Before I start with my capstone project I want to take a little time to thank a few people who helped me get to this point in my life. Many experiences and people in a person’s life shape who they are, but none more than their parents. I have learned so much from them and as I grow older I see more of them in myself. My mother taught me from an early age that life is not fair and that if I wanted something that I had to go out and earn it. She taught me the value of working hard every day to meet my goals and she set a great example for me to follow. My father taught me to look at life with a sense of humor and to always believe that I could accomplish anything. It is his sense of humor in me that helps me keep a positive attitude on life when things get tough. Lastly he taught me that no dream is too big and he always told me that I could accomplish them if I wanted to work hard enough at it. I am who I am because of my parents and I want to thank them for all they have done in my life. They taught me to be hard working, honest and respectful; traits that have helped me become who I am today.
The Second person that I want to thank is someone that I never expected to be in my life, but I couldn’t imagine where I would be without him. Don Jacobson came into my life when I was at a crossroads and helped steer me in the right direction. He never told me what to do, only how I should be doing more with my life. He encouraged me to go into the Air Force and to finish college. He always found a way to make me see where I should be and how to get there. I have come to rely on his guidance and wisdom and he has never failed me. He was the greatest mentor that I could ask for. I hope he knows how much he has touched my life. If I all I ever accomplished in my lifetime was to touch someone’s life the way he did mine I could die and be happy with what I accomplished. Thank you Jake for all you have done, you’ll probably never know how much you truly mean to me.
Last I want to thank my beautiful wife Lisa. She has been by my side through everything and I owe her the most thanks. She knows firsthand what sacrifice is and has made many so that I can pursue my Air Force career. She hated to see me spend my free time going to school instead of with her, but yet still encouraged me not to quit and to keep persevering. She gave me the strength to continue when I had none. To her I owe everything and I want to thank her for all that I have done and accomplished in my life. I love you and I wouldn’t have been able to complete this without you. You are now and forever will be my soul mate.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Master of Science in Leadership Portfolio Outcomes
Introduction
My name is Tyler Root, this is my Master of Science in Leadership blog that I started. Its purpose is to share what I have learned while completing my master’s degree of Science in Leadership at Southwestern College. Before I get into what I have learned, I will start with a little bit about myself. I enlisted in the United States Air Force in 2001 as an aircraft maintainer working on the A-10. I did this while I attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. At Embry-Riddle I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Science in Professional Aeronautics. Following that, I was accepted into Air Force Officer Training School and received my commission in May of 2004. After, I went through the Air Force’s Undergraduate Pilot Training. I continued on and completed KC-135 training. I flew the KC-135 for approximately three years before deciding to fly a different aircraft. Today, I am currently flying the MQ-9 Reaper. I will continue my career as an Air Force Aviator; expand my horizons with more leadership opportunities and professional schooling. I hope someday I will be given the chance to be a squadron commander.
When I heard about Southwestern’s program it seemed like a perfect fit for me. I choose their program for the same reasons that I decided to become an Air Force Officer; I like leadership and I strive to be the best leader that I can be. The Air Force is not looking for mangers in their officers. What they are looking for is leaders. This program helped to mold me in to a better leader. The MSL has given me many great tools for success. It enabled me to examine great leaders of the past while incorporating key leadership concepts and theories. This approach of looking at the past, present, and future gave me a comprehensive knowledge of leadership.
I have learned many things that will help me as an officer, leader, follower, and individual. The following blog is broken into five outcomes that will help to demonstrate this. These five outcomes focus on: Key leadership concepts, Qualification in my career, Leaders ethical implications, Communications, and a lifelong commitment to learning.
Key Leadership Concepts
Outcome #1: How I have demonstrated that I have gained breadth and depth of understanding of key leadership concepts.
My artifacts demonstrating mastery of this outcome:
Artifact 1: Leadership 510 - Leadership in Context
Artifact 2: Leadership 580 - Practical Problem Solving in Today’s Organization
Artifact 3: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics
Artifact 4: Leadership 515 - Leader Communication and Conflict Resolution
Artifact 5: Leadership 590 - Leadership Project
Artifact 6: Leadership 570 - Leadership For the Future
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
Throughout this program, I’ve taken many classes. All of which, dealt with leadership is some way. While they all focused on leadership, they were all very different too. There are many different leadership styles and theories; it can be hard to keep them all straight. What I did add with every class was something new to my leadership bag of tricks. Above are some papers that I have written, each added to my understanding of leadership concepts.
Some of the leadership concepts in these artifacts include the ‘Great Person Theory’ or the ‘Trait Theory’. Early leadership studies focused heavily on the Trait Theory, According to Bass & Stogdill, “If the leader is endowed with superior qualities that differentiate him from his followers, it should be possible to identify these traits.” (Bass & Stogdill, 1990, p.38) They believe that a person is born with great traits and will be a leader regardless of the situation they are in. A theory that contradicts this theory is the situational leadership model. “Situational leadership suggests that leadership is all a matter of situational demands.” (Bass & Stogdill, 1990, p.38). This theory states that it takes a scenario to make a person into a great leader. For example, would Eisenhower be considered a great general and great American leader if there wasn’t a world war? It is an interesting question; one that I believe is a little bit of both. I have learned that leadership is not black and white, but a mixture of many concepts. These four artifacts are just a small portion of what I have learned. It is not one thing that I take with me as the only leadership concept that I need, it is a mixture of all of these artifacts and concepts that I will use in the future to become the best leader that I can be.
While those theories look at why we have great leaders, other studies look at what constitutes great leadership. What are the differences between transformational and transactional leadership? Is one always best? Most scholars would argue that transformational leadership is the best, but I have seen situations where transactional leadership can be used effectively. Usually, the main difference is the length that you will lead. I am a very big fan of transformational leadership, but when you know that you are going to be a leader for a very short period of time and things have to happen quickly, transactional leadership can be very effective. Personally I try to use transformational leadership as much as I can. If you are going to be a group’s leader for any time frame at all, it is imperative that you be a transformational leader. You should also be a leader that stands up for what it right, a leader that is honest and ethical, and a leader that has their follower’s best interest in mind. You cannot be a selfish leader; you have to take care of your people. In my experience, if you take care of your people they will take care of you by doing all they can to meet your expectations. The leader/follower relationship is a two way street and transformational leadership keeps it that way.
