The 'pump'......

Winding down,

Thank you once again for joining me as we digress and my knowledge becomes your updates is coming to a close. This week we learned about empowerment and how it involves the leader in particular and how it affects a person or a group of people. This concept can clearly be defined as, “giving power to someone thus resulting in a greater sense of confidence/self esteem and ability to do a task”. If done with a ‘good heart’ and attitude this can go a long way resulting in nothing less than optimistic group contributions to better each one. However, there is one thing people need to know that will use this skill effectively and that is whoever is doing the ‘empowering’ of the other person they need to know what that certain person is good at. For example, this applies to my past life when I was on the wrestling and football team starting out as a freshman. There would be team leaders that encouraged others including myself on the team and in wrestling if he knew I had a clear shot at working a move which I was good at he would call it and I would follow up with it. This benefited the group in points, resulted in a wins for me, and boosted my self-confidence gearing up for the next match.

As well as knowing what empowerment is one needs to know what to believe in order to follow through and this includes:

• That others might be better at something
 That others should have the chance to thrive
 That the fact that others might do something different than you would does not make it bad
 That giving power to others creates an opportunity for you to learn something new

Realizing these factors one can assume it goes ‘hand-in-hand’ with motivation in part which is the next concept. Motivation can be defined as an incentive or move to action. There three different dimensions of motivation including intrinsic, relational, and extrinsic, but for now I will go into depth on the one that I live by and that is extrinsic motivation and the details by which this entails are as follows:

 Tangible rewards (scholarships, awards, prizes, gifts, money)
 Credit towards something (academic credit or completing requirements toward something larger)
 Experience to build your resume
 Opportunity for advancement (promotion, new opportunities)
 Avoiding penalties (fines, loss of privileges)
 Public recognition
 Knowing that someone may return the favor
 Competition with others/to win

The one in which I go by most is competition with others which I dislike losing. This ‘inner drive’ within me has pushed myself to the limit and given me success. I still believe I am humble, but there is nothing better than competing with each other to put your skills to the test. I also know when to motivate others giving them that extra ‘boost’ they need when down. There many ways to apply this to leadership if not stated in the obvious, but the question you can draw is when was the last time you motivated or was motivated by someone?

The sum of who you are.....

Tuning into this week,

We will be exploring ethics and morale and how they seemingly intertwine with each other. Through our assigned reading I noticed the author relied heavily on these two concepts, but it was in the latter that I realized why. Her defined leadership definition was having good ethics and effectiveness essentially. Hitler was mentioned in the reading, but there was speculation as to whether or not he was a ‘leader’ in a sense that under the fore-mentioned Great Man and Trait theories he can be listed as a leader, but under the Behavioral, Situational, and Process he cannot. So we digress keeping this in mind and learning about ethics and morale.

To start off, there are a few definitions including values, morals, ethics, and character. These definitions ‘sum’ up who you are as person and what you live by:

- Values: Freely chosen personal beliefs
- Morals: Relating to right or wrong, commonly thought to be influenced by religion or values
- Ethics: Social rules that govern and limit our conduct, especially the ultimate rules concerning right and wrong
- Character: Who you are

As one can see, paying close attention to morals and ethics they both include similar context. The million dollar question that can be drawn here is, “Is there a universal code of ethics?” This question still relays in my mind as I have yet to come up with a solution. However, what shapes our ethics? These can include, school, family, religion, culture, media, friends, and experiences. I like to consider myself as having decent ethics in terms of working for example. Going into work each day, I say to myself, ‘think about all the people who don’t have jobs’. This alone makes me feel a sense of job security knowing that I will strive to increase my stores sales by relating to the customers needs and working with them to close a deal. This is just one of many rules that I live by on a daily basis.

Focusing on morals, we all have our ways of ‘going through the motions of life’ but some people can take advantage of this in different ways and abuse the system. According to changingminds.org morals can be further defined as “having a greater social element to values and tend to have a very broad acceptance. Morals are far more about good and bad than other values. We thus judge others more strongly on morals than values. A person can be described as immoral, yet there is no word for them not following values”. Note that ethics and morals have been used interchangeably over the years. This relates to everyone as it does to me, yet some of the morals I live by are: ‘Be happy with what you have, life is not fair, be thankful for every new day, and treat others as you would want to be treated’. I am still working on building my self morale and it will always be a continuing process that I am willing to keep up with. How do you value yourself in the above concepts and what will you do to change the bad to good?

Born Identity.....

This just in,

In yet another week of learning about leadership my class and I learned about identity, oppression, and privilege. These concepts break down into our society and though we may not even think for a second about these, they are there. What can you indentify yourself as? An athlete, cat or dog person, out doors, science, book worm, and so on? A common term is ascribed identity which according to our lecture: how others see you or what society may impose on you (this may or may not match with self identity). This concept plays into leadership by the simply fact of it showing others who you are as a person if you are the ‘head of the pack’. I’d like to identify myself as an athlete, conscientious, humble, outdoor person, studious, and the list can go on from there. I take pride in my identity because, and this is the same with all of you reading this, no one has the same identity as you. Though we may envy others from different aspects in this field, but regardless you are you and no one can change that.

