My favorite leadership experience that I have comes from my experience as one of the senior leaders of my high school’s spirit committee. After my freshman year, there was a noticeable drop off in the number and quality of pep rallies and other spirit committee-led activities. Entering my senior year, my fellow senior leaders and I decided that this needed to change. Every meeting we had, we came together from different social groups to talk about what hadn’t worked in the past, and what we could do to make our senior year our best one yet. I would liken this experience to the symphony metaphor given in the book in that it was our responsibility as leaders, much like the maestro, to effectively lead and make use of the talents of everybody in the spirit committee, like the different musicians with differing talents and instruments, to come up with the best sounding songs possible, in our case the best pep rallies and school activities. What made this leadership experience great for me was being able to appreciate the different groups people in the committee came from, that it wasn’t just athletes or people from one social group. It was awesome for me to see the different ideas people came up with, and the passion our group had in carrying out ideas towards a final product, even if that idea wasn’t a certain person’s own idea. We finished with several fun pep rallies and activities, a great black-out t-shirt for a rivalry game, and a cheer that is still one of the most popular cheers at the school three years later. That is what makes me most proud of this leadership experience on the spirit committee, feeling like we left our own impact of a continuing tradition of passionate school spirit.
To me, the definition of leadership is not only an individual or group taking charge of a tasks among others, but that the individual elevates the standard, work ethic, and finished product of work of others in the group. In the world of sports, athletes like LeBron James and Tom Brady, and coaches like Urban Meyer, set the example of how to play or coach their respective sports, and through their example elevate their fellow teammates and players’ performance, making them better players themselves. This definition also fits into the everyday working world, where a good boss elevates the work of his employees by setting a standard of work quality. Also, the more employees and players enjoy working with a good boss or team leader, the more they will be driven to improve performance towards a common goal. The second part of leadership that I think is crucial is that a leader must be willing to adapt to changing times. Our world is a rapidly developing one, due to in most part the development of technology. If a leader is not willing to change with the times, he or she could be missing out on chances to boost workforce morale, increase efficiency, and improve the overall quality of work. A third piece of leadership that I believe is important is that a leader must be open to continuous learning, and to the ideas and concerns of his employees, or any other type of follower. Once a leader is willing to accept that he may not always have the best option for every answer, and that his employees can contribute more than following through with what the leader says, he facilitates critical thinking on ideas to come up with the best possible solution to get the job done. All of these important pieces lead to the real purpose of leadership, not solely to be in charge of a project, but to work towards accomplishing a common goal. If there is no common goal to work towards, a leader’s situation can result in the leader making orders for the sake of his followers’ obedience of the orders. With no drive towards a common goal, this situation becomes much like the saying, “the blind leading the blind.”
My favorite leadership experience that I have comes from my experience as one of the senior leaders of my high school’s spirit committee. After my freshman year, there was a noticeable drop off in the number and quality of pep rallies and other spirit committee-led activities. Entering my senior year, my fellow senior leaders and I decided that this needed to change. Every meeting we had, we came together from different social groups to talk about what hadn’t worked in the past, and what we could do to make our senior year our best one yet. I would liken this experience to the symphony metaphor given in the book in that it was our responsibility as leaders, much like the maestro, to effectively lead and make use of the talents of everybody in the spirit committee, like the different musicians with differing talents and instruments, to come up with the best sounding songs possible, in our case the best pep rallies and school activities. What made this leadership experience great for me was being able to appreciate the different groups people in the committee came from, that it wasn’t just athletes or people from one social group. It was awesome for me to see the different ideas people came up with, and the passion our group had in carrying out ideas towards a final product, even if that idea wasn’t a certain person’s own idea. We finished with several fun pep rallies and activities, a great black-out t-shirt for a rivalry game, and a cheer that is still one of the most popular cheers at the school three years later. That is what makes me most proud of this leadership experience on the spirit committee, feeling like we left our own impact of a continuing tradition of passionate school spirit.
2 Comments
Erin
1/25/2015 02:02:41 am
You did a nice job on this blog post (and I was glad to see that you were able to figure out how to imbed a blog into your learning portfolio!) I love that you reference athletics often -- there is so much to learn about leadership by studying athletes, athletic teams, coaches, etc. It becomes a particularly interesting topic when we begin to discuss ethical leadership -- but that's a topic for another day!
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Sam
1/26/2015 03:30:02 am
This is a very well thought post, Adam. One point you brought up which I think is very important is that leadership is ever changing. As conditions change we as individuals have to make a choice whether to adapt or not to adapt. Continually educating ourselves is crucial and it doesn't always have to be academic.
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