My Leadership Philosophy Essay

1. I define leadership as the ability to effectively guide a team of people toward a common goal. It’s a short definition, but there’s a lot of content to unpack there. Considering I begin by stating that leadership is an ability, it stands to reason that this is something that can be honed. One can’t lead others without first being able to navigate those same waters on their own. After one has honed this ability, they can apply what they’ve learned to lead others. A team of people typically assumes they are like-minded individuals, regarding either training or their mission/purpose, etc.

2. Fundamental to my leadership philosophy are a few core competencies. They are enablement, self-awareness, and ownership.

a. The

Self-awareness is crucial. A team of people always has a customer that they’re serving and it is paramount they have a profound understanding of their needs, if they’re meeting them, and if there’s anything they can be doing better. Individuals should also have an awareness of self, which should inform them of their strengths and weaknesses. This should guide the individual to being more amenable to assignments that are within their wheelhouse.

c. Ownership is the last crux of my core leadership competencies. Ownership needs to be made clear both when something is delivered successfully in order to celebrate wins, and when something goes a-rye. It shows character, openness, and a willingness to talk about your failures, which is the only way to learn from them.

d. These competencies are important to me because at some time or another throughout my career I’ve seen adverse effects on teams when they’re lacking. Furthermore, I manage a small team of data analysts at Stellantis and upon reflecting on my process, I realized these are three things that I work on with my team every single

To translate this into something applicable to the Coast Guard, I once heard a story about a young seaman who asked a chief why they had to polish the brass. The chief’s answer, in effect, was akin to this leadership philosophy…paying attention to detail, even for the seemingly smallest of things will get a crew in the habit of “running a tight ship.” It’s the same concept that echoes throughout all military branches and the reason why recruits must do hospital corners on their racks, uniforms must look crisp, memos need to be in the correct format, etc. Individually none of those things are terribly important but if you get in the habit of getting those little things right, someday when you’re in charge of something much more important, whether it’s on a search and rescue (SAR) case or a crew of personnel as a senior reserve officer (SRO), or any number of important positions, you’ll be in the habit of making sure you “cross your t’s and dot your i’s” to ensure good outcomes for your crew and those we