Looking at oppression it can be simply stated as “disadvantages or barriers used subtly or by force to keep someone or group in a particular place in society”. Its target is those who do not have a privilege or social power. This social aspect is constructed upon institutions and systems in which this is formed by people and persists beyond the everyday that shapes how people live, grow, and learn, and keeps a community going. Systems within institutions include sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism, classism, etc…Some of the effects of oppression and in relation to privilege can by categorized by:

 Family
 Societal Norms
 Crime
 Geography
 Media
 Health
 Business
 Government
 Education

Within an article we read the author explained how people of color fit into all of these very categories yet today we feel as though this doesn’t exist. IT does, and soon maybe we will all come to realize this. Everyone is oppressed but some more than others. I feel, myself, is oppressed considering I do not come from an upper- middle class family. I am still blessed nonetheless for being alive, but working harder than those with money ‘always’ in their pockets is a must.

Turning to privilege, this concept grabbed my attention because I have never thought of it this way before. Coming from a different view point privilege is inherent in dominant groups in society. If you are in a dominant group, you get privilege whether you want it or not. If you appear to be in a dominant group (passing), you get some privilege associated with that group. Though having privilege doesn’t make you a bad person. Take for example right handed people; if you walk into a classroom what type of handed scissors are readily available? I personally feel privileged being able to even walk! Or where does the left handed person always have to sit when eating with other friends? It is examples like these that make those feel a little more ‘special’ about themselves.

Where do you stand?

Welcome back and good day,

This blog will be about inclusivity in the context of culture and how it relates to, of course, leadership. According to this weeks lecture “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations; the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group”. We generalized and compiled a list of what we thought culture was and included but it turned out most of what we had was something of common knowledge. What we failed to recognize somewhat was the underlying categories of culture including, but not limited to, conception of beauty, eye behavior, facial expressions, and social interaction rate. All of these which can play a huge role in ones culture and can take offense to it done otherwise.

This concept of culture relates to me as well as the United States as a whole because we live in a society filled with mixed cultures, races, religions, and more. What I have yet to understand is to acceptingly take in other cultures and value their ways of life. In doing so, I will be able to expand my knowledge which can better serve others especially in the health care field. A few other interesting concepts we viewed were individualism and collectivism. These two terms indeed weigh in on ‘opposite’ sides of the spectrum in which one is based on self per-se’ and the other is involved with others more socially. These two ways is how our western society is structured essentially. A few key points include:

Individualism

- Stand out from the rest
- Develop own skills and opportunities
- “What’s in it for me?” or “That’s not my job”
- Control
- In charge of own fate
- Competitive
- Strive to be the best

Collectivism

- Interdependent
- Development of group
- Trust
- Collaborative
- What’s best for group?
- Familial

When looking at these concepts I can relate more so to the individualism only because I fit into more of the categories than the other. This is what I have been told is that if you want to get far in life you have to want to, you have to make good choices, want to exceed others in the competition and so forth. Keep in mind though, not one way is better than the other indeed.

As the world continues to grow with people from all cultures and races I have seen more and more multicultural leadership people shape different peoples lives such as our president, again, who broke the racial boundary of having all predominantly Caucasian presidents in the past. There needs to be a well balance of both individualistic and collective ideologies (something I am working on) engrained in our minds because with this, and only this, will the U.S. turn the ways of being ‘self-centered’ and provoke a new way of reaching the common goal to better everyone in the long run. So the question is, where do you stand and what will you do to change your ways?

Groups and cohesion

Good day and welcome back,

Tuning in this week for my leadership course we discussed the importance of cohesion and group aspects which entail this. First off, the concept of cohesion is attraction meaning there are two underlyers; individual and group attraction. Individual attraction can be described by simply each member of the group has their own likes, interests, and ‘hanging out’ if you will. This, compared to group attraction is the group has very close views on likes and dislikes, thus it can be known as group pride. I believe this can relate to me in past experience when designing a template for a health company my group and I had to complete. We all agreed on the formatting, structure, word choice, and so forth coming up with the finished product, in fact this can relate to unity. Cohesion is unity. Entailed is the thought of group ‘one-ness’ and the sense of ‘we’. The last related definition of cohesion is team work. It is the member’s commitment to team goals and their belief in the capacity of the group. Concluding, cohesion can be summed up by the driving force that keeps a group together keeping out ‘outside’ detracting forces which can harm the group effectiveness.

