My Leadership Philosophy

When asked to share my definition of leadership on the first day of class, many styles and types of leadership were flying around in my head. As you know, I’m in the LEAD LLC and we’re required to take leadership courses. From these past courses, I’ve learned about servant, charismatic, authoritative leadership, and many others; but what was my definition of leadership? I wrote “Leadership is showing others the right way to do something. You are in charge of making sure a task is done while maintaining good relationships with your followers and caring for them.” Looking back on this definition, I believe it’s been heavily influenced by my parents and my role as the oldest sibling. They stressed that actions were the best way to demonstrate

As Nouwen states, “It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest.” (Nouwen 63) Being a Christian leader is not about the leader themselves, it’s about serving God and showing his love. This reminds me of another leadership style I’ve learned about in previous LDS classes, servant leadership, where the leader humbles himself to attend to the needs of their followers. Jesus was the perfect example of a servant leader; he could have done anything he wanted with the power he had, but instead, he chose to live among the poor and help the outcasts of society. Demonstrating your faith is far more important than talking about it. People will naturally listen and respect someone who’s actions match their beliefs and part of Christian leadership is showing that faithfulness. A great way to start becoming more Christ-like, is to learn about yourself so that “you can start to get out of your own way and become more of the person God created you to be.” (Cron 15) Being the most authentic version of yourself is the best way to show others you’re capable of leading them. God calls us to be who He made us to be and to serve one another. When we fulfill these two dynamics of our faith, we invite others to do the same and lead more people towards

Some of these differences are more obvious than others and unfortunately, this has caused division between one another. Now more than ever, we need leaders to demonstrate multicultural leadership in our racially sensitive climate. True, competent leaders understand that we have differences and use cultural humility when interacting with others who are different from them. They recognize that reducing a group down to one idea or story has detrimental effects, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” (Adichie) Leaders recognize that people are much more complex than they appear and taking the time to get to know someone throughout intentional dialogue is critical to eliminate tension, “We may need to become more intentional about making friends across racial lines.” (Watson 198) Demonstrating cultural humility and intentionality with each other not only allows leaders to reach their followers, but makes our world a better place and that much closer to eliminating racial