The last leadership concept that I will mention is Kouzes and Pousner’s leadership model. It is an important five step model on how to be an effective team leader. The five steps are:
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable others to Act
Encourage the Heart
These steps are a great example of how leaders act and how they implement their vision into their followers. They are simple and easily understood. For the capstone course I personally used this model to lead my personal best leadership project which you can read as Artifact #5. These steps helped to keep me on the right leadership track and made my project a success. They focus on what makes a leader successful and what a leader does to meet their goals. I learned this first hand as I embarked on and completed my leadership project. They are five steps that any leader should be constantly aware of and constantly trying to accomplish. They do not end; they are an ongoing process for exemplary leadership.
The first class that I took was Lead510, Leadership in Context. This was a great class that dealt with many different leaders of the past and what they did to be successful. It also focused heavily on the inverse of those good leaders, and that is what artifact one is about. It has been said that you can learn as much from bad leadership as you can from good, and I find that to be an outstandingly true statement. Sometimes it is easier to see what someone has done wrong then what they have done right. A couple of the key concepts that I learned in this class were to always look ahead to the future and to treat your follower’s right. It is important as a leader to have a vision of the future and stand on the proverbial balcony to see what lies ahead for yourself and more importantly your organization. It also reinforced something that I had already believed in; take care of your people. This is something that is preached in the military, and it was good to see that it is also commonplace in several corporate organizations too. This was a great experience that got me excited about learning more about leadership concepts and the classes that followed would not disappoint me.
The second artifact is from my Lead 580 class. It is about problem solving in today’s organizations. It is important for any leader to be able to come up with legitimate solutions to problems as they rise. That is not to say they do it all on their own. It is important as a leader to be able to lead a team, spur ideas in them, and make sound decisions that benefit the organization. This artifact is also a self examination of how I am as a leader; what my strengths, weakness are and areas of improvement I need. This kind of self examination is vital for any good leader.
The third artifact is from my Lead 505 class, it focuses on what it takes to be an ethical leader. Ethics are the foundation of who and what we are; and when everything else is falling apart they are something that we can rely on to get us through those tough times. This particular artifact was a group project on what happened at Salomon Brothers in the 1980’s. It shows what un-ethical leadership can do to an organization, and how it took superior leadership with a focus on maintaining the highest ethical standards to turn it around. I have always felt that I am an ethical person and leader and I stand up for what I believe in and will not be a part of something that I do not think is up to par with my standards. Like I stated before, ethics are the foundation of who we are and every good leader starts with good ethics.
The fifth artifact is from Lead 515 and is about communication and conflict resolution. This is an area that I have always felt I could work on, sometimes the things I say don’t come out sounding as I intend them, a trait that I get from my father (Thanks Dad). Communication is crucial when you are in any leadership position, there are many things that you have to communicate, most importantly your vision for the future. It doesn’t matter if you have the greatest ideas in the world if you don’t know how to rely them to the people that can use them. Good communication is also vital to conflict resolution. Conflict will happen, it is a fact of life, and a good leader will deal with conflict in a manner that resolves issues. They won’t leave issues hanging out there for another day. Conflict is healthy if handled properly; it can spur debate and increase productivity. A good organization has healthy conflict and competition. They are lead by a leader that both encourages and directs that conflict into positive energy.
My sixth artifact is form LEAD 570, leadership for the future and details a change initiative. In this artifact I examine what I would do to change a real organization. I choose the Kansas City Royals baseball team to change. They have long been the laughing stock of baseball and have developed a culture of losing. This is something that can be turned around with good leadership. In the paper I explore a Theory O leadership style that focuses on changing the culture of how an organization operates. The Royals need a culture change and they need the leadership to turn that around.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Where do we go from here? There are many things that I still need to work on and that will probably be a life long journey. I believe that you must keep your mind active or you will begin to lose it. I am much better than I have been at leading but I still need to work on my communication skills. I can always build up my conflict resolution skills as well. I believe that my ethical standards are very high, but that just means that I have to keep that up. Lastly, there are so many leadership concepts out there; it takes much more than just a graduate degree to learn them. I have to continue to hone my skills and add to my leadership bag because every situation is different and you cannot approach them all in the same manner. In short, I just have to take what I have been taught and keep learning. Leadership doesn’t end with a diploma.
Qualifications in my Career
Outcome #2: How I have demonstrated that I am recognized by my current employer as an excellent candidate for advancement and how I am qualified for key leadership positions within my chosen field.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 575 - Organizational Structures and Behavior
Artifact #2: Leadership 580 - Practical Problem Solving for Today’s Organization
Artifact #3: Leadership 585 - Leading Quality Improvement Initiatives
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
The Air Force and the military are great at building leaders. It doesn’t matter if you are officer or enlisted, you will be presented with the opportunity to lead. There are many things that go into building these leaders. One of which is the experiences that you have. No corporate environment can simulate the situations that I have been put into while in the Air Force. The second part of this is the Air Force’s robust professional military education. They are graduate level classes and are something that you will do several times in your career. They teach military history and traditions, but more importantly they teach leadership concepts and styles.
As a captain, I have already had many experiences and leadership opportunity. I have run several leadership projects that represented McConnell Air Force base to the community and other military installations. One of the projects that I was particularly proud of was the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Big for Day program that McConnell AFB hosts every year. It required coordination with dozens of base agencies and brought together over 400 military members and kids waiting to be matched to a big. It was the leadership concepts that I have learned in the MSL program along with the experiences that the Air Force has given me that helped me make that one of the most successful Big for a Day events that they have ever seen.
While that was a great experience, I will never forget the feeling of being 25 years old and the Aircraft Commandeer on a KC-135 for the first time. I was now responsible for a $55 Million dollar aircraft, with thousands of dollars worth of cargo and 25 lives in the back. They were all relying on me to take them overseas to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. That trip was very exciting and very nerve racking, because of maintenance issues I had to make a lot of decisions that were not very popular, but they were the right decisions and I was willing to take any heat that came with them. It is hard to put into words what it was like to have this responsibility for the first time, but I know that my commander would not have given it to me if he did not think that I was capable. This is just one example of the key leadership roles that I faced on a day to day basis. Since then, I have faced many more and I take them all on with the same manner, with integrity, confidence, and a willingness to learn something.
I also have three artifacts from my Leadership program that demonstrate some of the leadership positions that I have been in and intend to strive for. The First one is from my Lead 575 class and is about organizational commitment. You can’t be successful in the military if you are not fully committed. You have to believe in what you are doing and have to make numerous sacrifices. This paper talks about the different ways that we commit to an organization and how I have committed to the Air Force. It also covers what they have done for me, because let’s be honest commitment is a two way street. The Air Force has committed resources to me because they feel I am worth it and it will pay off for them. I have committed myself and my life to the Air Force for the same reasons.
