Defining Yourself As A Leader PDF

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DEFINING YOURSELF AS A LEADER

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Defining Yourself As A Leader Novey Bennett MBA 5002 MBA Leadership Dr. Rebecca Snarski April 19, 2020

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Defining Yourself as a Leader To be a successful leader in today’s world one must strive to be a whole person. A leader must be in touch with their strengths and weaknesses to lead themselves and others. They must also use their strengths and weakness to achieve goals in their personal and professional lives. This paper will discuss how I define myself as a leader through assessment and coaching. The reader will also see how my top strengths are incorporated into my purpose and how coaching caused me to use a top strength to get through a rough patch I recently faced.

My Strengths Assessment After taking the BetterUp Assessment, the whole person report revealed my top five strengths are Focus, Encouraging Ownership, Sense of Control, Recognizing, and Risk Tolerance. Out of the top five I evaluated the top three. After analyzing the top three I found the assessment to be very accurate. I know being focused is an attribute I possess, because I have also been described as being steadfast. Being steadfast takes a tremendous amount of focus. When I have my mindset on something, I will be sure to complete the task whether it’s personal or professional. The sacrifices required to meet the task doesn’t matter. What matters to me most is that I complete the task or meet the deadline on time. It also doesn’t matter what type of distractions present themselves. I’m able to zero in and ignore those distractions and cancel out any noise. As a leader, being focused places me ahead of other leaders that aren’t, because it allows me to prioritize goals and task. It provides me the ability to make sure those goals and tasks are completed. This attribute has caused me to be successful in my personal and professional life and it supplements my additional strengths. My additional strengths are Encouraging Ownership and Sense of Control. The ability to encourage others to take responsibility for their task is also a gift while remaining focused on your own. I’m able to shift being focused when necessary and listen to a colleague’s challenges regarding their work. If the challenges they’re facing interfere with me completing my task, I allow the flexibility and the freedom they need to make any decision required to get the task completed. That allows them the opportunity to take ownership of how best to complete their task and enables me to still be productive and complete my task promptly. Encouraging ownership reinforces my sense of control. Sometimes when I’m focused on a task, I honestly don’t want to be interrupted with someone else’s challenge or issue. However, being a leader doesn’t always afford you the opportunity of no interruptions, you must provide attention when and where it is needed. Having a sense of control enables me to navigate my day and determine what challenges and tasks should be met first. Distractions in the workplace don’t affect my sense of control because outside factors don’t contribute to my success with this particular strength. Contributing factors like mindset and determination fortify this strength. No matter what the distraction is I’m able to thrive and inspire in my work environment. A good example of how my leadership strengths are demonstrated is in my workplace. As a Project Accountant, I’ve had the privilege of working with prestigious clients during the month with various deadlines. At times those deadlines were very demanding and overlapped each

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other. I had to focus and prioritize whose deadlines to meet first. Once that was determined, I would begin to work towards the internal deadlines I put in place so I can meet the external ones. At times I was able to meet all deadlines without having to use my additional strengths. However, there were times I had to shift my focus to attend scheduled and unscheduled meetings and assist a colleague with a project they were working on. Countless times I had to implement the concept of teamwork, and I would use my ability to encourage ownership of the task to get my colleagues back on track and use my sense of control to refocus myself to meet the deadlines I had before me. Times like those made me feel like I was valued and stood out as a leader. My Statement as a Leader I’m a good leader because I genuinely serve people in my personal and professional life. As a leader I thrive and inspire, and my purpose is to be a light wherever darkness may be found. I will be a light amid any darkness by displaying self-respect, walking with integrity and using the wisdom I’ve acquired daily and in my lifetime. I aspire to become a better leader as I continue to grow in the strengths that I’ve developed. Being a focused individual has been the foundation of my leadership development. It has allowed me to keep my eyes on my purpose as a leader and keep my values in check. It has also helped me gain my additional strengths which also serve in my purpose and values. One must have a sense of control when serving people and be able to encourage them to take ownership of the challenges before them. Without these strengths, my purpose as a leader is nonexistent because on someone’s gloomiest day, I aim to be that light they’re searching for, and if I have met one person at that need, I have served my purpose. Coaching is Essential for a Leader A leader needs to receive good coaching. In my coaching sessions I learned a lot about myself as a leader personally and professionally. I learned I used my strengths to serve others. However, I may use some strength more than others when applying them personally. Professionally I use my strengths uniformly because I’m serving a higher purpose, trying to achieve goals, and meeting deadlines. Although serving me isn’t a lower purpose I tend to place myself on the back burner for others, and I must find a balanced medium between serving myself and others. For me to do that I have to balance out my strengths, and focus on those that require adjustment. By adjusting these strengths, I can continue to set personal and professional goals and achieve them. Coaching sessions help with this because goals are set in these sessions and it causes me as a leader to be accountable. Meeting with a coach allows me to discuss how I will use my strengths to work towards my goals and achieve them. The sessions help build up the leader as a whole person. When I met with my coach I was just furloughed, and she help me process what was happening to me. She pointed out one of my top five strengths that would help me get through it. My coach showed me how my sense of control would help me handle the situation. Needless to say, I was able to use that strength and face what my temporary new future would be. My sense of control enabled me to use being furloughed as a blessing and allowed me to shift my focus to other goals in my life I’d like to achieve.

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Conclusion. Most times when we view leaders, we view the leader as picture-perfect. The leader we see seemingly doesn’t make mistakes and is always on top of things. We never take the time to consider that the leader required developing and nurturing on a personal and professional level. Leaders have many strengths that must be assessed so it can be determined which strengths are strongest, and which strengths need more attention. The best way to determine what strengths are strong or weak is through coaching. Coaching is essential to all leaders because it constructs the leader as a whole person. It allows a leader to be accountable to them and think through their actions by discussion and goal setting. In my coaching sessions I learned I have been using my strengths unknowingly and that some of them are unbalanced and need adjustment. I also learned if I make the proper adjustments among my strengths I can not only be better to myself but to others as well, and most of all a better leader. While defining myself as a leader I learned through assessment, friends, and family that I’m a focused and steadfast individual. I have a gift to encourage ownership in others and most of all a sense of control over life which is driven by my mindset and determination....