Management and Leadership Final Exam Project Maddy Kahn

Management and Leadership Final Exam Project

By: Maddy Kahn

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Learning to communicate well is a key component of my leadership philosophy. I learned while doing my Leadership Impact Project that without strong communication, many problems could occur such as a group member not showing up somewhere when they should have been there. From this situation, I learned how to improve my communication skills by getting a person’s phone number, planning ahead together with my group to make sure everyone was on the same page, and listening to others in my group when they speak to make sure I am hearing everything they are saying to get all the jobs that need to be done completed. Doing all of these things really helped improve my communication skills which my group all saw improve as the project continued.

Employee motivation is very important to me as a leader. Even though I do not run a business, whenever I am doing group work I always make sure to have incentives for my group to work hard. For example, in the birdhouse activity I participated in during management and leadership class, I told my team to try extra hard so we could win and have the best house. Sometimes when you work in a group all of the members may not want to try but if you tell them you can be the class winner it starts to motivate them. Motivation really gets people wanting to do a lot and is very important to make sure you do to your subordinates when you are a leader.

Authority vs. power is very important in leadership. I think that it is important to see what your position in your job is and take a certain amount of leadership roles from there. In your job, you can be a leader in which ever position you are in however I think it is important for the higher ranked positions to take on more of a leadership role with more power compared to the lower ranked positions.

Democratic leader is the type of leader I am and will most likely continue to be for the rest of my life. I tend to take a little longer to make decisions but it is because I make sure if I am working with others I get their input without jumping straight to a conclusion. I do really like to take control and set the guidelines for projects but I always make sure to assign other people some roles as well so it is not me doing all the work. I think one person is not enough to make a decision sometimes and this is why being a democratic leader is good because others can help you.

Educator is a very important leadership role. I care so much about being a role model and in a way being an educator is similar to that. An educator teaches skills through example and does formal training. I make sure that I always set a good example as a leader and will continue to do this because being an educator is a very important part of my leadership philosophy.

Reacting in a proactive way is very important in being a leader. For example, our management and leadership class went on a class field trip to a teams challenge course. There was a high wooden wall that the director told us we would all have to get over as a class. Many people were terrified to complete this challenge, however some of the people, including me, kept a very positive attitude and were excited to attempt this challenge. The proactive people stepped up to the leader position and were very successful completing this challenge. If it was not for many of the people’s positive attitudes, our class may have not succeeded in the challenge.

Strategic plans are very important to start off a plan for management. A strategic plan is broad and general and sets the direction for a business for a period of time. A leader can help come up with this broad plan which can start up a business and tremendously improve it. Once the strategic plan is done, a tactical plan can be made which makes strategic plans a reality. Lastly, operational plans can be made which are objectives for implementing tactical plans. This shows that a strategic plan triggers all of this showing how important it is.

Having goals is another really important part of my leadership philosophy. I feel that setting a goal is another life challenge which I cannot wait to overcome. Goals make me want to work harder and do better as a leader. When I do not achieve my goals, I work ever harder next time to try to meet them.

Interviewing a leader, my mom, really showed me that being a role model for others is another part of my leadership philosophy. I think that it is so important to set a good example for others so they can look up to you and learn from you and you can feel good about what you are doing in your life. I especially think being a role model is so important because my mom is one for me every single day and I look up to her especially for that and I feel that I should be like that too.

Planning is crucial in succeeding in anything. I learned this because for my group’s first attempt at our Leadership Impact Project, we did not plan ahead on some of the details of our project idea. Unfortunately, in the end, our idea did not follow through and we did not plan ahead and figure out what would happen in this situation. Our group had to start from scratch with a new idea which took a lot of time to do during class. This taught me how important planning is and a leader must always do it to be successful in anything.