The Second artifact is from my Lead 580 class and is about problem solving and is a great look at the organization that I was a part of previously. It looks at where I fit in and what I think should be done. It also explores what I can do to make it better. The Air Force, like any institution, has problems that need to be fixed and it will take the leaders of today and tomorrow to fix them. This paper was a good look at how I can make a difference and improve tomorrows Air Force.
The third and final artifact is from my Lead 585 class and was about a project that I was involved in. It was a quality management project that dealt with how we handle classified material. We have had some incidents in the past that made us revamp our processes. We needed to restandardized and make handling a more thorough process. The current mindset in the squadron was too complacent and resulted in this very sensitive paperwork was being handled carelessly. This paper covers what we did to fix the problem and how it met the Malcolm Baldridge criteria. These new procedures along with a top down emphasis on stricter polices and accountability helped us achieve the goal that we were achieving.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
I have no plans of stepping back and saying that all my leadership’s experiences were enough for me already. In the future, I plan to have even more experiences and taking on even more leadership roles in the Air Force, and even beyond my Air Force career. I have gained much as a person and a leader being put in these situations, and I love being under that pressure. I like having people rely on me and I like the feeling of coming through for them. If they told me tomorrow that I couldn’t be in any more leadership positions in my current job then I would ask for a new job. I hope to expand my leadership skills further by going through the Air Force professional military education classes. I look forward tomorrow and the challenges that it will bring.
Leaders Ethical Implications
Outcome #3: How I have demonstrated an understanding and appreciation of the ethical implications of leaders.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics
Artifact #2: Leadership 510 - Leadership in Context
Artifact #3: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics Interview
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
As I have stated in many of my papers and discussion board postings in this program, ethics are what we have to fall back on when everything else fails. They also make up our core as both a leader and a person. Ethics are essential to being a leader, but they are also very subjective, so it is important to not only take into account your ethics but those ethics that are considered acceptable in your society. I wish I could say that this isn’t subjective but it is. It is up to you to figure out the right blend of what you believe and how you feel about your organizations or society’s ethical standards. Personally, when I look at organizational ethics that differ from my own I look at why they do so. Why would they want me to follow something I don’t believe in? Why should I compromise? Sometimes it is for the best, and I will do that for the good of the group as long as their ethics do not bring physical or emotional harm to others. Fortunately I cannot remember being a part of any organization that I did not share the same ethical values with.
Ethics are something that everyone will agree is very important in a leader, but somehow they have gotten left out of most leadership studies. Joseph Rost was one of the first scholars to look at leadership from a less scientific point of view and more from an essence point of view. Rost urges us, “Focus on the essence of leadership, and this approach also explains why there is so little work on ethics in leadership.” (Ciulla, 2004, p.7) He felt that too many studies were done in a scientific matter and overlooked the intangibles of leadership, in others words, things that science can’t explain. He makes a good point. Does it matter how many great leadership traits that a person has if they don’t have any ethics to stand on? I would say that any good leader must have good ethics; I feel they are essential to leadership because as I stated ethics are what make up your core.
I have presented three artifacts for you to digest, they show what I have learned and studied in this program related to ethical leadership. The first was a group project that I completed in Lead 505. It is a case study on the ethical issues that Salomon Brothers had to deal with in the 1980’s when their CEO decided it was ok to break the law and betray his customers. It was the swift action by Warren Buffett and Deryck Maughan that saved the company. They were only able to do this because they had strong ethical values and a reputation for them. They are a great example of how ethics are not something that we just use here and there when it suits us; ethics are a way we live all the time.
The second artifact is from Lead 510 and was a paper about bad leaders. While not every example of bad leaders boils down to bad ethics it is very prevalent. Not only did their un-ethical behavior get them fired, most of the time it got them jail time. It is also easy to see in these examples how they lacked a complete follower base and that people were there because they had to be, not because they wanted to be. You may be able to get away with a few bad things as an un-ethical leader but sooner or later it will catch up to you.
The final artifact was also from my Lead 505 class. It was an interview with Lieutenant Colonel James Cluff, my squadron commander. In it, I asked him several questions ranging from how he dealt with ethical violations to how to sell your vision to your followers. One of the most interesting things that I took away from the article was where he thought we got our ethics from. I expected to here the standard, friends, parent, mentors etc. but what surprised me was that he said more and more the news and television. I never thought of this, but it has become such an information onslaught that it can be overwhelming. Furthermore, and I hate to say this, but the American society trusts far too much of what they hear on the news and read on the internet. They are content with just that and do not try to verify or find another side of the story. As a leader this is something that you have to contend with and you have to persuade your followers to be more proactive about putting into perspective everything that they get bombarded with.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Ethics are something that you live and breathe and that you never get rid of. They are also something that changes, even if it is a subtle change. I plan on continue my pursuit in ethical leadership while continuing my leadership path. I know that in the next few years I will have the chance to attend Air Force military education courses and parts of that will focus on ethical leadership, a trait that is required for military leaders.
Communications
Outcome #4: How I have exhibited poise and confidence in verbal and written communication.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 510 – Leadership in Context
Artifact #2: Leadership 515 – Leadership Communication and Conflict Resolution
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
As a leader it is imperative that you have good communication skills. These skills are front and center every day. Communication skills are part of your façade; they are what people see and one of the biggest influences on first impressions. As a leader you have to take these skills and turn them into charisma and influence. You have to be able to do this with poise and confidence. Furthermore communication is paramount to having any sustained leader/follower relationship. Every good relationship starts with good communication. That means being honest and candid with each other, being respectful, and working through issues that might plague a relationship. This program has helped me fine tune my communications skills. While they were always ok, I knew they could be better. I have always been very candid, but the leadership program has helped me be a better listener which in turn has allowed me to sell my vision easier and made me a better leader.
I have two artifacts that demonstrate my poise and confidence in communication. The first is from my Lead 510 class and focuses on bad leadership. There are a few overwhelming themes that you see in many bad leadership cases, one of which is poor communication. There are a few different areas that this includes. They are shutting the other person down, not communicating your ideas properly, and not listening. This paper highlights many different leaders who had poor communication skills. Leaders have to be able to sell their vision and if you can’t communicate then you can’t do that. Some leaders fail because they can’t communicate, and that means listening as much as talking. This paper helped me to realize the importance of good communication and why I should work so hard to improve my skills.
