Personal Philosophy of Leadership
As a junior in college, I never have thought much about my own leadership philosophy. Although I have held the responsibilities of a leader in some of the positions throughout high school and college, I still think that I need to gain more experience to become a better leader in the future. However, thanks to an honors class which I am taking right now, Exploring Leadership, I find out a way to develop my philosophy of leadership, which I believe that it would be extremely helpful because thinking through what type of leader I want to be and how I want to lead will make me become a better leader. In addition, in those difficult time, having my own leadership philosophy will keep me centered in moving forward as well as within the right direction when problems arise.
There is no accurate definition of leadership in my opinion, because leadership means different thing to people. Personally, I believe that leadership is the ability to lead people by establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with other people so that they will voluntarily follow, providing them with instruction, knowledge, information to practice that vision, and handling the conflict of interests of all members in the group or organization. In order to develop my own leadership philosophy, I choose myself an admirable leader that I would like to become the same one day, and that person of my choice is Ho Chi Minh, the founder of my country, Vietnam (Jon Mertz). In America, most people are not familiar with him, but in Vietnam, he is well-known by everyone, from elder people to young children. The reason I chose him to be my model of leader is because he is the man who gathered the will of every Vietnamese person to make both North and South Vietnam become a united country and building it to become a good nation like today. There was conflict of interest from two sides of the country: The North wanted Vietnam to be one united country and the South wanted to be its own country. Ho Chi Minh, in the time that the country was poor and did not have even enough food or weapons to fight a war, managed to lead the people to become together. This is not an easy job by any mean, which proves that he is the greatest leader in my opinion for me to learn from.
From the model of my admirable leader and from my own experience, the first theory I learn is that teamwork accelerates success. There is a lot of thing that a person can do on his own; however, when there are multiple people doing it at the same time, the job will be finished more quickly. Ho Chi Minh did not unite the country by his own, but he did it with the help of many people. He founded a party that remains until today, which is the Communist Party of Vietnam and recruited many talented people who share the same vision with him to make Vietnam a united country. The party grew up through time and became the main strength to lead people in the time of war between two sides. This example proves the essence of teamwork in my leadership philosophy. In addition, I also learn this idea from my first project in my freshman year at UC. For my Introduction to business class, I had to do a project about starting-up a company with other classmates. The project was hard and time-consuming because it required a lot of research about the market and legal documents. However, it became much easier when my group decided to separate it to smaller jobs than can be handled by each member in the required project time. This example shows that teamwork help reducing the time that a job can be done and bringing a better result for the whole team.
The second theory of my leadership philosophy is that discipline and focus magnify effort. In an organization, a leader need to have requirements and time-line so that people can follow and work according to that. Without them, a job cannot be done because people can go out of line and lost track of their job. For example, in the leadership in context project that I just did, my group had a requirement and due date for each member to do. We agreed on a set of time to meet up to conduct an interview and to discuss together on the presentation. Because every member followed what we all agreed at the beginning, we finished the project without any problem.
The third theory of my philosophy of leadership is that trust makes the community become better. Every person is different and does not think in the same way. Although people may share a same vision, they may have different view on how to conduct their jobs. Furthermore, each one has his own strengths and weaknesses, and people do not usually share these with other people. The job of the leader here is to trust their followers and find out the right job for the right person, through talking or observing their performance. I can take an example from Ho Chi Minh when he was the first president of Vietnam. In the time when the country was newly founded, his job was to find the right person for each position in the government. He did this by trusting people with their quality and characteristic and also from his experience of working with them. I also learn this from my own experience from the time when I was the class president in high school. I was responsible for a volunteer trip to an orphanage in our city to visit and bring some presents to the children who live there but I was sick at the last minute. At that time, I let one of my friend to take charge of the trip to lead ten other classmates because I trusted him and have known him as a really mature and responsible person. The trip was a success and this proves that trust is really important and it is a characteristic that leader needs to have.
The fourth theory of my leadership philosophy is that conflict brings the best out of a person and is actually helpful in the long run. People have conflict when there are different opinions on a same topic. When two people argue, they are actually fighting for what they believe and that actually makes them work harder to prove their point of view. As a leader, I do not want to avoid conflict because I believe it is helpful to find out which is the best way to do something. However, I always want conflict to happen in a respectful way that actually motivates people to do their best, not trying to put each other down. It is better when people argue because they have confict instead of keeping it for their own because if they do not discuss about it, the conflict will affect negatively on the members of a group and make them do not want to work with each other anymore. I learn this theory the hard way when I had to do a project with three other classmates in my sophomore year. One member of the group had a different opinion with the rest of us on how to split the work for each member. When the project was nearly due, he suddenly told the rest of us that he had joined another group for the project because he did not like what we agreed at first. This example shows that conflict is very dangerous when people do not confront it because it is hard to work together when people do not share the same vision and do not want to resolve the problem.
In addition to theory, one important aspect of my leadership philosophy is about attitude. As a leader, I have to stay positive and constructive. Every job has its own difficulties, and the leader has to be the one who inspire other people that they can overcome any challenge in the job. For example, after the war and the country was united, the south was in urgent need of food and medicines for people here. Ho Chi Minh, as a leader at that time, stayed calm and made a call for people from the North to donate for the South. He himself set an example when he had only one meal a day because he wanted to give the food for the people who were in need of them more. Furthermore, as leader, I will always encourage other people with my word to be their best and give their best. I do not want to make people feel bad when they do something wrong. Instead, I want them to fix it and continue contribute to the group. A good example for this fact is that I prefer to hear my mother motivates me to study harder when I have some bad grades instead of listening to her how bad I was. I believe that it is better for people to receive understanding and motivation when they have trouble because it gives them more strength to find back against it.
From my theories, I set out my own principles that I will follow to become a better leader. First, I will lead with caring and compassion toward others. I do not want to be a distant leader who set himself higher than the members in the group. I want to become a friend of the people who share the same vision with me because I want to make people feel comfortable working with me and everyone else in the group. Second, I will lead by believing in others. When I trust someone, it means I respect their opinion and value. When people realize that, they will trust me back and follow my lead. Third, I will lead by giving my best. If I want people to see the leader as a model, I myself has to do my best in everything so people will have a reason to give their best also.
In addition, I will have these behaviors as my guidance to be a better leader. First, I will stay calm in difficult situation. Second, I will empower my followers and bring out the best of them. Third, I will be flexible and work around a problem until I find a way to solve it. Fourth, I will always stay honest with myself and other members in the group because I want people to trust me and I can trust them back.
From everything I have found, I consider myself to have a transformational leadership philosophy. I always try to bring the best out of people in every situation. I encourage people to pursue innovative and creative idea from having a problem and work through it. I motivate my members through creating optimism, enthusiasm and commitment. I want people to work together for the good of everyone (Pendergrass). Knowing what type of leadership philosophy I got is helpful for me because it will become a guidance for me in the future to follow and practice o become a better leader.
Source
Pendergrass, K. (n.d.). Leadership Philosophies To Help You Succeed In Any Situation. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from https://www.udemy.com/blog/leadership-philosophy/
Mertz, J. (n.d.). How to Develop a Leadership Philosophy? Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.thindifference.com/2014/02/19/develop-leadership-philosophy/