Daniel Hu's Leadership Philosophy

I believe that a leadership philosophy can't be right or wrong, but it can be proven to be effective or ineffective where it is applied. Before this class, my philosophy was really vague, but through this class, I have been able to take a lot of knowledge and craft it into a leadership philosophy. I believe that in order to be an effective leader a leader has to incorporate these elements into his leadership.

• Lead by example and understand where you are going
• As cliche as it sounds, this is perhaps the most important aspect of a leader. If you are no better than your followers, then are you really a leader? While I knew this before, this class has enhanced my knowledge on what this means and how a person can lead by example. People will only follow those that they can trust. In order to develop this trust, a leader has to show his followers that he can set goals and achieve them. A good leader sets goals and shares them with his followers so that they understand what they are working towards, this way, there will be motivation to work.
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens taught us some of the basic prerequisites to leading by example. A chapter that I thought were especially important to leading by example was the Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood chapter. This chapters highlights a key concepts:
• Understand what you are leading and what you have to do to lead before leading
• My personal leadership philosophy is that you have an interest in what you are doing, and have an interest in the people you are leading, because if you do, then you will understand what you are doing, and therefore have an easier time to get other people to understand you. If I was working at a technology company in Silicon Valley and managing a team, my first priority would be to make sure that I am fluent in the work that they do, and that I get to know my followers personally. This way, I would be seen as a capable and understanding person that others could look up to.
• Understand who you are leading
• Knowing who your followers are and what they expect of you is extremely important. We learned different leadership styles in the management unit, which I applied to my leadership philosophy. For example, if I was the manager of a marketing team, I would understand that a free reign style leadership would probably be the best form of leadership since the area of marketing and the people in it would respond the best to a free flowing environment. However, if I was a general manager at a retail store, the best way to lead would be by using a democratic approach because there needs to be a level of professional management, but in order to make sure that workers are satisfied, they would need to be heard.
• Communication
• Communication is essential to a good leader because without it, followers wouldn't have any idea what they are supposed to do, or what they are trying to achieve. I learned in this class during the communications unit that in order to be an effective communicator, knowing the receiver and constructing the message with them in mind are some of the top priorities when sending a message. This ties back to my point on understanding who you are leading since if you understand who you are leading, then you will have an easier time communicating to them. With these communication skills that I learned. I believe that by being an effective communicator, you can show respect by recognizing barriers to communication and avoiding them, and that you can often convince people to follow your ideas. I believe that with good communication skills, I would be able to motivate, teach, and boost the creativity of the people I lead.
• Overall, my leadership philosophy is based on common understanding between the leader and the followers so that everyone always knows who everyone else is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it together. By using this leadership philosophy, I believe that anybody can get to know and lead almost anyone.