The second artifact is from my Lead 515 class and is about communication and conflict resolution. Anybody who is married or has been in any long term relationship will tell you that without good communication it will fail. This class helped me to find ways to resolve conflict expeditiously without isolating my followers or cohorts. I feel that it was one of the most important classes that I took, along with the ethics classes. This class was something that I needed to learn more of and it helped me to become a better leader. This paper highlights how I try to look at what I say from a few different angles to see how it might be understood by others. It also explores how I approach conflict. Conflict is natural and in the right context a good thing, but you have to know how to manage it. This comes with good communications skills; it is one of many areas that you have to master to become a great leader. This paper and class taught me that I still need to work on this everyday and that I cannot become complacent about how I communicate.
Lastly, there were many things that I took away with me and learned while I was in this program but were not always directly related to the classes. They were, however, greatly influenced by the Leadership program and helped me accelerate my communications skills. Flying on crew airplanes communication becomes very important and the lack of good communication has caused many terrible accidents. There are three things that are a must for any crew member to learn, and they translate directly to communications off the airplane as well. The first thing that we are taught from the very beginning in a crew aircraft is to never shut someone down. If you do this once they might not bother to speak up again and they might have the piece to the puzzle that you need to solve a problem. There have been many cases where this has happened with tragic or near tragic results. Listening is yet another skill that you have to have on a crew aircraft. So often there are so many sounds and so many people talking that you have to know who to listen for and you have to take it all in and let your brain sort the important stuff out. It doesn’t come overnight and is something that you have to work on and day after day until you get better at it. It is easy to hear only what you want to hear, but if you train yourself right you can start to hear everything. It sounds very simple; however it is easier said than done. The last thing that you have to be good at is communicating your intentions clearly. In the flying world that means saying what you need to say without saying anything extra. Make your statement short, direct and to the point. That way it is clearer in the recipients mind and they don’t have to try to decode what you just meant. I have taken these three skills away from the flying world and used them in my leadership learning and practices. They have helped make me a leader who communicated with poise and confidence.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
The three skills that I mentioned before are certainly something that I have not stopped working on and I know that I can still be better at them. As I continue in my career I will be put into more and more positions where I have to communicate my position to others. I will continue to hone my skills and use this to my advantage when the situations arise. More than that there is so much more that I need to work on and I will continue to work on my conflict resolution and my listening skills. These are two areas that I feel are very important and two areas which I need improvement.
Another goal of mine is to pass on my communication knowledge. I am currently in a position with a lot of new airman who have found there selves in a crew aircraft and have not had any formal communications training. I wish to continue to expand my knowledge base by teaching them what I have learned and stress the importance of good communication between crew members. I see them make the same mistakes that I have and I feel it is my duty to help correct them so we can all grow as a community. They say there is no better way to find out what you know then by teaching it and that is what I intend to do in the future.
Lifelong Commitment to Learning
Outcome #5: How I have demonstrated that I have been and will continue to be a life long learner.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 520 - Leadership Coaching
Artifact #2: Leadership 575 - Organizational Structures & Behaviors
Artifact #3: Leadership 590 - Leadership Project
Artifact #4: Leadership Plan
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
I don’t think that the kind of person that goes through all the work to complete their graduate degree can ever just shut their mind off and stop learning. Like me they are the kind of people who continually learn new and interesting techniques, procedures, and processes that they are interested in. I started this program as a lifelong learner and it has only strengthened that. I also have four artifacts that I will present to help show what I have learned and how I will continue to learn.
The first artifact is from Leadership 520, I wrote it to show how I would run my business or organization if given the chance. It is based on a fictional business but still shows how I have taken what I have learned and how I would apply it. As I look back on it, I think about what I have learned since I wrote it and what I would change. I don’t see anywhere in this paper about how I would sell my vision to my workers or how I would model the way, two very important steps in Kouzes & Posner’s leadership model. They weren’t in there because at the time I wasn’t aware of them, but I am now and I think that they are very important. It is lessons like these that have shown me the importance of expanding my horizons all the time and learn as much as I can.
The second artifact is from Leadership 575 and focuses on organizational commitment. I choose this to show why I am a lifelong learner because learning is a commitment, you have to dedicate your time and resources to the skill or knowledge you want to learn. I am currently committed to the Air Force and part of that commitment means that I cannot just stand stagnant in my career. To progress I have to continually learn new jobs, skills, and have new experiences. That means that I cannot just sit by and not continue to learn.
The third artifact is from my Lead 590 class and is what I feel is my personnel best leadership project. It was project that I was in charge of and that I was able to use all the skills and techniques that I have acquired throughout this leadership program. It was based on Kouzes and Posner’s leadership model. This model has five parts to it. Model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart. My paper takes those five concepts and shows how I used them to lead a fund raising team for the Air Force Assistance Fund. In this project, we exceeded our goal by raising over $5300, that was over 130% of what we set out to raise. This was a project that I am extremely proud of because it not only showed what I could do as the leader of my team but it really helped out thousands of Airman and retired Airman in the process.
My fourth and final artifact presented is a leadership plan that I accomplished in conjunction with another one of my classes. In it I talk about where I am and where I want to be in five and ten years. When you read it you see that it includes me going through many programs both for leadership and career progression as well as programs to make me technically better at my job. It is a plan that I am still working on as I write this. While things may change with it I still continue to pursue it because the goals in the long run are the same. Currently I am working on a successful Air Force career where I am not just a leader because I am put in a leadership position but because I am a leader who my followers look up to for my expertise and guidance. I know that I cannot become this without continuing on as a lifelong learner, I must keep in the books and continue to improve myself.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Where will I go from here? When I started my undergraduate degree I did not know if I would go on to complete my graduate degree. By the time that I finished my undergraduate degree I knew that I would continue with my graduate degree. I knew at that point that I had to be a lifelong learner to be a great leader.
After this degree I want to take all the skills and concepts that I have learned and apply them in the future projects that I know I will lead. It will help me be a better leader and help my progression through the Air Force. That is what it is about to me. I will be given greater rank and responsibility; I need to make the most out of those opportunities. I feel much more confident going forward with what I know now and I am much more prepared for what lies ahead for me.
As I continue my career I will also continue to learn. I have already completed Squadron Officer School in the correspondence but plan to also attend it in residence to continue my leadership training. I also plan on becoming an instructor in my current airframe within the next year. This will give me the opportunity to instruct and show the knowledge that I have gained. This will take a lot of studying and like leadership it is something that you continually work at and can never know enough of. These are my goals for the next couple years; they will be a lot of work but are very attainable.
Looking out past the next few years I would like to be a squadron commander before the end of my Air Force career. This requires even more professional education. I will have to complete Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, and Commanders School. This is all going to happen within the next ten years and I am excited to see how it all turns out. Becoming a squadron commander is an ambitious goal, very few officers get the opportunity to become one but I think that it would be very rewarding and fulfilling.
