Sunday, November 20, 2011

Weeks 1 & 2 Reflections

Assignment

Each week in this course, you will engage your thoughts and abilities as a scholar, a practitioner, and a leader to advance your knowledge and personal academic agenda. These weekly reflections help you position yourself as a reflexive thinking scholar, practitioner, and leader. Consider saving these weekly statements, which serve as a critical reflection upon your growth as a scholar, practitioner, and leader throughout the program.
Create a reflective and applied statement describing how Week’s One and Two learning has affected your thought processes, development, and professional disposition. This statement should reflect your personal learning process, challenges, moments of discovery, life experiences, and interactions. You may also include questions for the course facilitator regarding material that may still be unclear in your reflection. Ideally, you will use these reflections throughout the course and the program to document your development as a scholar, practitioner, and leader, and to reflect critically on the changes that occur during this process.
Format any citations and references in your reflective statement consistent with APA guidelines.
Reply to each weekly thread titled Reflections, and post your response in the body of the post, not as an attachment.

My Response
Interactions
I once told my fiancé that to be an effective leader, one should be first be a strategist, but the moment I said it, I thought that I said something that may not necessarily be correct and led me to want to explore some of the ideas behind what a leader is or how leaders are perceived to be.

Moments of discovery
Leadership is defined in several aspects through the perspective of different people by Wren (1995).  Considering the eras and perspectives of each individual, leadership can be defined in many different ways.  Some of these definitions may contradict one another and each definition can be debated but each definition is still valid to the viewpoint of the one experiencing leadership and the role of it (Wren, 1995).  

Life experiences
My realization of these perceived ideas left me to challenge some of them in my life and workplace.  For example, I questioned the idea that leaders learned how to lead and are not necessarily born with this skill.  I also questioned if the primary capability of a leader to lead or if there is more.  I begin to observe the people I work with, especially the people who are labeled as leaders in the company.  I have not actually come to any conclusion yet about what these leaders have learned about leadership or what my coworkers think leadership is about so I will need to confront them and ask to learn the different points of view from the people who I see every day.

Challenges
Yet a leader also seems to be from the basis of one’s perception because if leadership is defined by any one person or group, it still can be contended.  The techniques and initiatives about leadership can be challenged and evaluated.  From historical leaders, such as Plato and Aristotle, to women and minorities, these leaders have several points of view from different perspectives of what was defined as leadership (Wren, 1995).

References
Wren, J. T. (1995). The leader's companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. New York: The Free Press.