Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Differentiate leadership from followership
Leadership self assessment
Leadership and followership
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
As an officer in the United States Army, it has been imperative for me to understand every facet of leadership and why it remains important to be an effective leader. During this course, I have learned some valuable lessons about myself as a leader and how I can improve on my leadership ability in the future. The journal entries along with the understanding of available leadership theories have been an integral part of my learning during this course. For all of the journals and assessments that I completed, I feel it has given me a good understanding of my current leadership status and my future potential as a leader. All of the specific assessments looked at several areas in regards to leadership; these assessments covered several separate focus areas and identified my overall strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Over the course of this paper I will briefly discuss each one of these assessments and journal entries as they pertained to me and my leadership.
The first assessment I completed was very eye opening for me as a leader. As expected, my score for the overall potential of my leadership was on the higher end of the scale because of my background and amount of experience I have in leadership positions. This assessment portrayed a very accurate depiction of my overall leadership potential because I have always placed emphasis on being very good at what I do while working hard to not follow a path that did not work the first time.
The Army spends a great deal of time making followers into leaders and leaders into followers by utilizing several levels of training throughout their military career. This training allows a Soldier to perfect the knowledge and skills required to be an effective leader in every aspect of their job. ...
... middle of paper ...
... Retrieved December 17, 2013 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-effective-communication-workplace-20198.html
FORBES. (2014). The only true leadership is value-based leadership. Retrieved January 14, 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/26/values-based-leadership.html
Ivey Business Journal. (n.d.). Followership: the other side of leadership. Retrieved January 14, 2014 from http:iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/leadership/leadership/followership-the-other-side-of-leadership#.UtbFeaFMHIU
MilitaryTimes. (2013). 14 leadership traits and 11 leadership principles. Retrieved November 19, 2013 from http://forums.militarytimes.com/showthread.php?1594653-14-Leadership-Traits-and-11-Leadership-Principles-judging-a-leader-or-a-NATION
Lussier, R. & Achua, C. (2013). Leadership: Theory, Application & Skill Development (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning
Part 1, The Basics of Leadership, Chapter 1 covers Fundamentals of Leadership while Roles and Relationships are covered in Chapter 2. This section describes and depicts levels of Leadership. We as a military are set apart from other non-military professions in that Soldiers must be prepared to use deadly force and have the courage required to close with and destroy the enemy. All leaders, from non-commissioned officers and warrant officers, to commissioned officers, inherently possess a great responsibility. The repercussions of decisions and actions impact the lives of Soldiers and their families. Additionally, these decisions affect the battlefield environment including enemy and non-combatants, both military and
Natural born leaders are almost nonexistent in today’s military. Military members have to complete numerous leadership classes as you progress through the military ranks whether you are an enlisted or as an officer. There are many attributes that people would have to possess to be considered a great leader. Some of those attributes include honesty, respect, trustworthy, and enthusiasm just to name a few. There have been many leaders I have worked with or for over my past 19 years in the Army. One of the most important one would have to be honesty. Honesty is important because if the people that work for you cannot believe what you tell them, they will never trust you or support you. Employees can make or break their supervisor. If they do not like or trust the manager they will not respect them and they will only do the least amount possible. When your employees believe that, you value their opinion and their work ethic. Like you and trust, you they will do anything you ask of them. Whether the decision is right or wrong it is a decision, a leader never want to leave their subordinat...
Dwight David Eisenhower (1955), the 34th President of the United States, gave an explicit definition of leadership, “The job of getting people really wanting to do something is the essence of leadership….” The Army, like any other civilian organization, defines different levels of leadership depending on a size of a unit a leader is in command of. Tactical and organizational leaderships are two first interconnected levels of leadership in the Army. Both levels of leadership have many commonalities regarding duties and responsibilities; yet they are very different in the way the leaders develop themselves, train, and take care of their soldiers.
Leadership is contagious throughout the world and most importantly in the Army. It is not just my view, but of all leaders, at all levels, that organizations are responsible for setting conditions that lead to long-term organizational success. As I reflect on my experiences, through experience and observation, I realize how my values, beliefs, and perspectives about leadership continuously evolve over time. Recognizing these changes over time helps me better understand that people in organizations have different perspectives in life. This leadership narrative serve as important guiding principles for how I will lead at the organizational level and represents my thought, values and beliefs.
