Leadership Reflection

As soon as I started learning more about the leadership theories I started applying all my knowledge at work and I could easily identify the different types of leaders and how they change in each situation. I was able to recognize who were the effective leaders and who only wanted to be noticed or had an authoritative attitude with the employees. With all the different actions I observed from each person with a high position, I realized that not all of them should be having the title of leader since they only perform as a manager or director of a department, but they don’t necessarily act as a leader in the company. To my surprise I noticed that leaders are not only on manager positions, a good leader can be any employee from any department.  The employees that I considered leaders are the ones that are always paying attention to their coworkers, making sure everyone is feeling ok, trying to find new ways to make things easier for everyone, helping them reach their goals and supporting the co-workers that are going through a difficult situation. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of managers that take the time to do all of that.

Moreover, I feel like now I have a clearer idea of the leader that I would like to be in the future, I have been able to recognize what followers appreciate from their leader and what attitudes or actions discourage them at work. As time passes by, people want more from a leader and not only to be telling everyone what to do. The concept of leadership is constantly evolving; therefore we have to be aware that we need to be continuously updating our leadership strategies depending on the followers’ attitude and circumstances. At the beginning of the semester I posted that three of the most important values a leader should have are to be honest, enthusiastic, and well oriented and I still believe that every leader should have this values to create more leaders. These values will keep everyone in the group with their feet on the ground and optimistic at the same time.