I came in with some prior knowledge and experience of leadership. I was a leader in a few clubs in high school and in other extracurriculars. Coming into Public Leadership, I was able to expand my knowledge about leadership. Before, leadership was taking over, directing others to do my bidding because I was the leader. In some cases, this is an important skill to have, but in most cases, this is oppressive and unproductive. While in PL, I was able to change and mold my definition of leadership to better fit my personality and leadership skills. To me, leadership means to be a part of a group above all. To work with others, taking their opinions into consideration while making decisions. Leadership also means making decisions and steering the group to a direction that will benefit the group as a whole. While taking over the group can be beneficial in some places, most of the time, it is more important to be a part of the group, bouncing ideas around and allocating tasks for ourselves. A leader should only step up when things are not getting done and the group is off task. This laissez-faire type of leadership fits my personality since I am more of a easygoing person, letting others do what they want to do.
I would describe myself as a leader who is more of a participative leader. I like to contribute to my group and let the group decide what they want to do and how rather than enforcing anything on them. When working in a group with a leader, I like having a degree of freedom while working because I can keep some degree of control while working for the group. I like to transfer this over to my leadership style as I like to be more laissez-faire and trust that my group will stay on task and focus on the material at hand. I would describe my strength as a leader to be welcoming and accepting. As a leader, I want to hear from everyone and what they have to say. With all ideas laid out, I like to incorporate as many ideas as I can into the project so that everyone has a part that they can contribute to as well as be content with the topic we are doing.
With this laissez-faire style of leadership, I also believe that a relationship among the group members as well as between the leader and the group members is very important. By building a communiy around the group members, everyone can freely share ideas, talk, and interact with each other without having to limit themselves in fear of social cues. This level of community needs a fair amount of communications so that everyone can get to know each other and understand what everyone wants out of the project. A relationship is not only good for sharing ideas and talking amongst each other, it also promotes a higher level of commitment to the group as the members are more reliant on each other than if they were estranged.
I would describe myself as a leader who is more of a participative leader. I like to contribute to my group and let the group decide what they want to do and how rather than enforcing anything on them. When working in a group with a leader, I like having a degree of freedom while working because I can keep some degree of control while working for the group. I like to transfer this over to my leadership style as I like to be more laissez-faire and trust that my group will stay on task and focus on the material at hand. I would describe my strength as a leader to be welcoming and accepting. As a leader, I want to hear from everyone and what they have to say. With all ideas laid out, I like to incorporate as many ideas as I can into the project so that everyone has a part that they can contribute to as well as be content with the topic we are doing.
With this laissez-faire style of leadership, I also believe that a relationship among the group members as well as between the leader and the group members is very important. By building a communiy around the group members, everyone can freely share ideas, talk, and interact with each other without having to limit themselves in fear of social cues. This level of community needs a fair amount of communications so that everyone can get to know each other and understand what everyone wants out of the project. A relationship is not only good for sharing ideas and talking amongst each other, it also promotes a higher level of commitment to the group as the members are more reliant on each other than if they were estranged.
Below are three essays I wrote in my time at UMD.
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These three paper's are a reflection of my time at the UMD PL program. The first two papers, I wrote in my PL classes. The third paper, I wrote in a Philosophy of Education class. The first paper is a position paper I wrote for a discussion we had in class about immigration, specifically about the DACA program. I especially liked this topic because I am an immigrant myself and discussing one of the most controversial topics of immigration was fun. In these discussions, I particularly liked how we discussed the leadership portion of the topic, delving into who the key players were and how their ideologies were shaping the topic. Also, having
discussion with a diverse group of people with differing ideas was fun to watch and participate in.
The second paper is my Leadership Philosophy paper. I wrote about Genghis Khan and how he displayed leadership skills that I valued and associated with. I have always been intrigued by Genghis Khan since he is one of the world's greatest conquerors and leaders. He held the world's largest continuous land empire and still continues to influence people's lives to this day. While looking into his leadership skills and practices, I realized he was surprisingly a more fair and just leader than the mainstream media holds of him. In mainstream media, he is depicted as a cruel and merciless leader who would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way. However, while doing research on him, I found him to be an incredibly smart, resilient leader who found creative ways to not only please his constituents, gather a large, loyal following but also to show mercy to his enemies while not looking weak.
The third paper is my Philosophy of Education I wrote for a Philosophy of Education class. This paper reflects my leadership within a classroom, showing how I was to lead my students through a school year. I loved writing this paper since it allowed me to put down my own philosophy of education of paper, discussing the leadership traits I want to exhibit in a classroom. Since I want to be a teacher when I grow up and since being a teacher requires leadership skills, PL has helped me take a step towards my goal. I specifically chose this paper as a one of my works that changed my understanding of leadership because this paper as well as the class I wrote this for helped me shape my what kind of leader I wanted to be in a classroom. In writing this paper, I was able to reflect on my time in PL and all the lessons I learned through its classes and tie them all together in defining a leadership style for myself.
discussion with a diverse group of people with differing ideas was fun to watch and participate in.
The second paper is my Leadership Philosophy paper. I wrote about Genghis Khan and how he displayed leadership skills that I valued and associated with. I have always been intrigued by Genghis Khan since he is one of the world's greatest conquerors and leaders. He held the world's largest continuous land empire and still continues to influence people's lives to this day. While looking into his leadership skills and practices, I realized he was surprisingly a more fair and just leader than the mainstream media holds of him. In mainstream media, he is depicted as a cruel and merciless leader who would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way. However, while doing research on him, I found him to be an incredibly smart, resilient leader who found creative ways to not only please his constituents, gather a large, loyal following but also to show mercy to his enemies while not looking weak.
The third paper is my Philosophy of Education I wrote for a Philosophy of Education class. This paper reflects my leadership within a classroom, showing how I was to lead my students through a school year. I loved writing this paper since it allowed me to put down my own philosophy of education of paper, discussing the leadership traits I want to exhibit in a classroom. Since I want to be a teacher when I grow up and since being a teacher requires leadership skills, PL has helped me take a step towards my goal. I specifically chose this paper as a one of my works that changed my understanding of leadership because this paper as well as the class I wrote this for helped me shape my what kind of leader I wanted to be in a classroom. In writing this paper, I was able to reflect on my time in PL and all the lessons I learned through its classes and tie them all together in defining a leadership style for myself.
In my personal experience, I was able to use the lessons I learned from PL in one of my classes TLPL101. In this class, I was partnered with a classmate to lead a elementary class through a science lesson. With this partner, I was able to connect and form a relationship with her so that I had an easier time working with her, bouncing ideas around and forming our lesson plan. Together, we were able to develop an easygoing but on task leadership style to lead our class. We also worked closely with the professor of the class to solidify our leadership skills in the classroom so that we could do our best on the lesson. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to teach in-person because of the Covid-19 pandemic and had to teach to an online class. However, this did not take away from the solid teamwork we had as well as the leadership skills we were able to showcase to our students. In the class, there was point where the class was off topic. Rather than immediately redirecting the class to the lesson, we allowed it to continue for some time before cutting it off to better build a relationship with the students. Through this class, I was able to learn so much about online teaching and communication as well as teaching and the leadership process of it.