Leadership Philosophy July 21, 2021 EAD 501-O102 Leadership Style and Philosophy Jennifer L. Avila College of Education, Grand Canyon University EAD 501-O102: Educational Administration: Foundations of a Developing Leader Dr. Borja Assignment Due Date: July 21, 2021 Leadership Philosophy July 21, 2021 EAD 501-O102 Leadership When I started this course, I looked ahead at our assignments for each week and saw that drafting my leadership philosophy was going to be one of my tasks. Since then, I have approached each field experience task and assignment with thoughts of my particular leadership style and philosophy ruminating in the back of my mind. What has helped shape my leadership philosophy has not only been my positive experiences with various leaders in my life, but negative ones as well. Observing how people respond to leadership and being thoughtful about how different leadership styles affects my peers and me. As I have aged, it has become increasingly more important to me to be treated with respect, but to also treat those I encounter with the same level of respect that I enjoy receiving. I was raised by an independent single mom whose faith shaped the way she raised my siblings and me. Nothing was more important than approaching the world with a “do unto others...” attitude, and that has stuck with me my entire life. Fast forward to my adult life and professional career experiences; each time I had a different job, the people I worked with were more important to me than the actual job itself. If I despised my responsibilities, but enjoyed my colleagues, I would stay in a job much longer than I would if I enjoyed my work and the people around me were toxic. Much of that had to do with the leadership I encountered. Fairness, respect, joyfulness, understanding, compassion, and empathy were traits that made my superiors stand out as respectable individuals to me. On the opposite side of the spectrum, dishonesty, anger, misplaced aggression, and gossip were traits that made me reflect on how I would approach situations differently if I were in that leader’s “shoes.” My Leadership Attributes Servant leadership: With all this shaping my path towards developing my own leadership style, and now completing some additional research on the subject, I know that my approach when I am in a position of authority is a mixture of the various styles. Servant leadership is at the core of who I am. Professionally and personally I always put the needs of others above my own. I am at my happiest when those around me are content. The world around us has taught that looking out for yourself and winning at all costs is of utmost importance, but servant leadership approaches the world very differently. “In action movies, although the heroes always win at the end by annihilating or capturing the bad guys, they leave behind a path of blood and destruction. In business, a new leader may come in, implement a dramatic downsizing, and show a quick profit. But he or she may then move on before the impact of the broken trust that results from these actions shows up in loss of productivity, damage to customer loyalty, and poor stock performance.” (Kosec, McGee-Cooper, Trammel, (2013), p. 3-4). Leadership Philosophy July 21, 2021 EAD 501-O102 Servant leadership is not about a lone winner standing over their competitors and gloating about their victory. It is more about actively listening to and collaborating with followers to achieve a shared victory that can be celebrated collectively. Transformational leadership: I have always believed that if you are asking peers or subordinates to complete a task, that you should be willing and able to complete that task as well. As Biscontini (2020) said, “Transformational leaders earn respect by leading through example, acting as a role model for their subordinates.” I have been instructing fitness for over a decade now and nothing motivates an individual during a workout quite like their leader sweating and working just as hard as they are! This is the same in leadership across other industries as well. Another area of transformational leadership that I believe in exhibiting when I am in a leadership role is communicating goals and a plan of how to make that goal a reality. When those pieces are clearly defined, subordinates have a clear picture of what is expected of them and can act accordingly. Like Nielsen, Boye, Holten, Jacobsen, and Andersen (2019) say, “By communicating the vision of