Personal Leadership Philosophies

Develop and submit a personal leadership philosophy that reflects what you think are characteristics of a good leader. Use the scholarly resources on leadership you selected to support your philosophy statement. Your personal leadership philosophy should include the following:

• A description of your core values.
• A personal mission and vision statement.
• An analysis of your CliftonStrengths Assessment summarizing the results of your profile
• A description of two key behaviors that you wish to strengthen.
• A development plan that explains how you plan to improve upon the two key behaviors you selected and an explanation of how you plan to achieve your personal vision. Be specific and provide examples.
• Be sure to incorporate your colleagues' feedback on your CliftonStrengths Assessment from this Module's Discussion 2.

Positivity

You are generous with praise, quick to smile, and always on the lookout for the positive in the situation.

Some call you lighthearted. Others just wish that their glass were as full as yours seems to be. But either

way, people want to be around you. Their world looks better around you because your enthusiasm is

contagious. Lacking your energy and optimism, some find their world drab with repetition or, worse, heavy

with pressure. You seem to find a way to lighten their spirit. You inject drama into every project. You

celebrate every achievement. You find ways to make everything more exciting and more vital. Some cynics

may reject your energy, but you are rarely dragged down. Your Positivity won't allow it. Somehow you can't

quite escape your conviction that it is good to be alive, that work can be fun, and that no matter what the

setbacks, one must never lose one's sense of humor.

2Relator

Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you

toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new peoplein fact, you

may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friendsbut you do

derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable

with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the

relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want

them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of riskyou might

be taken advantage ofbut you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is

genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with

each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your

caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.

Responsibility

Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and

whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name

depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up

to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You

will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near

obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly

dependable. When assigning new responsibilities, people will look to you first because they know it will get

done. When people come to you for helpand they soon willyou must be selective. Your willingness to

volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.

Developer

You see the potential in others. Very often, in fact, potential is all you see. In your view no individual is fully

formed. On the contrary, each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities. And you are drawn

toward people for this very reason. When you interact with others, your goal is to help them experience

success. You look for ways to challenge them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them

and help them grow. And all the while you are on the lookout for the signs of growtha new behavior

learned or modified, a slight improvement in a skill, a glimpse of excellence or of "flow" where previously

there were only halting steps. For you these small incrementsinvisible to someare clear signs of

3potential being realized. These signs of growth in others are your fuel. They bring you strength and

satisfaction. Over time many will seek you out for help and encouragement because on some level they

know that your helpfulness is both genuine and fulfilling to you.

Harmony

You look for areas of agreement. In your view there is little to be gained from conflict and friction, so you

seek to hold them to a minimum. When you know that the people around you hold differing views, you try

to find the common ground. You try to steer them away from confrontation and toward harmony. In fact,

harmony is one of your guiding values. You can't quite believe how much time is wasted by people trying to

impose their views on others. Wouldn't we all be more productive if we kept our opinions in check and

instead looked for consensus and support? You believe we would, and you live by that belief. When others

are sounding off about their goals, their claims, and their fervently held opinions, you hold your peace.

When others strike out in a direction, you will willingly, in the service of harmony, modify your own

objectives to merge with theirs (as long as their basic values do not clash with yours). When others start to

argue about their pet theory or concept, you steer clear of the debate, preferring to talk about practical,

down-to-earth matters on which you can all agree. In your view we are all in the same boat, and we need

this boat to get where we are going. It is a good boat. There is no need to rock it just to show that you can.