Not only am I deeply in touch with my inner being, but also I can read people well. I have a kind soul and I try to make sure that things are going well for everyone. My social skills are also something that I am good at. I am able to be friends with many different types of people. I am always able to achieve a common ground with people. Not only that, but I can have people gain my respect and work with me towards things that we both desire to accomplish.
All in all, I am proud to have the experience and opportunity to be a manager. I think that it has helped me grow and in my future endeavors, I will look back on this time and try applying the things that I am most proud of.
Journal One
The leader that I admire the most is my own mother. She has been the best example of what a leader entails for me and I admire everything about her. My mom leads by example, and I think that is the best way to go. She is honest, genuine and trustworthy. All things that are very important in order to be a leader. She has never been afraid to be her own person and go her own way. Another great thing that I admire the most about her, and why she is a great leader is that she can admit her faults. I think that in order to be a great leader, you have to be able to admit these things. Since she admits her own faults, she is able to relate to people better. It is difficult to be a great leader, when you pretend you are perfect, and the average Joe is either intimidated by you, or they are afraid of you.
Another reason why I think my mom is the best example of a leader is because she knows the importance of having support from her friends. She can ask others for help, or for their opinions. She listens to everyone intently and takes what they say and tries to apply it. She not only is looking out for her, but she is always looking out for everyone else. She is very compassionate and looks at “we” and not “I”.
I enjoyed the readings for this lesson very much. I especially enjoyed reading “The True North” article. I like the whole concept behind a person’s true north, being an internal compass that guides you throughout your life. There are times where I have felt a bit of pressure, or where I can just tell that something I am doing is not right. I think that is when my true north has been pushed in the wrong direction and I am trying to get steered back into the right spot. I think that a good leader needs to have a pretty good grasp of their true north. It takes time to learn and know who you are and be true to yourself. One great book I try and follow is called “All is Well.” It teaches people to have positive thinking and to know what you want in your life. It teaches you to free things from the past and live a worriless life. While they may not be possible, I still enjoy the readings based around this information.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Journal Ten
One of the things that I took with me were the leadership traits from Managing Human Behavior (p. 182, Denhardt, 2009). They are : intelligence and self understanding, self confidence and self esteem, high energy and determination to succeed, sociability and integrity. I think that all of these are the perfect traits for any good leader. I have learned that I want to be defined by all of these things. Since reading this, I have tried to make sure that I am that person.
Through this experience I have become more aware of myself in the way that I lead. I make sure to listen carefully to the wants and needs of the girls that I am in charge of. I make sure that I do not come off as being more powerful than them, and I try to show them that I am on the same page as them. I want them to know that I am here for them, and our goals are the same goals.
Through this course, I am also trying to work on improving my sense of self. I have really been working on my self management. I have become better at controlling my behavior and pursuing the particular goals I have set out for myself. I have also seen that I am self aware of my confidence and I have been better at showing people who I am. I am a kind hearted individual, with the passion and drive to succeed along with everyone around me. My social awareness has also become better quality after this course. I look at other peoples emotions and behaviors, treating people according to their emotional reactions. This has particularly helped me with my management position today.
Finally, I look forward to my future careers and endeavors. I have hopefully successfully managed waitresses within my current job. I am now going to be stepping out into the work force, within an entry level position and reapplying all of the above lessons and skills. I know that I will continue to learn new things within my new experiences. However, I also know that taking what I know now will help me to be successful in the future.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Journal Nine
I think that Robert F. Kennedy was trying to say that when one person stands up to make a change, or to stand up for what is right and go against the norm of expectation, it can make a big difference. It sort of reminds me of the idea that people don’t think that their vote matters. However, when someone believes that and doesn’t vote it does matter. One voice is important enough. When there is one person that stands up, perhaps someone else will stand up too and together they can make a change for the better. There are many people who think that their voice doesn’t matter. However, if all those people from different areas decided that their voice did matter, all of the people combined create a large force that does matter and can make a difference.
This quote is quite profound and beautiful. It can mean a multiple of things from making change in the world, or standing up for what a person believes in. Today, there are walls of oppression or resistance that people tend to fall under because so does everyone else. This quote is saying that while we are like that, all it takes is one person to go against others, or take a stance that could create a wave through other people, and have them follow along as well.