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.