Dowling 1

Shannon Dowling
Barbara Rinto
Exploring Leadership Honors Seminar
24 November 2014
Personal Philosophy Leadership Paper
Out of all of the definitions and theories I have read about leadership, the quote, To an
extent, leadership is like beauty: Its hard to define, but you know it when you see it (Yakowicz,
W.) said by Warren Bennis (a business school professor at the University of Southern
California for 35 years and the author of 30 books on leadership) is the statement I find best fits
what kind of leadership I have seen. I believe you can never completely describe or understand
what a great leader or leadership is without seeing it. Great leadership feels like a force of nature.
It is able to do or complete anything that is decided, and you are left with the feeling of awe
when you see it. When I say great leadership, I do not mean the leader or the group is preforming
morally right acts. Instead, this leader is extremely effective in completing their goals and forms
loyal followers or teammates in the process. I believe that leadership is the multiple actions
together of gaining teammates respect, convincing them that your goal(s) enacted in the world
will fulfill one of their needs, persuading them to help you fulfill these goals, and enabling them
to do support the goal. There are many different ways and theories on how to do these things and
some work in different situations, but Ive know from many experiences what characteristics are
needed to be this person and how enact these events effectively.
A leader needs to have many traits to be great. Confidence is essential after the team has
a long debate about what is the right course of action and the decision is made. The leader must
have full confidence in the decision and in their team members. Confidence is essential in being

Dowling 2
a successful leader not only when making the final decision but also having the confidence in
yourself and in your position because then you are able to give out your power to others so that
they may be empowered. Having empowered members of your group make them feel loyal and
important, but this also helps you do less work and looks good towards you leadership abilities
because you are developing you team members to become more capable and better resources for
the company or organization. In Exploring Leadership, it explains that there are 6 ways to
empower your members. You can educate them, create an environment for them to grow, lead
them, providing them with all the tools and opportunities to get their job done, mentoring them,
and get them to feel responsible for their team and work. Empowered members on your team
makes the team better in the long run especially when there are tough times. I was once in a large
leadership committee that did not empower their members, but instead empowered the leaders.
The leaders received their positions because they were friends with the last leaders not because
of their past performances, and they couldnt get great work out of their team members because
they were only given basic tasks because the leaders didnt have confidence in them to complete
bigger ones. It was a terribly planned organization that did not work very well. When you only
show up to the meetings, you do not gain a sense of responsibility or loyalty towards the
organization, and you are not motivated to make the organization better. Another skill that the
leader has to be good at is inclusiveness. I have seen leaders all the time only talk with their
friends and not bring the other members up to the table. This is a huge point in Lean In by Sheryl
Sandburg. This fact that even professional leaders in the business world do not try to include
everyone in their team has caused women to have a hard time through rising through the ranks.
The traditionally male leaders have kept on talking to and mentoring their male friends, and then
they promote their friends who they trust and have given work to in the past. Women in the work

Dowling 3
force have just watched this happen and havent leaned into the table where the men are and
joined the conversation as much as they need to fix this cycle. A great leader is inclusive to all
the members and empowers all of them to all of their strengths after getting to know them. Three
of the main characteristics I believe are essential to great leaders and many leaders do not have
are confident, empowering, and inclusive.
I believe the greatest leaders set up the organization in an effective way so that the
members can get their work done efficiently, great people are always hired, and the members can
bring up problems or disagreements to their boss. The honestly shown when members bring up
problems and disagreements to their bosses are flags showing that they care about the
organization, they have faith that they will be heard, and that they believe their position is secure.
My favorite TED talk is about this. Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, presented by
Simon Sinek (a management theorist) explains that when a company makes you feel that your
position is secure you will work harder for the organization and will be loyal to them. This
loyalty is key for having a great organization. Having loyal followers turns a decent organization
to a great one. This loyalty creates a feeling of responsibility towards the group and its goals and
message. If you own a project, you feel more determined to make it the best it can be. Another
resource that believes in the power of the members of the organization is the book Good to Great
by Jim Collins. Jim Collins and his team evaluated data and interviewed heads of companies for
a decade to find out what ordinary companies did to turn their company into the great, giant
companies that we know today (such as Krogers, Walgreens, etc). The data shows that all of the
CEOs made sure they had a great team on their bus before they picked the direction and
strategy to drive to. This insured that these extremely motivated people would do great work
with every project they had because they didnt know how to not work their hardest. The CEOs