I have not decided what I would like to do following my Air Force career; it is hard to look that far ahead for me. I know that I plan on staying in until retirement, which is at least another ten years. The only other thing that I know is that I will continue to do what I have always done. I will continue to set myself up for success by relentlessly pursuing my goals and accomplishing them the right way. That means being ethical and working as hard as I can. If I can accomplish this, I will set myself up for a future in which I choose what I will be doing. I want to be able to retire from the Air Force and do what I want to do, not what I have to do to survive. To accomplish this it means that I will have to continue to learn from academia and from my own experiences. It is a process that will never be finished.
References
Bass, Bernard M. & Stogdill, Ralph.(1990) The Handbook of Leadership. (3rd ed.) New York, NY. The Free Press
Ciulla, JoAnne B. (2004) Ethics, the Heart of Leadership. (2nd ed.) Praeger
My name is Tyler Root, this is my Master of Science in Leadership blog that I started. Its purpose is to share what I have learned while completing my master’s degree of Science in Leadership at Southwestern College. Before I get into what I have learned, I will start with a little bit about myself. I enlisted in the United States Air Force in 2001 as an aircraft maintainer working on the A-10. I did this while I attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. At Embry-Riddle I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Science in Professional Aeronautics. Following that, I was accepted into Air Force Officer Training School and received my commission in May of 2004. After, I went through the Air Force’s Undergraduate Pilot Training. I continued on and completed KC-135 training. I flew the KC-135 for approximately three years before deciding to fly a different aircraft. Today, I am currently flying the MQ-9 Reaper. I will continue my career as an Air Force Aviator; expand my horizons with more leadership opportunities and professional schooling. I hope someday I will be given the chance to be a squadron commander.
When I heard about Southwestern’s program it seemed like a perfect fit for me. I choose their program for the same reasons that I decided to become an Air Force Officer; I like leadership and I strive to be the best leader that I can be. The Air Force is not looking for mangers in their officers. What they are looking for is leaders. This program helped to mold me in to a better leader. The MSL has given me many great tools for success. It enabled me to examine great leaders of the past while incorporating key leadership concepts and theories. This approach of looking at the past, present, and future gave me a comprehensive knowledge of leadership.
I have learned many things that will help me as an officer, leader, follower, and individual. The following blog is broken into five outcomes that will help to demonstrate this. These five outcomes focus on: Key leadership concepts, Qualification in my career, Leaders ethical implications, Communications, and a lifelong commitment to learning.
Key Leadership Concepts
Outcome #1: How I have demonstrated that I have gained breadth and depth of understanding of key leadership concepts.
My artifacts demonstrating mastery of this outcome:
Artifact 1: Leadership 510 - Leadership in Context
Artifact 2: Leadership 580 - Practical Problem Solving in Today’s Organization
Artifact 3: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics
Artifact 4: Leadership 515 - Leader Communication and Conflict Resolution
Artifact 5: Leadership 590 - Leadership Project
Artifact 6: Leadership 570 - Leadership For the Future
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
Throughout this program, I’ve taken many classes. All of which, dealt with leadership is some way. While they all focused on leadership, they were all very different too. There are many different leadership styles and theories; it can be hard to keep them all straight. What I did add with every class was something new to my leadership bag of tricks. Above are some papers that I have written, each added to my understanding of leadership concepts.
Some of the leadership concepts in these artifacts include the ‘Great Person Theory’ or the ‘Trait Theory’. Early leadership studies focused heavily on the Trait Theory, According to Bass & Stogdill, “If the leader is endowed with superior qualities that differentiate him from his followers, it should be possible to identify these traits.” (Bass & Stogdill, 1990, p.38) They believe that a person is born with great traits and will be a leader regardless of the situation they are in. A theory that contradicts this theory is the situational leadership model. “Situational leadership suggests that leadership is all a matter of situational demands.” (Bass & Stogdill, 1990, p.38). This theory states that it takes a scenario to make a person into a great leader. For example, would Eisenhower be considered a great general and great American leader if there wasn’t a world war? It is an interesting question; one that I believe is a little bit of both. I have learned that leadership is not black and white, but a mixture of many concepts. These four artifacts are just a small portion of what I have learned. It is not one thing that I take with me as the only leadership concept that I need, it is a mixture of all of these artifacts and concepts that I will use in the future to become the best leader that I can be.
While those theories look at why we have great leaders, other studies look at what constitutes great leadership. What are the differences between transformational and transactional leadership? Is one always best? Most scholars would argue that transformational leadership is the best, but I have seen situations where transactional leadership can be used effectively. Usually, the main difference is the length that you will lead. I am a very big fan of transformational leadership, but when you know that you are going to be a leader for a very short period of time and things have to happen quickly, transactional leadership can be very effective. Personally I try to use transformational leadership as much as I can. If you are going to be a group’s leader for any time frame at all, it is imperative that you be a transformational leader. You should also be a leader that stands up for what it right, a leader that is honest and ethical, and a leader that has their follower’s best interest in mind. You cannot be a selfish leader; you have to take care of your people. In my experience, if you take care of your people they will take care of you by doing all they can to meet your expectations. The leader/follower relationship is a two way street and transformational leadership keeps it that way.
The last leadership concept that I will mention is Kouzes and Pousner’s leadership model. It is an important five step model on how to be an effective team leader. The five steps are:
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable others to Act
Encourage the Heart
These steps are a great example of how leaders act and how they implement their vision into their followers. They are simple and easily understood. For the capstone course I personally used this model to lead my personal best leadership project which you can read as Artifact #5. These steps helped to keep me on the right leadership track and made my project a success. They focus on what makes a leader successful and what a leader does to meet their goals. I learned this first hand as I embarked on and completed my leadership project. They are five steps that any leader should be constantly aware of and constantly trying to accomplish. They do not end; they are an ongoing process for exemplary leadership.
The first class that I took was Lead510, Leadership in Context. This was a great class that dealt with many different leaders of the past and what they did to be successful. It also focused heavily on the inverse of those good leaders, and that is what artifact one is about. It has been said that you can learn as much from bad leadership as you can from good, and I find that to be an outstandingly true statement. Sometimes it is easier to see what someone has done wrong then what they have done right. A couple of the key concepts that I learned in this class were to always look ahead to the future and to treat your follower’s right. It is important as a leader to have a vision of the future and stand on the proverbial balcony to see what lies ahead for yourself and more importantly your organization. It also reinforced something that I had already believed in; take care of your people. This is something that is preached in the military, and it was good to see that it is also commonplace in several corporate organizations too. This was a great experience that got me excited about learning more about leadership concepts and the classes that followed would not disappoint me.
