Course Reflections

In reflecting on this course, I reviewed my last blog post from MSLD 511 Organizational Leadership.  In that post, I outlined my own approach to leadership as:

Leadership is a process by which one, the leader, supports the work of the many, the followers, toward the achievement of shared goals.  In this pursuit, the responsibilities and focus of the leader and the followers are different, but complementary.  Where the leader clarifies the vision, clears the path, and validate success, the followers complete the necessary work.

At the conclusion of this course, I find that I have learned several real tools for bringing my vision of leadership to life...

Leadership is a process by which one, the leader, supports the work of the many, the followers, toward the achievement of shared goals. In order to support followers, the leader must have personal skills.  During this course, we first focused on developing self-awareness and managing stress and well-being.  A leader that understands her own strengths and weaknesses and works to make improvements when necessary is a leader that is prepared to provide the necessary foundation for her followers.  Additionally, when times get tough, a leader must first be able to manage her own stress before providing emotional support to her followers.

In this pursuit, the responsibilities and focus of the leader and the followers are different, but complementary. A leader has many responsibilities that are different from her followers; we explored one of them: managing conflict.  While as adults, we generally expect each of us to manage our own conflicts, a leader is expected to step in if issues cannot be resolved.

Where the leader clarifies the vision, clears the path, and validate success, the followers complete the necessary work. Much of this course covered ways to help clarify the vision and create the framework for followers to complete required tasks.  From communicating supportively to motivating, empowering, and engaging others, this course had a toolbox full of ways to ensure a leader is prepared to do just that.

While I do not think my vision of leadership was changed by this course, I can certainly say it was enhanced.  The most valuable learnings took the form of helping me find ways to make my vision a reality.