According to Grossman and Valiga’s Leadership Characteristics and Skills Assessment, the interpretation of scores for perception of what makes a good leader gave me the following results: good perception of a good leader and the scores for perception of your own ability to lead resulted in low perceived leadership ability for myself (Grossman and Valiga, 2013). With these results, I have concluded that I have low confidence in my leadership skills and ability. This would be an area of improvement needing work on my part. Part of being a good leader is being confident in one’s abilities and skills. Who would want to follow a leader who has n...
The NCO Creed states, “I realize that I am a member of a time honored corps, which is known as “The Backbone of the Army” (‘The NCO Creed’). That verse alone should be the most inspiring part that all Noncommissioned Officers should love to hear because it’s true in many aspects. The question to ask is, are we driving it in the right direction. There has never been a time in our history when Soldiers needed competent and strong leaders more than today. The social complications that our young Soldiers face are beyond what any generation before them has had to endure and learn and navigate. The military are looking for leaders who can be role models for these Soldiers. Anyone can tell a soldier what to do, but a good leader can show, direct and motiva...
My leadership can expect a top tier performer who strives to be one of the most competent Non-commissioned Officer’s within the unit. I will do this by adhering to the regulations, unit sop’s and any other guidance which governs my section. I will ensure my soldiers do the same, holding them to strict but attainable standards and expecting nothing less. I will teach, coach, counsel, and mentor these soldiers-teaching them what a leader is and grooming them to be leaders also.
The best Army leaders will effortlessly find some way to get others to do exactly what they need them to do. They do this by giving soldiers a
Regardless of the career you choose in your life, whether it be an accountant or a Soldier in the United States Army, someone, somewhere most likely had an influence to bring you to that decision. The Army defines leadership as the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization (JP, p. 1). Now imagine you are a young Private, in one of the most dangerous places in Iraq and you have constant leadership changes, and not much support from your direct leadership. I am sure at this point you can imagine, it is not the best scenario to be in. Throughout the duration of this essay you will read about Sergeant First Class Rob Gallagher and Sergeant First Class Jeff Fenlason, their leadership abilities, and the techniques they attempted to use to resolve the issues in this Platoon that was in a downward spiral after losing many leaders to the hell of war.
Many individuals in our military today have this notion that just because they earned their “stripes” that they automatically deserve respect, and that their subordinates should and will listen to them strictly because of what is on their chest. A true leader not only leads, develops, and mentors, but they embody and apply those leader competencies in their everyday life both on and off duty. Being a leader doesn’t mean you always have to be the mean guy. It means that you can successfully provide purpose, direction and motivation to make your Soldiers want to work for you to accomplish the mission. In this paper, I will discuss and give examples about the difference between Competent Leadership
What is leadership philosophy? According to Col William DeMarco, a leadership philosophy is similar to an organizational mission statement but on a singular level. “It lets people know what you expect, what you value, and how you will act; with the additional benefit of making the organization more productive like a compass it helps keep you, the leader, on course.” This paper will cover three elements. I will begin by discussing my leadership philosophy and my opinion on “a boss vs. a leader.” I will then provide a summary followed by an analysis of an interview I conducted with an Army battalion-level commander concerning his most challenging leadership issue.
The breakdown was as follows, in the area of self-awareness, the score was a 19, in the area of internalized moral perspective, the score was a 19, in the area of balanced processing, the score was a 14 and in the area of relational transparency, the score was a 15. The total scores received reflected high self-awareness and internalized moral prospective and low balanced processing and relational transparency (Northouse, 2013). The higher scores were indicative of me being a strongly authentic, whereas, the lower scores showed that there was some weakness in authentic leadership (Northouse,
Looking back over 20 years of service and experience, I have determined that leadership has many attributes. Leadership is not simply “Influencing others to achieve a goal” like the definition the Coast Guard provides. Every leader wants to set and achieve goals for themselves, their subordinates, and the organization but leadership is much more than just achieving those goals. Leadership incorporates elements of respect, dependability, trust, service and empathy; when put together a leader can inspire others to accomplish nearly anything. I have encountered both a positive and negative characteristics to these traits, throughout my career, giving me learning moments for what I would like to be and what I don’t ever want to be.
In addition, an effective leader is always confident and creates shared sense of purpose. Basically, leadership is an attempt that influences and motivates constituents; however, how can an individual assess whether they influence others in a positive way? To help individuals in assessing their leadership competencies, several methods/tools have been developed by scholars; I used Leadership Competences Scorecard Inventory (LCSI) to discover my leadership capabilities.
Lussier, R.N. & Achua, C.F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.