Dowling 4
of these companies would often spend months and thousands looking for perfect board members
for their company. Another factor that their data pointed to was the fact that these companies
always had an environment where they always found the problems in the organization by asking
people and having the environment where people could and would speak up. This allowed them
to progress well in the future. I know these are key towards a great team through my work as a
leader on my high schools backstage theater lights department. By working for years as the
leader of 6+ girls, I learned the basics of making an open environment where problems could be
heard. I was not able to pick my team and find the best members for the jobs because the director
randomly assigns people, but when I had to pick my successor, I knew I picked the right one.
The choice was very difficult for people to understand because it completely ignored seniority,
but I knew the girl was going to be a greater leader than the other choices because skill and past
experience is all that really matters when deciding promotions. Members are a huge part of an
organization, and the key to being a great leader is to make an environment where they can thrive
and become loyal to the organization. This environment includes the feeling of openness and
security.
There are many different types of leadership models, but I believe in only parts of each to
form my own model of great leadership. I believe a charismatic leader is a very weak form of
leadership because this focuses and relies too much on the leader and doesnt set up a good team
formation for their successors. It can also be very weak especially with icons because if they
mess up once everyone knows about it and questions the persons true character. Charismatic
leaders can be great at persuading other to help and become part of the team. From my
experience, they are also pretty good at making team members feel included and good about their
work. It can be tough to receive criticism from them though. The innovative leaders can make

Dowling 5
the group even better by changing old processes into greater ones especially in business when
process always need to be changed to be the best. But this can be very difficult for the team after
the leader has left because their leader was the one that came up with these transformations. One
of the best from of a leadership model that I have found is the Servant Leadership Model. This is
when the leader focuses to empower the member and give them the credit when the team
succeeds. It is essential that the team members tell others about how phenomenal their leader was
so it doesnt look like the leader isnt doing anything. These leaders are shown to be great
especially when they are on different projects with different team members, and the results prove
that it is this person that is the magic touch to these groups. These leaders just need to have hard
working teams for this style of leadership to be effective. There many different leadership
models made from professionals, but I do not think any of them truly captures what a great
leader is.
Being a great leader involves having the characteristics of confidence, empowering, and
inclusive, but also sets up their team or organizations to be honest and feel safe for the members
so they and the organization are able to thrive. Even though I know what makes a great leader, I
am still working on making myself one. It is definitely easier to study than to do in real
situations. But the way to become better is just like any other skill, you need to practice. One of
the main ways I found to get better is that you get feedback from the members of your team
about how you are doing and how the project went. There is only so much you can learn by
reflecting by yourself. It is one of my goals this year to get as much leadership knowledge and
hopefully some practice in for the next few years of being a leader in my organizations. I am in
Student Governments First Year Leadership Program, I was appointed Assistant to Cardinal
Cabinet for Chi Omega, I am taking this seminar in leadership, and I am getting involved in

Dowling 6
many organizations. I hope to one day be the person that everyone looks at and knows that I am a
leader but has a hard time explaining why I am so effective and have many loyal members.

Dowling 7
Works Cited
Blanken, R. (2013, January 1). 8 Common Leadership Styles. Retrieved November 20, 2014,
from http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=241962
Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New
York, NY: HarperBusiness.
Komives, S., & Lucas, N. (2013). Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want to
Make a Difference (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sandberg, S. (2013). Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Random House.
Sinek, S. (Presentor) (2014, January 1). Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe. TEDx2014.
Lecture conducted from TED.
Yakowicz, W. (2014). Lessons from Leadership Guru Warren Bennis. Inc, n.v. Retrived from
http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/7-leadership-lessons-from-late-warren-bennis.html