Leadership
One of the primary goals of this course is for you to find and develop your leadership identity. Your ideas about what a leader does and how a leader acts may change as we progress through the course. The ideas you develop may be different from those of your classmates, and that’s okay. The concept of leadership can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people.
Let’s start with your current definition of leadership. Based on your professional and personal experiences (whether you have been a leader or not), what is your definition of leadership? Reflect on specific characteristics, values, and beliefs in your definition. You can use the textbook and other resources to help, but it needs to be your own definition based on your experiences. Provide examples or explain your experiences.
For your discussion post, you may respond to the prompt above, ask your peers for help regarding the given topics, or answer your peers’ questions.
Response #1
EsheFolami posted Oct 24, 2019 7:15 PM
Subscribe
Hello Everyone,
My definition of leadership is to lead a group of people. Leadership means to be able to provide guidance, support, encouragement, direction and influence to the group of people you are responsible to lead. I think in order to be a good leader you have to be flexible, compromising, articulate, compassionate, patient, visionary and encouraging. You have to have communication (which includes the ability to listen and comprehend) as well as negotiation skills and you have to be able to make decisions that at times can be difficult and may not be “popular.”
I am a Property Manager and I manage a tax credit property for seniors aged 62 or better. I have been in this field for almost 25 years. In my position I am responsible to not only manage my staff, I have to manage my residents, vendors, my budget and my building. In this position I am confronted daily with A LOT of decisions including what to delegate, what’s a priority and how to make sure everything runs smoothly while doing my best to make sure my staff, residents, management company and owners are satisfied if not happy. Needless to say I have to make daily adjustments in my leadership techniques depending on the people I am interacting with. I have to be able to support and encourage my staff as well as be able to direct and discipline them if necessary. I have to be able to accept direction from my Regional as well as stand firm on processes that I may feel work for my property and articulate my opinion in a way that establishes my stance while respecting his position as my supervisor. I have to be able to present information to my owners that would grow their bottom line, as well as advocate for my residents for improvements in the community. I have to be able to interact with my residents as both a person that cares about their wellbeing as well as the person that may evict them if their rent is not paid. I have to negotiate contracts with vendors appreciating their expertise but keeping my budget at the forefront of my communication. Doing all of this every day is not easy and I don’t master it every day because I am human however as my leadership abilities have and continue to develop I am learning that it is OK to not know all the time. It’s ok to get it wrong sometime and it’s OK to depend on someone else at times.
Leadership is an easy word to say and a difficult task to master. To date I don’t know ANYONE who has mastered this skill.
Solution Preview
Leadership
I can describe leadership as a process of encouraging people to work towards attaining a specific objective. For example, I led my team in my company’s project and delegated some duties to the team members to ensure timely project completion.
(291 words)