Personal Philosophy Of Leadership

Leadership Philosophy

Leadership has naturally always been one of my traits. I am the

second oldest of six children. Growing up I was responsible for caring

for my younger siblings. The responsibility has shaped me into a

natural leader. I believe in good energy and good vibes. During my

childhood, our family attended church and participated in the

community. This instilled humbleness and desire to be of help to

anyone else. My priorities as a leader are always how I can help

others without expecting anything in return. This is a personal law of

mines. I feel that it gains trust, respect and shows people how genuine

you are. Whenever you do anything for someone the natural reaction

is, in return they will want to do something for you. Upon

meeting
anyone, I learn as much as I can and how I can help in anyway. This
plants the seeds of selfless service which is an important attribute of
a leader.

During my first and only deployment to Iraq.

I was put into my first real

leadership position. I was an E4 working in the s2 section. There was a

SSG and 3 specialist and a major. It was time for the staff sergeant to

go on his R&R leave. I was the highest ranking specialist and was in

charge for the week. What a learning experience…. I am in of the

section. We would have a team meeting bi-weekly to cover normal

work. The bi-weekly was during our sergeant leave of course. I

emailed out the calendar invite instead of verbally announcing the

time and location of our meeting. We worked in a very close

environment. Our desk were right next to each other. The moment I

sent out the invite, one of the specialist felted that I was too good to

speak to them and resented me the entire week. I did not find out what

the problem was until our sergeant returned from R&R leave and

through mediation between the two of us. That one email caused a

non-productive work week. We both had extremely different point of

views of what happened. The biggest lesson I learned was

communication, if I can tell you in person than I will. Talking things out

ourselves would have brought us to the true meaning of the conflict

faster. We were to young an inexperience to know what was going

on.

My overall personal opinion of leadership starts with self-awareness
and confidence. Self-awareness is important to me because this
means any person is engaged with reality. Someone who is self-aware
can look at any situations in real time. In order to lead you must know
where you are currently, where you are going and where you want to
end up.

Not being self –aware may cause inconsistency, lack of

empathy and lack of confidence. I have internalized these beliefs

from my civilian and military experiences. I have found majority of the

time, people that display the characteristics above are not shy, they

know their strengths and weaknesses, and they will say something

when they see things are wrong or right. This type of person will build

weaker and strong people up. This type of person is open to candid

feedback, new perspective and continuous learning.

I expect honesty, soldiers to go beyond the call of duty and

adaptability from soldiers I evaluate. I will measure this on their

relationships and report from their peers. A leader is positive and

important to their peers and subordinates, it will show. Naturally

others will praise, consign the actions of the leader in question. My

people can expect me to continue to work on myself growth,

spiritually, emotional. Peers and subordinates will witness me as a

team player and never a dictator. A collective answer is more powerful

than one person. I realized that continuing education is the key to

success. I will never turn down continuing

education.