Development of my Personal Leadership Philosophy

On the first day of our Honors Supply Chain Colloquium led by Donnie Williams , we were encouraged to consider our perspective on leadership. Professor Williams questioned us with “How would you define leadership?” “What is the difference in leading and managing?”, and other thought-provoking questions. During this initial class, I responded with traits of leaders I looked up to like humble, honest, respected, and achieved, and I could minimally articulate a difference between managing and leading. As we conclude this class, I believe my perspective and understanding of leadership has been significantly altered for the better. Leadership is now defined to me as the process of motivating and aligning others in order to reach a common goal, and the primary difference in this definition compared to that of managing, is that managers simply delegate and oversee the completion of tasks to maintain order. To be able to have an educated conversation around various perspectives, theories, and concepts is something that I can now contribute to. ??

Through self-assessment, lectures, guest speakers, and leadership articles, I have been able to gain a comprehensive understanding of leadership concepts as well as pinpoint various lessons I plan to implement into my personal leadership philosophy. Below I have included three primary lessons I plan to incorporate into leadership philosophy and reflected on my new understanding of leadership as a whole:

#1 Goal to be a transformative leader.

James MacGregor Burns, a political scientists and leadership researcher, classifies leaders into three categories: transactional, transformational, and pseudo transformational. He defines transactional leaders as ones that, “focus on the exchanges that occur between leaders and their followers”(Burns), pseudo transformational as ones that, “focus on the leader’s own interests rather than the interests of his or her followers” (Burns) and finally defines transformational leadership as the “process of engaging with others to create a connection that increases motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower” (Burns). We further learned that transformational leadership creates a motivation of the followers beyond what they are expected. This is where we see followers willing to take on additional tasks to benefit the team, an overall desire for the collective team to succeed, and the attention to the needs of the team beyond just what is shown on the surface level. Transformational leadership is the style of leadership that I hope to exhibit as I enter into the work force. This is a type of leadership that is able to enact real change not based on contingent rewards or passive aggressive actions, but rather through creating a motivation within your followers that prioritizes their needs and their abilities and creates a drive to perform within each of the team members.

As I strive to implement this into my personal leadership style, I am reminded of Burn’s four “I”s: Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individual Consideration (Burns). I plan to use these as a framework in order to implement this leadership style. Transformational leadership starts with Idealized Influence, meaning you are serving as a strong role model for your followers, are confident in your moral and ethical values and essentially create a presence that others naturally want to follow (Burns). This then allows you to create inspirational motivation within your followers (Burns). I plan to do this through clearly setting out expectations and the vision of the team, creating an invitation for the members to join in on what we are doing. Once this is completed, I will be able to create intellectual stimulation, by challenging my followers to grow, promote new innovation, and give opportunities for growth (Burns). This past week I was given the opportunity to introduce Craig Weiss , Senior Vice President of Conagra. In his time in our class, he emphasized the importance of taking “stretch opportunities” to further develop professionally. These are situations that are out of your comfort zone and ones that challenge you both in the technical skills of task and in terms of personal development. As I saw this advice as a key takeaway for me to seek these out as I develop as a young profession, but I think it is also important to consider this from the perspective as a leader. If we want to transform a team and allow them to grow, we must present “stretch opportunities” to them so that they are able to have these experiences. Once we provide our followers with these experiences, we are able to exhibit individualized consideration which is where transformational leadership is set apart (Burns). This portion of this leadership philosophy encourages the leader to enact active listening with their followers, help identify their needs, and coach them towards growth in those areas. ?

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#2 Practice Authentic Leadership.

