My leadership ability

I thought for this last blog I would talk about what I believe makes me a good leader. I think that the main things that contribute my leadership ability are my willingness to take control and responsibility for a certain situation, my willingness to listen to others, and my ability to read a situation. Whenever an assignment of some sort comes up I am usually the one in the group that will take charge and figure out what has to be done. Once we have started working towards our goal I will always listen to others opinions and encourage people to speak what is on their mind. Lastly, I feel like I am very accomplished at looking at a problem and seeing a solution for it. When all of these things are put together it makes for a very effective leader. These skills have helped me a great amount throughout my academic and athletic career. I think that it would be very valuable for others to work and concentrate on these skill sets that I have developed and it would help them out for the rest of their lives.

Mike Scioscia

Mike Scioscia, manager of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, has been known as one of the best baseball managers over the past couple of years. I have decided to take a look at how he has earned this regard as being such a great leader of the Angels. Baseball is an extremely difficult sport to manage because it has many individual aspects while still being a team sport. Baseball is also such a slow pace sport that a lot of thinking is involved which means that players have to be mentally strong. One of the things that make Scioscia so great is that he builds a trust up between his players. This trust evolves from the team being very close with each other. Scioscia has led the Angels to have this bond by creating a fun and energetic environment among the players while still holding them to their responsibilities. From Scioscia we can learn that it is very important to build a bond between employees and make sure that they are enjoying themselves while still getting work done. When people are having fun with their jobs then they are willing to work harder and accomplish their goals. These things are what have made Mike Scioscia such a great manager and why the Angels have been so successful under his tenure. If we can find a way to do these things that Scioscia has been able to do we will be able to be very effective leaders.

Group project

In my marketing class we just had a 20 page group project due last week. This was a perfect situation for someone to step up as a leader for the group, so I took that challenge. To receive this position of being the leader I made myself the first one to take action in the group. I took it on myself to call everyone in the group and set up our first meeting so we could get started on the project. By doing this the others in my group realized that I was dedicated to this project and hence looked up to me to lead us to get it done. As a result of being the one to set up to meeting everyone looked to me to have a plan of how to accomplish the project. I accepted this goal and assigned certain people to certain parts of the project. After I did this I asked if anyone thought that these parts were not separated fairly. By doing this I allowed for others to put their own input in on how they thought the parts should be split up so no one would be unhappy. This made it feel like it was more of a group decision on how we were to do the project. In the end we put together a great project which we received a good grade on and everyone in my group was very happy with how everything worked out.

Leadership is Influence

Of all of the definition that I have heard in this class I think that the best definition for leadership is by John C. Maxwell. Maxwell said that “leadership is influence nothing more nothing less.” After everything that we have learned this year in class I can turn just about all of it back to this definition. Influence is so important because if you cannot influence others to do something than it is impossible for you to lead them. So as a leader you want to learn how to influence the people around you. There are many ways to do this but I think that the most powerful way is to build personal relationships with people. People are naturally influenced by people that they know. Therefore if you are able to build up relationship with the people that you are trying to lead you are going to be much more effective in leading them because you will have more of an influence over them. By learning this it will make me a more effective leader because now I know that it’s important to get to know the people that you are working with. This is the reason that companies have their employees go on trips together and other social activities with each other. It is proven that these relationships between people make for better working situations because it makes people willing to listen to each other.

Kevin Garnett's Leadership

This entire NBA season critics and fans have been talking about how Kevin Garnett is such a great leader. People have been saying that it has been Garnett’s leadership abilities that have lead to the Boston Celtics to the best record in basketball this year. This got me thinking about what it is that make Garnett such an exceptional leader on the basketball court. After watching him play many times I have come to the conclusion that it is mainly two things that make him an outstanding leader. The first is his energy, passion, and enthusiasm and the second is how he encourages his teammates. When Garnett is on the basketball court he is always yelling, clapping his hands, and trying to pump up the crowd. His enthusiasm really seems to rub off on his teammates and makes them try harder during the game. When Garnett is in the game it seems as though he leads his team to go as hard as they can on every play. While this is a very important part of Garnett’s leadership the most important part is probably how he encourages his teammates. Garnett is always giving teammates high fives and congratulating them when they make a good play. This is the easy part that many players do but then Garnett also will go over and consul a teammate who has done something wrong and encourages them to play better to fix it. These are the leadership abilities that have earned Garnett the reputation as an extraordinary leader and what has help the Boston Celtics to become one of the best teams in basketball.