The second artifact is from my Lead 580 class. It is about problem solving in today’s organizations. It is important for any leader to be able to come up with legitimate solutions to problems as they rise. That is not to say they do it all on their own. It is important as a leader to be able to lead a team, spur ideas in them, and make sound decisions that benefit the organization. This artifact is also a self examination of how I am as a leader; what my strengths, weakness are and areas of improvement I need. This kind of self examination is vital for any good leader.
The third artifact is from my Lead 505 class, it focuses on what it takes to be an ethical leader. Ethics are the foundation of who and what we are; and when everything else is falling apart they are something that we can rely on to get us through those tough times. This particular artifact was a group project on what happened at Salomon Brothers in the 1980’s. It shows what un-ethical leadership can do to an organization, and how it took superior leadership with a focus on maintaining the highest ethical standards to turn it around. I have always felt that I am an ethical person and leader and I stand up for what I believe in and will not be a part of something that I do not think is up to par with my standards. Like I stated before, ethics are the foundation of who we are and every good leader starts with good ethics.
The fifth artifact is from Lead 515 and is about communication and conflict resolution. This is an area that I have always felt I could work on, sometimes the things I say don’t come out sounding as I intend them, a trait that I get from my father (Thanks Dad). Communication is crucial when you are in any leadership position, there are many things that you have to communicate, most importantly your vision for the future. It doesn’t matter if you have the greatest ideas in the world if you don’t know how to rely them to the people that can use them. Good communication is also vital to conflict resolution. Conflict will happen, it is a fact of life, and a good leader will deal with conflict in a manner that resolves issues. They won’t leave issues hanging out there for another day. Conflict is healthy if handled properly; it can spur debate and increase productivity. A good organization has healthy conflict and competition. They are lead by a leader that both encourages and directs that conflict into positive energy.
My sixth artifact is form LEAD 570, leadership for the future and details a change initiative. In this artifact I examine what I would do to change a real organization. I choose the Kansas City Royals baseball team to change. They have long been the laughing stock of baseball and have developed a culture of losing. This is something that can be turned around with good leadership. In the paper I explore a Theory O leadership style that focuses on changing the culture of how an organization operates. The Royals need a culture change and they need the leadership to turn that around.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Where do we go from here? There are many things that I still need to work on and that will probably be a life long journey. I believe that you must keep your mind active or you will begin to lose it. I am much better than I have been at leading but I still need to work on my communication skills. I can always build up my conflict resolution skills as well. I believe that my ethical standards are very high, but that just means that I have to keep that up. Lastly, there are so many leadership concepts out there; it takes much more than just a graduate degree to learn them. I have to continue to hone my skills and add to my leadership bag because every situation is different and you cannot approach them all in the same manner. In short, I just have to take what I have been taught and keep learning. Leadership doesn’t end with a diploma.
Qualifications in my Career
Outcome #2: How I have demonstrated that I am recognized by my current employer as an excellent candidate for advancement and how I am qualified for key leadership positions within my chosen field.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 575 - Organizational Structures and Behavior
Artifact #2: Leadership 580 - Practical Problem Solving for Today’s Organization
Artifact #3: Leadership 585 - Leading Quality Improvement Initiatives
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
The Air Force and the military are great at building leaders. It doesn’t matter if you are officer or enlisted, you will be presented with the opportunity to lead. There are many things that go into building these leaders. One of which is the experiences that you have. No corporate environment can simulate the situations that I have been put into while in the Air Force. The second part of this is the Air Force’s robust professional military education. They are graduate level classes and are something that you will do several times in your career. They teach military history and traditions, but more importantly they teach leadership concepts and styles.
As a captain, I have already had many experiences and leadership opportunity. I have run several leadership projects that represented McConnell Air Force base to the community and other military installations. One of the projects that I was particularly proud of was the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Big for Day program that McConnell AFB hosts every year. It required coordination with dozens of base agencies and brought together over 400 military members and kids waiting to be matched to a big. It was the leadership concepts that I have learned in the MSL program along with the experiences that the Air Force has given me that helped me make that one of the most successful Big for a Day events that they have ever seen.
While that was a great experience, I will never forget the feeling of being 25 years old and the Aircraft Commandeer on a KC-135 for the first time. I was now responsible for a $55 Million dollar aircraft, with thousands of dollars worth of cargo and 25 lives in the back. They were all relying on me to take them overseas to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. That trip was very exciting and very nerve racking, because of maintenance issues I had to make a lot of decisions that were not very popular, but they were the right decisions and I was willing to take any heat that came with them. It is hard to put into words what it was like to have this responsibility for the first time, but I know that my commander would not have given it to me if he did not think that I was capable. This is just one example of the key leadership roles that I faced on a day to day basis. Since then, I have faced many more and I take them all on with the same manner, with integrity, confidence, and a willingness to learn something.
I also have three artifacts from my Leadership program that demonstrate some of the leadership positions that I have been in and intend to strive for. The First one is from my Lead 575 class and is about organizational commitment. You can’t be successful in the military if you are not fully committed. You have to believe in what you are doing and have to make numerous sacrifices. This paper talks about the different ways that we commit to an organization and how I have committed to the Air Force. It also covers what they have done for me, because let’s be honest commitment is a two way street. The Air Force has committed resources to me because they feel I am worth it and it will pay off for them. I have committed myself and my life to the Air Force for the same reasons.
The Second artifact is from my Lead 580 class and is about problem solving and is a great look at the organization that I was a part of previously. It looks at where I fit in and what I think should be done. It also explores what I can do to make it better. The Air Force, like any institution, has problems that need to be fixed and it will take the leaders of today and tomorrow to fix them. This paper was a good look at how I can make a difference and improve tomorrows Air Force.
The third and final artifact is from my Lead 585 class and was about a project that I was involved in. It was a quality management project that dealt with how we handle classified material. We have had some incidents in the past that made us revamp our processes. We needed to restandardized and make handling a more thorough process. The current mindset in the squadron was too complacent and resulted in this very sensitive paperwork was being handled carelessly. This paper covers what we did to fix the problem and how it met the Malcolm Baldridge criteria. These new procedures along with a top down emphasis on stricter polices and accountability helped us achieve the goal that we were achieving.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
I have no plans of stepping back and saying that all my leadership’s experiences were enough for me already. In the future, I plan to have even more experiences and taking on even more leadership roles in the Air Force, and even beyond my Air Force career. I have gained much as a person and a leader being put in these situations, and I love being under that pressure. I like having people rely on me and I like the feeling of coming through for them. If they told me tomorrow that I couldn’t be in any more leadership positions in my current job then I would ask for a new job. I hope to expand my leadership skills further by going through the Air Force professional military education classes. I look forward tomorrow and the challenges that it will bring.
