Leading Yourself

In TA3 for the Leadership class Phil Powell said in his interview that he believes he is an effective leader of others because he can lead himself. When I was reading one of my law magazines it talked about the importance of personal appearance in working with clients.  The magazine said that some people are negative about the importance of personal fitness, clean offices, putting forward a very good and attractive appearance because they think it’s shallow.  The article countered by saying that clients will interpret a person’s ability to manage a case file and be disciplined and successful in his/her work by that person’s ability to be disciplined and successful managing the basic things such as personal appearnce, personal health and surroundings.

One of the underlying themes and realities of each of the effective leaders we’ve studied is the fact that the leader’s personal values and morals weren’t about being leaders but about being good people.  The founder of Chick-fil-A certainly doesn’t camp out with people the night before a new store opens because he read in a business book that he should “connect with customers.”  He does it because of what kind of person he is at the core.  Core values and core beliefs manifest in every part of our lives; especially in our leadership style.  If I want to be an effective leader and employee in my work and personal life, I need to examine my personal values and match up how those values will translate into leadership in my professional life.

I value honesty, decisiveness, education, information and good/thorough training.  I believe that people are likely and willing to participate and to be successful if they know what they are expected to do and why.  I also like things to be done correctly – sometimes to a fault.  In my most recent performance evaluation, my boss told me to be less thorough and a little faster!  These are the traits I brought to my former job where I was directly responsbile for several employees and traits I bring to my current job where my leadership opportunities are informal training and behavior modeling for my colleagues.  However, I think that sometimes I fall short in the area of consistency.  I value consistency and cool reactions under pressure.  My former job was as a suicide prevention/crisis counselor – trust me pressure was daily.  But I worry that I am not as consistent as I would like to be.  I would like to take the lessons of this course and develop a way to take my known values and keep them in the forefront of my awareness so I can grow as a person and as a leader.

---

Posted in Uncategorized