????????????? I believe this is a concept that I want to continue in my character and my leadership perspective. This is a trait that I has been instilled in me from a young age, something I value in my leadership journey currently, and something that I will continue to incorporate into my leadership philosophy. To me, authentic leadership is creating a sense of transparency between yourself and your employees and staying true to your values. To me, authentic leaders create consistency between the values they hold on and off the clock. They are leaders that are emotional intelligent and exhibits sincerity in each of their actions. Shelley Simpson , President and Chief Executive Officer of J.B. Hunt Transportation Services, emphasized that “Authentic leadership is the most attractive quality in leadership”. I believe that when acting as an authentic leader, other primary leadership qualities flow including upholding moral and ethical standards. As I enter into the professional world, I hope to be led by authentic leaders and plan to exhibit this leadership style within my teams.

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#3 Prioritize Serving through Servant Leadership.

As I have grown up, I have always prioritized giving back through the extracurricular activities I have been a part of and organizations that I am committed to, however before this class I never considered how serving others could be considered in the professional industry. In article James Heskett, “Why Isn’t Servant Leadership More Prevalent?” we learn that servant leaders are regarded higher by their employees compared to others, feel better about themselves, and ultimately see better results (Heskett). It explains that through servant leadership, the leader is able to create a community of conversations and learning which enables the leader to be more in touch with the information in among the team and aware of the team’s wellbeing and challenges. This perspective ultimately values listening, empathy, and awareness, all characteristics emphasized by the various industry leaders that have joined our class this semester.

Jason Turner , Vice President of Talent and Growth Initiatives of ArcBest, concluded his time in our class with these words, “A life of service is the full life, it’s the abundant life.”

I think that as we consider our professional career, this concept can also be applied. Throughout this course, I have also been encouraged to identify various ways that leadership contributes towards overall contentment in one’s position, and this was a prevalent concept in this reflection. I believe a sense of fulfillment can come from serving others, and while we think that may only be in volunteering and giving back to the community, I think that bits of it can come through the intentional decisions that we take each day to serve others. I leave this class extremely motivated to consider how I can use positions of leadership to serve my employees or those beneath me and alongside me.

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Areas of Growth

When considering the various perspectives and theories to include into my personal leadership philosophy, I believe it is it critical to examine where my leadership capabilities currently lie. In order to be a strong leader, it is important to be fully aware of both your strengths and areas of opportunity. To build on this, we were encouraged to take the Clifton Strengths Assessment, in order to evaluate our core five strengths. My top five strengths include: competition, achiever, significance, focus, and discipline. When looking at these strengths, all 5 fell into the executing and influencing domains. ?I would agree that majority of the strengths that I would have considered myself to have prior to taking this exam would fall into these 2 categories, however I was shocked to learn that none of my top five strengths fell into the relationship category. Because my results identify my top strengths in the executing and influencing realm, this identifies areas of growth in the relationship building and strategic thinking domains.?While I believe that I exhibit some of these strengths, I also recognize these are not my highest strengths and are something I should consider finding a teammate to help with this. I believe that this is something beneficial to be aware of, so that I can prioritize strengthening my areas of weakness or calling on coworkers who can help support in my lacking areas.

As we conclude this course, I am sincerely thankful for the opportunities that I have been given in order to develop my personal leadership philosophy. I think it is really unique for a course to be structured with various pieces of knowledge, and up to us what we chose to implement. Professor Williams has done a phenomenal job at lining up a diverse group of guest speakers to hear from, authors to read from, and lectures to listen to in order to give us a wide grasp of the various concepts regarding leadership. I also appreciate the level of vulnerability within this class, as the lessons shared from industry professionals are personal experiences that they chose to share with us. I believe the personal testaments were the most influential piece in developing my leadership philosophy, as they were the easiest to relate to. As I enter into my early professional career, I am eager to apply this new knowledge and continue to grow as a leader, it is only the beginning!

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Heskett, James. “Why Isn’t Servant Leadership More Prevalent?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 25 Apr. 2014, www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/05/01/why-isnt-servant-leadership-more-prevalent/.

Burns, James MacGregor. “The 4 ‘I’s’ of Transformational Leadership.” Michigan State University, 1 July 2022, www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/resources/leadership/4-is-of-transformational-leadership/.