Category: Response

Jessica articulated the definition of leadership effectively and related it to the powerful opportunities that we have everyday to influence others. I valued how she built her response by relating it to her past experiences with good leadership and contrasting it with power-driven leaders. When she points out her personal experience, it made me think of my own experiences with various styles of leadership.

While completing my undergrad, I worked as a server for a restaurant with poor leadership. The owner and a couple managers looked at workers as a means to an end; a tool that may be exposed of when needed. As a result of feeling underappreciated, good quality employees only stayed for a couple months. Turnover was enormous. In addition, moral was low and it created an overall toxic work environment. In contrast, I have also worked for a wonderful company where I felt very appreciated. It was almost as if I were part of a family and that the leader truly cared about me. This leadership style made me want to produce better work, and go above and beyond for the company. I felt that the leader truly put me first. I was unaware of what was so different about this leader until learning about servant leadership, so I really valued this activity.

I came to the leadership journey because of my deep passion for personal growth and helping others along the journey of personal growth. I think it is rewarding to have influenced and helped another individual be their best self. While I was working in the toxic environment, I had a personality clash with another server. One day, she was upset that her life was directionless. So I sat down with her and pointed out her strengths and recommended a couple books that might change her perspective. A couple of months later, she messaged me to say thank you because she had made some big changes in her life. I found this very rewarding and it inspired me to become a better leader in my own sphere of influence.

Looking forward to reading more posts from Jessica!

I was impacted by Jgarland’s post about Dr. Ken Blanchard. Jgarland briefly summarizes Blanchard’s main points on how leaders build trust amongst followers. Blanchard’s work is a reminder that simple actions such as listening, praising others, and being punctual, all have an impact on trust. These are behaviours that we engage in every day but, collectively, have enormous influence on our ability to lead. After reading this, I thought of trust as a bank account whereby there are debits and credit; trust can either increase or decrease with every action.

The second point that Jgarland expands on is the power of kindness. Blanchard states that leaders should lead by grace; grace trumps results. Sometimes, as leaders, we lose perspective of the larger picture because we become fixated on an intended result (i.e. profit maximization). When this occurs, people get hurt in the process as they feel as though they are being used as a means to an end. Blanchard drives home that both leaders and followers are greater than their performance.

I was very challenged by this post and by this leader. I will integrate Blanchard’s principles into my professional as well as my personal life. Furthermore, I plan to read other work by Blanchard because his philosophies resonate with my beliefs. Thank you Jgarland for introducing us to this extraordinary leader!