Model the Way

I think that the five exemplary practices that we have learned about this semester are great guidelines to follow to be an effective leader. The one that I believe is the most effective though is model the way. I think that leading by example is so great because it show everyone that you are really committed to the goal of the group. When a leader will step up and show that he is willing to do the dirty work it makes everyone else respect him and willing to follow him. This respect is so important because it makes everyone listen to him and keen on doing what he asks of them. Modeling the way also shows your followers what really matters to you so there is no confusion on what they should be doing. If someone sees their boss going around and helping the employees under him then they will be more likely to go around and help their fellow employees. If a leader realizes that what he does has such a huge effect on how his followers act then it will make him act in a more positive way. By modeling the way a leader can really improve the effectiveness of the group he is leading.

MBTI

I just talked to my dad the other day and he told me that he just took the MBTI with everyone he works with and it got me thinking about it again. It was interesting to hear what he got out of it because he was looking at it from the business side while we looked at it in a classroom setting. I remembered how we talked about in class that it is important to have people from both types because they will see things that the opposing type wouldn’t. I told him about this and he told me that even though many of the people he worked with were similar there was at least one person in each type. He told me that I was the same type, ESTP, as their CFO which I thought was interesting because that is something that I would like to be. Both my Dad and I are extraverts and thinkers which I think are two very important things to be. Even though everyone said that there are good things about each type for what I want to do I think that being an extravert and thinker are the most valuable. I think this because to be in sometime of management like I want to be it is extremely important to be able to work with people, which is much easier being an extravert. Being a thinker is also good because you don’t want to let your emotions get in the way of what is best for the company or you will not be as successful as you could be. In the end I am very happy with my MBTI score and I thought that it was interesting and helpful talking to my Dad about it.

Instrumental Group Dynamics

Last week we had a visitor come in to talk about group dynamics. He took a very interesting approach to teaching this topic by bringing in instruments for are class to make up a song with. He started out by telling us to take a moment of silence before we start to play. After a couple seconds he quietly started to tap his two sticks together but did not tell us it was time to play. I thought that this was a great way to go about starting the music because it let us know that some one should take charge and start to play but made sure that he wasn’t the one to do it. Even though I noticed this I still did not immediately start to play because I was still not sure how to go about it. Then after an extended period of time when no one was playing anything I took charge and played one note on the xylophone. It was very interesting because by just playing this one note it gave people the confidence to play a note themselves. Then eventually everyone got involved and we started to play together. This made me think about how in groups that sometimes the hardest part of accomplishing a goal is starting it. Once someone takes the initiative of starting the goal then everyone else will join in and you will be able to accomplish it. That is the most important thing that I took out of this group dynamics exercise.

Defining leader

What does it take to be a good leader? Leaders are those who strive for the best, those who are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for the greater good of a team or group. Leaders are those who will do the difficult things in order to obtain what is wanted or what is needed. To be a leader there are many characteristics that come to mind when I think of a good leader; determined, willing, focused, driven and above all else dedicated to the cause. Dedication is such an important quality for someone to have in order to be a good leader but how are good leaders separated from the average. Good leaders are those who make their mark on a program or leave a footprint in the minds and hearts of their peers, teammates and coaches. But leaders make themselves known not only in the athletic community but in the business world as well as the classroom. Leaders don’t always have to be the best on the team or the smartest but they have to be willing to put in the extra effort and strive to be the best they possibly can. So when you think of a leader don’t think of someone who is the best think of someone who is willing to give their best to achieve what some say is unachievable.

Basketball coach leadership

While watching the NCAA basketball tournament I came to think about how a coach has to be a great leader. Coaches get so much recognition for how well their team does even though they cant contribute anything on the floor. For a coach to be great they have to be able to draw up plays on the fly, read what the opposing team is doing and being able to relay it to his players, and be able to motivate his team. You need to be a good leader to be able to do all of these things but most coaches who make it to the college level are able to do these things. So this made me wonder, what is it that makes some coaches the best in the business. I came to the conclusion that what brings coaches to the next level is being able to develop other leaders. What makes Coaches like Mike Krzyzewski the best is the ability to develop leaders like Greg Paulus. A coach is unable to step on the floor and lead his team to victory so he must be able to develop one of his players into a great leader so he can run the game on the floor. If you look at the history of Duke Basketball coach Krzyzewski has always developed great leaders on his teams and they are one of the greatest programs of all time. This is the reason that I think the thing that makes a good coach become great is the ability to make some one else a great leader.