To lead others, you must first know yourself, and your leadership philosophy through self-reflection on your idealized and actual selves. This paper describes my personal leadership philosophy during my first year as a MBA graduate student.
One ship sails east and another sails west. With the selfsame winds that blow;
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales That tells them where to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the winds of time. As we journey along through life;
'Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal. And not the calm or the strife.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 19161 (Benson, 2015)
A leadership philosophy is the way we see ourselves as leaders. This philosophy is the sail the guides our actions, our behaviors, and our thoughts.
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As we grow older we solidify the various aspects of our personalities until we become like a rock that is not easily moved or shaken. The way we see the world is shaped first by how we are created. It was important for me to really understand what understand our personality type, temperament, strengths and love languages are revealed as we grow and mature. With this goal in mind, I have taken a variety of psychological assessments to help increase my self-awareness. The tests were Myers Briggs, temperament, strength finders, love languages, and the Career Leader Assessment. The Myers Briggs assessment revealed that I am an ENF(T)J (Extroverted, intuitive, Feeling(Thinker), Judging). This personality type is very people oriented, and people of this type gravitate toward leadership roles. My temperament assessment measures my emotional disposition. It revealed that I am a Choleric/Sanguine. For this blend, there are some emotional needs that are important for them to have. They are loyalty, a sense of control, credit for good work, achievement, attention, affection, approval and acceptance (Littauer, 2006). In a work environment I am known to motivate people to action, quickly size up a situation and give clear instruction on how to solve the problem at hand, and maintain group cohesion. My strength finder assessment results said that I had the following strengths: strategic, arranger, significance, analytical, and relator. Most of these I was aware of, however arranger and significance were unfamiliar. The talent of significance illuminated a desire for me to be associated with successful people, and a desire for wanting more. The talent of arranger showed me that I am comfortable with a lot of moving parts, working through people and managing change. These three tests opened my eyes to help me see and learn about what motivates me as an individual. The other assessment I took was the