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Leading Organizations class Write one comment post Minimum word count 125 for each post: 1)After reading the "What Leaders Really Do", by Harvard Business Review, I newly considered that leaders and managers are not always the same person. There are similar duties between leaders and managers, but it is important to recognize that some people are great leaders, but not great managers and vice versa. Although leadership and management have been defined as separate things in a workforce, they have been said to coincide. What also caught my eye while reading this article is the difference between "organizing" and "aligning". It became clearer to me that managing is more structured, while leading is communicative. In that same section of the article, the author mentions that credibility plays a big part in leadership. I am aware that to lead, there must be a sense of belief and trust in that individual but reading it in this article made me consider that fact more. The article did not touch on something I do not agree with, but something that made me think twice was motivation versus problem-solving. I understand the difference between controlling and motivating, but the problem-solving piece was interesting. As a leader myself, I have always wanted to motivate my team, but also be the one to fix challenges that arise. I never considered that problem-solving may be more managerial. Something new for me to consider about leadership from the article "Why You Should Make Time for Self-Reflection" was not being able to see results. This was something new because it is important for leaders to know that success and results are not immediate. It is difficult to put forth a lot of time and energy and not see the results, but good leaders can reflect on the fact that just like the process, the results take time as well. From the video, "How Self-Reflection Can Make You a Better Leader," as well as the article, I found the questions asked to be very eye-opening, especially the first question. This question is, 'What are you avoiding?". I newly considered this because as a leader, it is true that it can be hard to be self- aware and acknowledge problems, but we must do it so there can be a resolution. There was nothing from the article or the video that I disagreed with. I felt that they were both very informative and helpful. 2) I will say after reading this article, the first he came from the line, "Leadership is different from management." I always thought they were the same. When reading about the differences between the two, I was genuinely surprised to learn that management is about coping with complexity while leaders are with change. This made me ponder and think back on moments when I saw a manager fail to cope with the changes from their outside norm and have a Leader step in and help with this new change. I only recognized the differences in style once I read this article. When reading the aligning people versus organizing and staffing section, I realized that my current manager is more of a leader than a manager. He was talking to me about his vision of how he wants to run this new clinic and mentioned that he was coordinating with all the physicians and higher-ups on how he wants things to go and how to ensure everyone has what they need to succeed. He also saw my potential to do great things and moved me higher in the organization. He is promoting me to be an OR scheduler. When he found out that I am going back to school for an MBA in healthcare, he said without missing a beat that he would try to reach out and see if I could do a mentorship with one of the chief officers here since I told him my end goal with this degree would like to get up into a CFO position. This article opened my eyes and allowed me to see the difference between a manager and a leader. This allowed me to reflect on my past encounters and helped me have good examples to reference back to now. What was new for me to learn about is how self-reflection about lessons learned had a significant increase in performance. I never thought that self-reflection could have that big of an effect on performance. The article also pointed out things that I shared when it came to not doing self-reflections, like not knowing the process, not liking the results, and being biased. This shed a light on it and I want to be better and improve myself now. 3) From my experience, I believe leadership in organization presents the most challenges when leading others. In my opinion, organizing a group of people to all be on the same page can be quite difficult. The only experience I have in leadership through organization is through playing soccer. I have sometimes found challenges in leadership through structure and rules. When being a part of a team, mistakes will be made, and it is important to realize that nobody is perfect. Although this is true, there is a difference between making mistakes and a lack of discipline. From my experience in my team currently, we have structured rules that have been set in place for years. There have been breaches of these rules, even the smaller ones, and it can be difficult to explain the importance of being disciplined even when it seems silly. Even the things that seem small help teams achieve goals. Also in my experience, not everybody on a team has the same values or goals. In the past, my team has dealt with more individual mindsets rather than a team mindset. It can also be challenging to organize everybody to be on the same page and be for the team rather than oneself. I very much think I can lead myself because I would like to lead in a way that sets an example for somebody else. This includes the way I react to challenges, how I make decisions, and the values I partake in. According to the section, "Leadership of self", the author claims that leading oneself includes having self-awareness and self-regulation. Being self-aware includes knowing and accepting weaknesses, thoughts, actions, even capabilities. It is important to be aware and cautious of how one reacts to challenges faced, which ties in the self-regulation piece. Leadership of self means to manage behavior. As a leader within my soccer team, I will never be able to regulate anybody else, but I can lead by example by regulating my own thoughts, feelings, and reactions in a more positive way. I do think the author makes a sound case for leadership of self because as mentioned, self-awareness and self-regulation are important qualities to have when being a leader. They are valuable characteristics to have when trying to lead by example. For leaders to guide a team and influence others, they need to be able to lead oneself. 4) In my experience, I would say the hardest level of leadership would be the self. In order to be an effective and compassionate leader, you have to figure out who you are and how you can lead. Before being in charge of a group of people, at any capacity, it is important to be very self-aware. Self-awareness allows for you to be in tune with each decision/action you make and therefore can make you a better leader. I say that this can be the toughest level because figuring out other people, an organization, or a society is much easier than looking inward and truly figuring out yourself. I believe that the authors do make a case for leadership of self. While they make it sound like a very difficult task, they ensure that we know, especially in today's world, that it is important to instill leadership of self within ourselves. The authors explain what leadership of self is and say that it is a process we all need to learn in order to be more effective leaders for ourselves and whom we are leading.