Emerging Leader or Strategic Leader?

Over the years that I have been in leadership positions, I have learned many ways to be a good and a bad leader. One of the leadership styles I am studying right now is Strategic Leadership, similar to my favorite type of leadership, servant leadership. Strategic leadership, defined by Maggie Wool is a leader’s ability to visualize, plan, lead, and make the best out of the resources they have to execute strategies efficiently and successfully. I believe there are twelve important skills to becoming a strategic leader as a college graduate. They are communication skills, goal setting, awareness, trust, timeliness, integrity, servanthood, management, strategic thinking, planning, and agility. Many of these skills a college student learns by being a part of teams in classes and juggling a social life and studies. The rest of these skills come from real-life experiences and working in healthy work environments.

Companies have claimed that emerging leaders have leadership potential (Sommers), and many College Graduates obtain the title of an emerging leader. I believe that most graduates are already strategic leaders. I have seen many of my peers overcome obstacles that only true leaders can. When faced with challenges like covid, changes in schools, deaths, and lives being altered completely, my generation is fully capable of strategically confronting obstacles that come their way with courage and agility.

Attending Oklahoma Baptist University has challenged and shaped how I see leadership in today's day in age. I believe that any college graduate can be a strategic leader in college or post-graduation; one just has to decide for him or herself if they will be part of shaping the future.

Sommerville, Alexa. “How to Identify Emerging Leaders & Why They’re Important | Acorn.” Acorn LMS, 28 Aug. 2022, acornlms.com/enterprise-learning-management/emerging-leaders. Accessed 10 Feb. 2023.

Wooll, Maggie. “Everything You Need to Know about Strategic Leadership | BetterUp.” Www.betterup.com, 30 Apr. 2021, www.betterup.com/blog/strategic-leadership.