Leaders Ethical Implications
Outcome #3: How I have demonstrated an understanding and appreciation of the ethical implications of leaders.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics
Artifact #2: Leadership 510 - Leadership in Context
Artifact #3: Leadership 505 - Organizational Leadership and Ethics Interview
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
As I have stated in many of my papers and discussion board postings in this program, ethics are what we have to fall back on when everything else fails. They also make up our core as both a leader and a person. Ethics are essential to being a leader, but they are also very subjective, so it is important to not only take into account your ethics but those ethics that are considered acceptable in your society. I wish I could say that this isn’t subjective but it is. It is up to you to figure out the right blend of what you believe and how you feel about your organizations or society’s ethical standards. Personally, when I look at organizational ethics that differ from my own I look at why they do so. Why would they want me to follow something I don’t believe in? Why should I compromise? Sometimes it is for the best, and I will do that for the good of the group as long as their ethics do not bring physical or emotional harm to others. Fortunately I cannot remember being a part of any organization that I did not share the same ethical values with.
Ethics are something that everyone will agree is very important in a leader, but somehow they have gotten left out of most leadership studies. Joseph Rost was one of the first scholars to look at leadership from a less scientific point of view and more from an essence point of view. Rost urges us, “Focus on the essence of leadership, and this approach also explains why there is so little work on ethics in leadership.” (Ciulla, 2004, p.7) He felt that too many studies were done in a scientific matter and overlooked the intangibles of leadership, in others words, things that science can’t explain. He makes a good point. Does it matter how many great leadership traits that a person has if they don’t have any ethics to stand on? I would say that any good leader must have good ethics; I feel they are essential to leadership because as I stated ethics are what make up your core.
I have presented three artifacts for you to digest, they show what I have learned and studied in this program related to ethical leadership. The first was a group project that I completed in Lead 505. It is a case study on the ethical issues that Salomon Brothers had to deal with in the 1980’s when their CEO decided it was ok to break the law and betray his customers. It was the swift action by Warren Buffett and Deryck Maughan that saved the company. They were only able to do this because they had strong ethical values and a reputation for them. They are a great example of how ethics are not something that we just use here and there when it suits us; ethics are a way we live all the time.
The second artifact is from Lead 510 and was a paper about bad leaders. While not every example of bad leaders boils down to bad ethics it is very prevalent. Not only did their un-ethical behavior get them fired, most of the time it got them jail time. It is also easy to see in these examples how they lacked a complete follower base and that people were there because they had to be, not because they wanted to be. You may be able to get away with a few bad things as an un-ethical leader but sooner or later it will catch up to you.
The final artifact was also from my Lead 505 class. It was an interview with Lieutenant Colonel James Cluff, my squadron commander. In it, I asked him several questions ranging from how he dealt with ethical violations to how to sell your vision to your followers. One of the most interesting things that I took away from the article was where he thought we got our ethics from. I expected to here the standard, friends, parent, mentors etc. but what surprised me was that he said more and more the news and television. I never thought of this, but it has become such an information onslaught that it can be overwhelming. Furthermore, and I hate to say this, but the American society trusts far too much of what they hear on the news and read on the internet. They are content with just that and do not try to verify or find another side of the story. As a leader this is something that you have to contend with and you have to persuade your followers to be more proactive about putting into perspective everything that they get bombarded with.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Ethics are something that you live and breathe and that you never get rid of. They are also something that changes, even if it is a subtle change. I plan on continue my pursuit in ethical leadership while continuing my leadership path. I know that in the next few years I will have the chance to attend Air Force military education courses and parts of that will focus on ethical leadership, a trait that is required for military leaders.
Communications
Outcome #4: How I have exhibited poise and confidence in verbal and written communication.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 510 – Leadership in Context
Artifact #2: Leadership 515 – Leadership Communication and Conflict Resolution
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
As a leader it is imperative that you have good communication skills. These skills are front and center every day. Communication skills are part of your façade; they are what people see and one of the biggest influences on first impressions. As a leader you have to take these skills and turn them into charisma and influence. You have to be able to do this with poise and confidence. Furthermore communication is paramount to having any sustained leader/follower relationship. Every good relationship starts with good communication. That means being honest and candid with each other, being respectful, and working through issues that might plague a relationship. This program has helped me fine tune my communications skills. While they were always ok, I knew they could be better. I have always been very candid, but the leadership program has helped me be a better listener which in turn has allowed me to sell my vision easier and made me a better leader.
I have two artifacts that demonstrate my poise and confidence in communication. The first is from my Lead 510 class and focuses on bad leadership. There are a few overwhelming themes that you see in many bad leadership cases, one of which is poor communication. There are a few different areas that this includes. They are shutting the other person down, not communicating your ideas properly, and not listening. This paper highlights many different leaders who had poor communication skills. Leaders have to be able to sell their vision and if you can’t communicate then you can’t do that. Some leaders fail because they can’t communicate, and that means listening as much as talking. This paper helped me to realize the importance of good communication and why I should work so hard to improve my skills.
The second artifact is from my Lead 515 class and is about communication and conflict resolution. Anybody who is married or has been in any long term relationship will tell you that without good communication it will fail. This class helped me to find ways to resolve conflict expeditiously without isolating my followers or cohorts. I feel that it was one of the most important classes that I took, along with the ethics classes. This class was something that I needed to learn more of and it helped me to become a better leader. This paper highlights how I try to look at what I say from a few different angles to see how it might be understood by others. It also explores how I approach conflict. Conflict is natural and in the right context a good thing, but you have to know how to manage it. This comes with good communications skills; it is one of many areas that you have to master to become a great leader. This paper and class taught me that I still need to work on this everyday and that I cannot become complacent about how I communicate.
