Leadership Course - Post-Class Blog

What an incredible course! 

First, I want to send a shout out to Dr. Steve and his choice in textbooks for this course. The Leadership Challenge is a wonderful learning tool with many guidelines and suggestions to become an effective leader. I truly enjoyed the book and plan to refer to it often throughout my journey.

I have already started implemented several of the tools suggested by Kouzes and Posner. I created a personal and professional mission statement to help guide me through this process. I began with a simple development plan, based on my feedback from the LPI assessment. When I wrote my initial post, I had not received the results; however, once reading them, I was pleasantly surprised at the results. Many of my colleagues and managers scored me much higher in areas that I scored myself low. This gave me the encouragement to know that I can be an effective leader with the proper guidance and learning tools. It also helped me create my development plan, focusing on the areas I scored the lowest. 

I also implemented one of the practices Kouzes and Posner mentioned. For example, they gave several ways to promote trust throughout the organization, and one of them was "avoid talking negatively about others." That really hit home with me. So often, we get angry and start condemning our colleagues and constituents. After reading this chapter, I challenged myself to write down every time I said a negative statement about one of my colleagues. HOLY MOLY! Within the first six hours, I noted 10 times I said something negative. So, the next day, I challenged myself to not say one negative remark about a co-worker. I did not realize what a difficult task this would be, but I made it through the day. I felt a huge accomplishment, and the third day, I further challenged myself to speak up when another person spoke negatively about a colleague. I spoke up three times that first day, and each time, the person looked at me, and said, "I am so sorry; I should really be more positive." It started a chain reaction, and now, they don't speak as negatively in front of me. (Of course, I don't know what they do when they are not in my presence! LOL!). I set the standard in my office of alleviating negativity. 

This class really taught me the importance and qualities of a great leader, and the book will be extremely useful throughout my life. I have always been a confident person; however, I was not confident in my skills as a leader. I now know, I can learn to become a leader, and I can encourage others as well!

Thanks for a great class, Dr. Steve! 

From this course, I want to learn how to become a quality leader. By quality, I mean a leader who has patience, understanding, compassion, and cooperation. I want to learn how to effectively communicate with my colleagues without becoming defensive and without getting angry because I feel someone is getting the praise for my work. I want to learn how to organize my time effectively in order to be productive, creative, and fun.

I believe people should love their jobs, and while production is important, a person should actually enjoy going to work. It should not always be "balls to wall," as the saying goes. I want to learn to make this happen. I work in an industry where we see people who have suffered spinal cord injuries or strokes, who have debilitating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, or who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, but who come to participate in our research studies, with smiles, because their participation may help future generations. These people may never walk again or speak clearly; they may never be able to drive or to hold their grandchildren; but they are grateful for every breath they take. I want to learn this philosophy and to instill it in my colleagues. We do amazing research to help people with disabilities live quality lives.

I tend to be impatient and bark at others if I am having a bad day. However, once I speak to one of our participants, I realize I need to change my attitude. After reading the first two chapters in The Leadership Challenge (4th edition), I realize it is possible to become a leader who is compassionate, supportive, understanding, and liked, as well as possess the knowledge to effectively run an organization. My goal is to obtain these skills. I have the compassion, and after 20 years of being a business administrator, I have the skills to manage. However, I want to strengthen my skills in patience, understanding, and cooperation. I want to be an inspirational leader; I want to use my participants as a guide to my effective and quality leadership.