My Leadership Journey!

leadership is so much more complicated than I originally thought.

But the starting this class, I thought I knew exactly

what it waas and how I interact with it.

Walking through this project, you will be able to see

just a few of the leadership stepping stones that I

encountered. I'm really toe organizational leadership, including during my childhood

high school and college experiences.

In the final section, you will get to see where

I am now with my leadership journey, specifically the things

that I struggle with and need to develop, and just

a few action steps I will be taking to know

florid as a leader and an individual.

My leadership journey really started at a young age, watching

me grandma as she led our Cities Meals on Wheels

program as our grandma was there, made baby sitter.

My sister and I got to spend a lot of

time helping her at senior dining.

Watching as she led.

She was the ultimate example of a constructive leadership behaviour.

She recognized that the success and purpose of the program

was important, but always was sure that those things didn't

come at the expense of her volunteers and attendees.

They were the one to the program can't function without.

She shows appreciation for both her volunteers and attendees through

a monthly birthday cake, with the names of those with

birthdays that month.

Weekly music, coal entertainment from local performers and personally providing

ice cream for everyone.

Once a week out of everything I learned for my

Gram about leadership in an organization is that whatever you

dio, you need to give it your all.

If you're dedicated to what you dio those around, you

will want to be a part of it as well.

There was perspective on dedication to what I do carried

on with me in my high school career, starting with

my speech and drama career speech and drama is something

that originally was my sister's passion.

She poured her heart and soul into the play productions

in the yearly state speech competitions.

Not only did she pour everything into it, but she

always exceeded everyone's expectations for them.

My freshman year knows my sister prepared to graduate.

I was preparing to take over the rules and expectations

I was about to inherit.

Thankfully, with the help of my sister and practice of

public speaking at grimace Meals on Wheels program I was

both comfortable with and talented ATS public speaking.

The schools were something that I always took great pride

in especially right, these skills or something that I always

took great pride in, especially being in a small school

where most people didn't care about communication skills and instead

preferred to let others do the work.

Sadly, the teacher who oversaw the speech and drama department

was a louse, a fair lady leader.

During rehearsals, especially during the early stages, we could expect

her to be playing games on her iPad rather than

offering feedback and direction.

Because of this, it was often students that led the

Tibet the development of the show with little to no

background knowledge.

Because of this, after Britney left, I was usually the

emergent leader for the group because of my knowledge of

productions, and public speaking is often left to me.

The guy.

The rehearsals cracked behavior of those who weren't participating and

overall run the production and checker to Johnson and Hackman

share that lies a fair leadership often results in followers

feeling isolated, quit participating and being less motivated and satisfied.

Thankfully, even with the lack of participation from our appointed

leader. The group of students were willing to take ownership

over the production and become more of a team because

of it.

Overall, the lastly fair leadership of my teacher benefited us

as a team as we grew closer and me as

an individual as I gained more leadership skills that would

be used later in my high school career.

In my later years of high school, I had the

opportunity to join student council and see another type of

leader in action.

Not only was our student council teacher, let's call him

Mr Smith, the leader of our student council, but he

was also nominated as the president of the Iowa Association

of Student Councils.

Mr Smith was very passionate about our student council and

during big for what we could accomplish, and would it

inspire all of the student council members with that passion

he had.

It was a Democratic leader and truly allowed us to

guide what we wanted to do for the school.

Mr. Smith got his hands dirty by being involved in

the background, but also knew how to delegate to the

students, allowing them to own activities leading to interdependence within

our group.

One of Mr Smith's greatest skills was building up the

team Every year, halfway through the first semester, we would

take a group trip to the Iowa Student Leadership Conference,

where we would spend the weekend.

Not only would we participate in the conference, but we

also got the opportunity to just hang out at the

mall or in hotel rooms and bond as a team.

As a very active member of student council and leader

of our service project two years in a row, I

have to learn to lead their following a great leader.

After high school, I knew I wanted to take some

time from leadership and being overly involved in college and

instead focus on the academics.

When it came to academics in high school, it came

pretty easy to me.

I needed to study my notes before a test, but

then I was good to go.

In fact, oftentimes my classmates would come to me for

homework help.

My teachers knew how involved I was outside of class,

but I always got me homework and projects done so

they were great easily on the tests, since those were

what I struggled with most.

However, knowing that my brilliant sister's struggled in in college,

I knew it would be a little bit different for

me there.

Which is why I wanted to shift my focus.

It was easy at the beginning.

I would go to class, go home, go to work

and do my homework in between.

But as I got more involved outside the classroom, the

more difficult I found it to concentrate on school work

outside of the classroom.

I, being an avid procrastinator, struggle with getting the job

done, especially on time in chapter 12 of the book

Johnson and Hackman and talk about the meter ship passages

which essentially lead you through the different paths of leadership.

Although in some ways I feel as though I am

reaching the end of passage one for managing self to

managing others, I can honestly say that I am still

in the following stages of academics.