In turn, we dive into the next topic of collective efficacy being the belief of most, if not all, group members that the group can attain its goals. It was actually in my Blue-Chip Leadership Program on Field Day that is the most recent example of this term. My group shared the common goal of being the best team out there dominating the competition. No one had the lack of faith in the others and in the end we did come out on top overall winning all the physical competition games. On behalf of my group, I would say we had high collective efficacy to say the least. A side concept discussed in class was Tuckmans Model of Group Development. In a brief overview it was divided by an ordering sequence of ‘phases’ including: Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Here is a breakdown of each:

-Forming: Group comes together and gets to know each other (very nice at this point)

-Storming: Group hits a ‘bump in the road’ by trying to create processes

-Norming: Group gets back into routine and starts solving problems

-Performing: Group goes beyond and actually gets into rhythm and synergy with each other

-Adjourning: Group comes to an end and lets go of structure in effort to move on

The relevance of this can only be done by utilizing each person’s assets for the benefit of the team. We all have assets, some being more important than others and it is crucial to use them and not let them go to waste given the right situation. I have been in a group where one of them members did not say he had access to a van to get us from point A to point B and this caused time and money to bring two vehicles instead of one. Have you been in a situation where you held back a certain asset that could have proved beneficial?

Mission and vision: "I have a dream......"

Welcome back,

Today I will be discussing some key aspects of leadership in which directly relates to what the leaders values are and how he or she views a certain situation they might be in. This is broken down into mission and vision. These two concepts in fact are something that many companies have including, but not limited to, Southwest Airlines, McDonalds, Delta Airlines, and many more. You may ask, well what’s the purpose of having these? It’s simple, essentially these two factors will tell the person, follower, potential customer, what that company or leader has in mind for future business and to obtain as much support as possible along the way.

First, we look at the mission statement. This entails a statement of purpose/core values. This is important because a person or organization can refer back to these to encompass the decision making. Not only this but, as mentioned above, this can clarify to others what is important to the leader or the organization. Also, there are a couple types of mission statements including organizational mission and personal mission (explains itself). The organizational mission is a statement of the purpose/core values of an organization; simply, what the organization does. For example, my work which is Sears, their mission statement is: To grow our business by providing quality products and services at great value when and where our customers want them, and by building positive, lasting relationships with our customers. I can agree with this because our store carries large amounts of different consumer goods and we offer shipping on select products to give the customer what they want and where they want it. My (personal) mission statement would go somewhere along the lines of expanding my horizons by living and learning; building bridges to success and not burning ones that cant be rebuilt. This holds value to me because it is what I have lived by for quite sometime and defines who I am as a person.

When I talk about vision this means ‘foreseeing’ the future picture of an organization or cause. The purpose of having this is to allow a person or organization to stay focused on the future and set goals to reach the vision. Also, it can motivate and inspire individuals and groups of people. This again contains two types vision being organizational and personal. How this relates to me and for example Sears vision: To be the preferred and most trusted resource for the products and services that enhance home and family life. At our location it is very evident to me that the managers care about the customer and show that through many interactions with them. My organizational vision would be: I imagine myself graduating college in the next few years, where I have my degree, where I will pursue a career in the medical field benefiting others in the long run. This will be done through hard work and dedication, sacrificing time to apply myself to education, and taking advantage of opportunities when given. What do you think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision was? Did his vision become reality?

Are you under the illusion?

This just in,

A new form of leadership has been introduced in our class. However, this isn’t your average ‘normal’ leadership concept. No. This is in the form of ‘toxic leadership’. The term says it all in the sense that no one likes toxic products in which they are bad for you and can be bad for your health. The concept(s) I will be discussing goes into toxic leadership and the different characteristics that accompany the leader. First off, there are to sub categories of this and they are intentional and unintentional toxic leaders. These people are bad news; let’s hope you haven’t run into any recently.

In this world there are good leaders and bad leaders to say the least. Unintentional toxic leaders engage in careless and reckless actions, including incompetence, nonetheless causing negative effects. On the other hand, intentional toxic leaders deliberately injure others or enhance themselves at others’ expense. For example, take Hitler and though some argue he was a good leader in the way how he poised himself in front of people (followers), but behind the scenes he was taking people out who got in his way to success as being the dictator of Germany. Now when we describe these types of leaders keep in mind that many of these ‘toxic’ leaders display not just one distinguishable trait, but many. They are as follows but not limited to:

-incompetence
-malfunctioning
-maladjusted
-sense of inadequacy
-malcontent
-irresponsible
-cowardice
-egotism

and much more. Do note that these are just the characteristics of toxic leaders, but there are different types of leaders that possess these traits and many others. I will only discuss two as they can relate to my personal experience and most likely yours. The first (concept) is the ‘busybody’ leader. The busybody leader is energetic, restless, constantly in motion and full of unfocused vigor. He may give full focus to one project or topic for a period and then jump to another for no apparent reason, leaving those around dazed and confused. This relates to me because my past manager felt the need to get many things done at once and often had his employees starting one task only to start another ten minutes later. This left myself confused on which was more important leaving the other ‘five’ tasks out. Also he felt as though he was perfect and assumed he was the center of attention in the work place. The other form (concept) is the ‘street fighter leader’. This leader is good to those who are loyal to her/him and can help her/him with his “wins,” but can be brutal to those who disagree with her/him or offer a dissenting opinion (also forms gangs to fight the battles they must win). This relates to my life and yours too given the area you live in, that there are plenty of gangs all across the U.S.; some more than others and even in high schools (the ones I went to especially). I have seen plenty of groups and people do things they weren’t supposed to at the leader’s discretion. Given all the above information, are you under a toxic leader and not know it yet?