Lastly, there were many things that I took away with me and learned while I was in this program but were not always directly related to the classes. They were, however, greatly influenced by the Leadership program and helped me accelerate my communications skills. Flying on crew airplanes communication becomes very important and the lack of good communication has caused many terrible accidents. There are three things that are a must for any crew member to learn, and they translate directly to communications off the airplane as well. The first thing that we are taught from the very beginning in a crew aircraft is to never shut someone down. If you do this once they might not bother to speak up again and they might have the piece to the puzzle that you need to solve a problem. There have been many cases where this has happened with tragic or near tragic results. Listening is yet another skill that you have to have on a crew aircraft. So often there are so many sounds and so many people talking that you have to know who to listen for and you have to take it all in and let your brain sort the important stuff out. It doesn’t come overnight and is something that you have to work on and day after day until you get better at it. It is easy to hear only what you want to hear, but if you train yourself right you can start to hear everything. It sounds very simple; however it is easier said than done. The last thing that you have to be good at is communicating your intentions clearly. In the flying world that means saying what you need to say without saying anything extra. Make your statement short, direct and to the point. That way it is clearer in the recipients mind and they don’t have to try to decode what you just meant. I have taken these three skills away from the flying world and used them in my leadership learning and practices. They have helped make me a leader who communicated with poise and confidence.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
The three skills that I mentioned before are certainly something that I have not stopped working on and I know that I can still be better at them. As I continue in my career I will be put into more and more positions where I have to communicate my position to others. I will continue to hone my skills and use this to my advantage when the situations arise. More than that there is so much more that I need to work on and I will continue to work on my conflict resolution and my listening skills. These are two areas that I feel are very important and two areas which I need improvement.
Another goal of mine is to pass on my communication knowledge. I am currently in a position with a lot of new airman who have found there selves in a crew aircraft and have not had any formal communications training. I wish to continue to expand my knowledge base by teaching them what I have learned and stress the importance of good communication between crew members. I see them make the same mistakes that I have and I feel it is my duty to help correct them so we can all grow as a community. They say there is no better way to find out what you know then by teaching it and that is what I intend to do in the future.
Lifelong Commitment to Learning
Outcome #5: How I have demonstrated that I have been and will continue to be a life long learner.
My artifacts demonstrating this outcome:
Artifact #1: Leadership 520 - Leadership Coaching
Artifact #2: Leadership 575 - Organizational Structures & Behaviors
Artifact #3: Leadership 590 - Leadership Project
Artifact #4: Leadership Plan
My Reflection on meeting this outcome:
I don’t think that the kind of person that goes through all the work to complete their graduate degree can ever just shut their mind off and stop learning. Like me they are the kind of people who continually learn new and interesting techniques, procedures, and processes that they are interested in. I started this program as a lifelong learner and it has only strengthened that. I also have four artifacts that I will present to help show what I have learned and how I will continue to learn.
The first artifact is from Leadership 520, I wrote it to show how I would run my business or organization if given the chance. It is based on a fictional business but still shows how I have taken what I have learned and how I would apply it. As I look back on it, I think about what I have learned since I wrote it and what I would change. I don’t see anywhere in this paper about how I would sell my vision to my workers or how I would model the way, two very important steps in Kouzes & Posner’s leadership model. They weren’t in there because at the time I wasn’t aware of them, but I am now and I think that they are very important. It is lessons like these that have shown me the importance of expanding my horizons all the time and learn as much as I can.
The second artifact is from Leadership 575 and focuses on organizational commitment. I choose this to show why I am a lifelong learner because learning is a commitment, you have to dedicate your time and resources to the skill or knowledge you want to learn. I am currently committed to the Air Force and part of that commitment means that I cannot just stand stagnant in my career. To progress I have to continually learn new jobs, skills, and have new experiences. That means that I cannot just sit by and not continue to learn.
The third artifact is from my Lead 590 class and is what I feel is my personnel best leadership project. It was project that I was in charge of and that I was able to use all the skills and techniques that I have acquired throughout this leadership program. It was based on Kouzes and Posner’s leadership model. This model has five parts to it. Model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart. My paper takes those five concepts and shows how I used them to lead a fund raising team for the Air Force Assistance Fund. In this project, we exceeded our goal by raising over $5300, that was over 130% of what we set out to raise. This was a project that I am extremely proud of because it not only showed what I could do as the leader of my team but it really helped out thousands of Airman and retired Airman in the process.
My fourth and final artifact presented is a leadership plan that I accomplished in conjunction with another one of my classes. In it I talk about where I am and where I want to be in five and ten years. When you read it you see that it includes me going through many programs both for leadership and career progression as well as programs to make me technically better at my job. It is a plan that I am still working on as I write this. While things may change with it I still continue to pursue it because the goals in the long run are the same. Currently I am working on a successful Air Force career where I am not just a leader because I am put in a leadership position but because I am a leader who my followers look up to for my expertise and guidance. I know that I cannot become this without continuing on as a lifelong learner, I must keep in the books and continue to improve myself.
My Future Learning Goals related to this outcome:
Where will I go from here? When I started my undergraduate degree I did not know if I would go on to complete my graduate degree. By the time that I finished my undergraduate degree I knew that I would continue with my graduate degree. I knew at that point that I had to be a lifelong learner to be a great leader.
After this degree I want to take all the skills and concepts that I have learned and apply them in the future projects that I know I will lead. It will help me be a better leader and help my progression through the Air Force. That is what it is about to me. I will be given greater rank and responsibility; I need to make the most out of those opportunities. I feel much more confident going forward with what I know now and I am much more prepared for what lies ahead for me.
As I continue my career I will also continue to learn. I have already completed Squadron Officer School in the correspondence but plan to also attend it in residence to continue my leadership training. I also plan on becoming an instructor in my current airframe within the next year. This will give me the opportunity to instruct and show the knowledge that I have gained. This will take a lot of studying and like leadership it is something that you continually work at and can never know enough of. These are my goals for the next couple years; they will be a lot of work but are very attainable.
Looking out past the next few years I would like to be a squadron commander before the end of my Air Force career. This requires even more professional education. I will have to complete Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, and Commanders School. This is all going to happen within the next ten years and I am excited to see how it all turns out. Becoming a squadron commander is an ambitious goal, very few officers get the opportunity to become one but I think that it would be very rewarding and fulfilling.
I have not decided what I would like to do following my Air Force career; it is hard to look that far ahead for me. I know that I plan on staying in until retirement, which is at least another ten years. The only other thing that I know is that I will continue to do what I have always done. I will continue to set myself up for success by relentlessly pursuing my goals and accomplishing them the right way. That means being ethical and working as hard as I can. If I can accomplish this, I will set myself up for a future in which I choose what I will be doing. I want to be able to retire from the Air Force and do what I want to do, not what I have to do to survive. To accomplish this it means that I will have to continue to learn from academia and from my own experiences. It is a process that will never be finished.
References
Bass, Bernard M. & Stogdill, Ralph.(1990) The Handbook of Leadership. (3rd ed.) New York, NY. The Free Press
Ciulla, JoAnne B. (2004) Ethics, the Heart of Leadership. (2nd ed.) Praeger
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)