Personal Philosophy Of Leadership

Leadership Philosophy Paper

The presence of effective leadership is a critical element in any successful organization. Throughout my 19 years of naval service, my personal knowledge and understanding of leadership has evolved and expanded greatly. Leadership as I have come to understand it, is the process of providing a foundation in which personal and professional objectives are achieved through the influence from a specific source individual or group. To become an effective leader, one must first learn the specific traits and values that are associated with this role. It is important to understand that this process can take years of exposure and experience to truly become proficient as a leader. During my naval career, I have been exposed

One of my earliest memories of exposure to leadership in the Navy, occurred at my first duty station and involved the personal interactions that I had with my work center supervisor, Petty Officer Pike. Petty Officer Pike took the time to assist me in establishing a clear set of goals and the appropriate timelines for their completion, with the intent to ensure early success in my naval career. His guidance ultimately led me on a path to become fully-qualified and advance to Second Class Petty Officer within my first four years of naval service. In the years to follow, I was mentored, trained, and assisted by many other leaders that helped further establish and develop my traits and values as a leader. After evaluating the results from the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) survey, I have learned a great deal about my personal leadership behavioral strengths and weaknesses, and how to improve upon them as well. This paper will discuss three leadership behaviors that I plan to improve upon, and a plan for doing so. Additionally, my personal leadership values and their

Early in my naval career, I learned that one of the most effective methods to develop leadership skills is to observe and emulate other strong leaders. This leadership value can best be described as "leading by example." Since gaining this personal value, I have used this to help further develop myself and others into strong and capable leaders. The concept itself is quite simple, but also challenging to carry out. For me, it begins with the mindset, that I desire to be the type of leader, that others can admire and emulate. With this, many other important personal values are utilized as well. One of these values is maintaining a high level of professionalism. This not only includes professional interactions with others, but also my appearance, speech, and communication skill level. This personal value, like many others, is an-ever changing and evolving skillset. I say this because the learning process to maintain professionalism requires constant effort, and to be truly effective one must be able to adapt to various situations within their professional environment. Using these personal values to guide my leadership behaviors has been and continues to be one of the most rewarding and satisfying aspects of serving in the