In the contemporary world almost everyone pretends to be a leader. However, leadership style, which people prefer, is usually very different. In this paper I will describe some key insights about leadership, which were made after this week training and reading.
Frankly speaking, I used to believe that I have rather high leadership skills, which allow me be efficient in communication. However, after reading Jim Collins` “Level 5 Leaders”, I understood that now I am at the Level 2 as a maximum, which is a Contributing Team Member. It means that having ambitions and be a good organizer is not everything. So now my goal is to achieve Level 5, as this leader is “a combination of personal humility and professional will” (Collins 4).
Modesto Maidique`s theory also was new to me, as I have never thought that a question “Who do you serve?” might be even more important than knowing person`s personality traits. And knowing this, now it is possible to say that Martin Luther King was at a sixth level of leadership, which is called Transcendent, because he really served the society and its civil rights. The case in Birmingham shows that in some cases it is necessary to move forward despite troubles in order to succeed. Despite Dr. King was jailed after that, he achieved a goal to enlarge the civil rights of people. And it is a great example of self-sacrifice.
At the end, I would like to mention the tests, which we took during classes. Figuring out the leadership style and personality traits let me know some more about myself as people often tend to take life as it comes not looking deeply in the essence of the things. In one of the tests` explanations I read an advice, which become the main insight for me. It was said that internal thinking and reasoning night be confusing to others, so patient sharing one`s thinking as it develops let gain more support. This is an idea, which I am going to work on while developing as a leader.
Works Cited
Collins, Jim. "Level 5 leadership." The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership 2 (2007): 27-50.
Maidique, Modesto A. "Are You a Level-Six Leader?." (2011).
