Susan McGarry
11/26/20
Professor Meyer-Lee
LDR 101
Critical Essay #4
How I View Leadership Now
Coming into this class, I thought that I had an in-depth understanding of my leadership, my individual strengths, my identity and power. However now, standing on the other side having experienced the class, I can say I did not have a very in-depth understanding of any of that. Most college freshmen barely have an understanding of who they are, let alone how to be a leader, so I shouldn’t be too surprised that I didn’t either. This class taught me not only to be a better leader, but to be a better follower too. It also taught me to consider my team members individual traits and how I can utilize these traits to make our project run efficiently and effectively.
One of the first assignments we did for this class was our StrengthsFinder test. This test had you answer questions about leadership scenarios and how you would handle them as well as personal preferences regarding teamwork as well as social scenarios. After taking the test you would then be provided with 5 qualities of your leadership, your strengths. After being provided with your strengths you are able to read a summary about them and what category of leadership you fall under. After this activity I realized that I am a very people centric leader, but that I also can take charge and choose in the best interest of my group. I also realized that I need to learn how to be a better follower, and that I have issues handing the reins over to someone else, someone who won’t handle things exactly how I would. Learning how to let someone else lead was difficult, taking direction and following someone else’s lead was really a learning curve for me.
Finding out what traits I hold as a leader helped me figure out my identity. Knowing what my strengths are puts words to who I am. I was able to say I am this type of leader because of these reasons, and this is how I react to certain situations because of these reasons. It was very nice, it helped me understand why I do things the way that I do. I was able to take these strengths and self reflect. My sense of self has dramatically changed from the beginning of the semester until now. It has not been easy, I know that your sense of self fluctuates but heading into college you want to say that you know who you are. That you know yourself, that you know your power, your mind, your process and more but in reality college is the beginning of forming all of that.
In conclusion, this class has helped me begin the journey of finding my sense of self and who I am as a leader. I now know how to better lead and follow, I have begun to understand who I am. I look forward to continuing this journey throughout my 4 years at Agnes Scott, hopefully at the end I’ll look back and be a totally different person than who I was when I was writing this essay. I am grateful to my professor, my fellow classmates and those who helped me during this class.