I'm still learning to manage and motivate myself, especially with

the distractions of other rules and responsibilities.

As mentioned in the beginning, I was hoping to put

off getting involved outside of the classroom, but during my

freshman year of college, I ended up joining a campus

ministry and student organization called Crew.

As a member of Crew, I got more involved my

software here.

I was a member of the planning team, which organized

the weekly large group meetings the following year.

I was asked to leave the planning team and also

be on the executive team for our organization.

After being seen as such an incredible leader in high

school, I came into these leadership roles with confidence that

I could take on these roles and leave the organization

successfully quickly.

I found that leading in the complex organization like crew

wasn't something that I was prepared, prepared for or have

the skills to dio.

Additionally, the staff that led the organization didn't have or

provide the training to equip the leaders with skills that

were necessary to leave the organization well.

Leaders weren't even given training for their specific leadership rules.

Instead, we were thrown in the deep end and either

Suncor spam.

I felt as though I as a leader was sinking.

I had taken on so much that I wasn't able

to handle it all.

The organization was growing, but in the midst of chaos,

I specifically chose to include the picture of the unfinished

puzzle which didn't show up.

I don't think that's all.

There it is there.

It is, uh, of the unfinished puzzle, because to me

it illustrates perfectly the many great leaders.

But we're in the organization but were being used to

their fullest potential.

Had all the pieces been put together, it could have

made a united and full picture.

After stepping down from my leadership roles for my own

mental health, I started looking for my next step, which

brought me toe wary and low.

While looking through my college experience and seeing how lost

I became in my leadership journey, I started asking myself

where Right now there are two very obvious leadership positions

I am currently serving in.

I started as the director of Children's Ministry at my

church in November of 2018.

Something to know about my church is that it is

very small.

Currently, I am the only staff member outside of our

pastor. This illustrates lack of resource is that we currently

have limiting the formal training I have access to for

my current position.

When I came into position, even though I had a

long transition period I had no idea how to run

a Children's ministry in all reality of the seven building

blocks of making changes Johnson and Hackman talked about in

Chapter 12.

I have currently done one of them well, developing key

relationships. After nearly a year and 1/2 that is all

the equipping I have been given, leaving it hard for

me to move the ministry forward.

Thankfully, during my time in races, I was given a

lot more training.

When I was first hired as an associate in June

of 2019 I was quickly promoted to an assistant store

manager just one short month later.

During this time, I have a lot of learning to

dio quickly.

I knew how to do most of the manager duties

Before I had fully figured out my job as an

associate. I knew my store leaders expectations for me.

As a manager, I was quickly able to build relationships

with the team and learn more about the business and

its culture.

The story lead already established the goals for the store

and individual in individuals that were both challenging but reasonable.

I quickly was able to work through a seamless transition.

Thankfully, I worked with three well experienced and patient managers

and lingers the excellent, efficiently tired He's me through Passage

one. As I continue to grow, I am confident that

someday I will be ready to move from Passage one.

It's a passage to and start managing other managers now.

Because of this opportunity and experience, I have been able

to use this job transition to grow as a leader

and start to develop new skills that I know will

be beneficial in whatever I decided to do next.

So naturally, the next question to ask myself is, Where

am I going through this organizational leadership class and the

making educational and vocational traces class I am currently taking

over the course of the semester, I have been able

to see more clearly where my resume and more importantly,

my leadership skill sets are currently lacking.

In the book, Johnson and Hot Hackman talk about leadership

development. They sure how motivation and ability are both needed

in order for a leader to be developed.

I someone who's newly, is a newly developed leader.

I would love to be able to take charge and

move from a using legitimate power, two expert or referring

power instead.

After looking at my current skill set, there are a

few skills that I would like to develop specifically when

it comes to being motivated as the leader, I struggle

with leader self.

I could see, in other words, a really struggle with

being confident in myself as a leader.

After coming to college and falling so far from where

I thought I waas, I have become accustomed to doubting

myself. I also struggle a bit with self concept clarity

and that allowing others opinions to affect my own beliefs

and how I act because of those beliefs.

Not only do I want to focus on these skills

that affect my ability and motivation as a leader, but

I wanna work on the internal processes of leadership as

well. Kevin Cashman's pathways to development really resonated with me,

of course, if the leader, I will always have more

to learn in all areas of my life.

But there are three pathways that I felt could use

the most development.

The first pathway is happy to the purpose mastery as

we discover, as we discovered in myself.

Concept, clarity struggles.

I struggle, being firm in my beliefs and values, which

also makes it difficult to use my gifts in talents

in a purposeful way, connecting those gifts with my values.

Secondly, I would like to develop pathway for the change

mastery. I struggle with adapting Teoh unexpected changes and thinking

on my feet.

Finally, I would like to develop papery five.

The resilience mastery one of my known greatest strengths.

Weaknesses is knowing where to put boundaries when I need

to say no.

Because of this, I think training myself to put up

boundaries so I can focus on things that rejuvenate me

would be a huge benefit to my ability to.

My Leadership Journey!

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