Lizzie Ehrnfelt

Erin Alanson
Exploring Leadership
13 April 2015
Philosophy of Leadership
To me, leadership can be many different things. It can be leading by
example, leading people through a chaotic situation, or just even having a specific
set of traits in a certain situation. Since there is no definite definition of leadership,
everyones is going to differ slightly. So if I had to give one, all encompassing
definition of what leadership is to me, I would say, Leadership is the ability of a
person to take a group of people with differing talents and moving them in one
direction effectively. To accomplish that, a leader has to lead by example, delegate
tasks effectively, and know his/her personnel to be able to give them tasks or jobs
that will play to their strengths and help the group overall .
Leading by example, in my opinion, is one of the best things a leader can do .
To lead by example, you do not need to be assertive, you do not have to impose your
will on everyone around you, but people still follow you . When you lead by
example, it does not have to be a CEO leading his business, it can be anyone . There
have been a few instances in my life where what we were doing went against my
values and beliefs, so I decided to walk away and not give in to that peer pressure .

Because I said no and walked away, other people felt comfortable doing the same
because they did not want to give into that peer pressure either since it did
correspond with their beliefs either. Because there are people in the world who do
not have the guts to go against the crowd if it does not follow their beliefs, they
might just need one person to actually follow their own beliefs, which could give
other people the courage to do it themselves.
A way I could lead by example in the community or on campus is just being
a good person, accepting everyone, and helping people in need . It is just like the
commercial that was on TV a few years ago. One person did a good deed in the
community, someone saw, and then they proceeded to do something else for
someone in need when they came across it. Someone else saw them, and it just
became a chain reaction. That original person did not tell anyone to do anything or
how to lead, but just by doing something small for someone else, other people
noticed and then did something on their own as well. That is the definition of
leading by example. So in the community, if someone needs help with directions or
just advice in general, just helping them is leading by example even if no one else is
around to see it.
Another part of leadership that is important to me is being able to lead
effectively during a chaotic situation. The situation does not have to be so chaotic
that lives are at stake, it can just be something as simple as one crucial person not

being present during a presentation. Since life is chaotic, a good leader has to be
able to handle the chaos and overcome the obstacles that come with that specific
situation. Almost every situation I have ever been in, whether Im in a leadership
role or not, chaos is involved and has to be overcome to be successful . Chaos is
especially prevalent in sports. With sports, something unexpected can happen at any
second, which is part of the reason why everyone loves sports as much as they do .
In games, the best team does not always win, the best player does not always have a
perfect game, and one small mistake can change the whole outcome . Nothing in
sports can be predicted because everything is so uncertain: a player can be injured, a
guy off the bench could have the game of his life, the crowd could make a huge
impact, and the list goes on. Briggs said it best with this quote from his article about
chaos, Chaotic systems lie beyond all our attempts to predict, manipulate, and
control them. Chaos suggests that instead of resisting lifes uncertainties, we should
embrace them. (Briggs, p. 8). My coach always tells us to anticipate what is going
to happen and not just react to what actually does. Even though it is impossible to
predict what is going to happen in sports, anticipating what might happen on the
field gives you the best chance of being successful with all of the chaos going on .
One specific situation I can recall where chaos was very prevalent was one of
my high school games junior year. We were playing our rivals and the ground was
very wet and muddy, which meant the ball would skip and could end up going in

any direction. Since we were rivals, the game was very physical and the ref was not
making calls in both directions. We kept getting called for fouls while they were
not, which was just adding to the chaos. One of our forwards got fouled in the box,
which should have been a P.K. for us, but he did not call the foul . Our coach was
screaming at the ref and ended up getting thrown out of the game . That was
something none of us could have predicted, but we still had to deal with it anyway .
Since we were a pretty young team, I made sure everyone calmed down and relaxed
with our coach being gone. I ended up coaching a lot from the field, trying to help
our assistant coach to keep everything under control in the absence of the head
coach. With all of those random chances and unpredictable events, chaos was
definitely present and I had to lead through it.
On campus or in the community, chaos is still an issue . If I am in charge of a
group for a specific purpose, and if there is a weather issue, a missing member, or a
certain deadline, communication with my team is so important . The communication
is probably the most effective way to be able to lead through the chaos because
when everyone has someone to look to during the rough patch, they will be more
relaxed and be able to work more efficiently.
Another huge part of leadership for me is being able to delegate tasks
effectively to the members of your group. Since one person cannot complete every

single task on their own, they need to be able to delegate the tasks so it can be done
well and on time. When we had the guest speakers come in to talk to us from the
Air Force ROTC program, they were very big on delegation because without it, the
Air Force would not be successful (Moore, lecure). When there is a group project to
be done, like the one we had earlier in this class, delegation played a huge role . We
split up the tasks so everyone had something to do, and from there, we each did our
part and brought it back together. If we did not delegate, our project may not have
gotten done on time since one person, the leader, would have had to do it with their
followers chipping in information.
On campus, if I end up helping out with an event, I would want to make sure
I, or the person in charge, delegate the tasks to get them done on time . Since there
would be a lot to do for this event, the leader cannot do everything, so the rest of the
group would need to help out and take a specific task, all while still getting help
from the leader.
I also think that leaders have to have specific traits . This goes along with the
Trait Theory talked about in the book. The theory states, It was assumed that
leaders had particular traits or characteristics such as intelligence, height, and self confidence that differentiated them from non-leaders and thus made them
successful (Komives, p. 57). I think there are specific traits that are vital to have to

be an effective leader. Some of those include the three listed above from the book,
but also courage, honesty, creativity, drive, perseverance, and empathy . Without
some of these traits, I do not think it would be possible to be an effective leader .
Courage is important because you need to be willing to do something that might go
against everyone else. Honesty is another important one because if you lie to your
group or followers, they will not trust you, and if they do not trust you, success can
never happen. Creativity is something I know I lack, but it helps because a leader
might need to think of a solution that is out of the box and creative . Drive and
perseverance are very similar in my book. Drive is necessary because without it, a
leader will never start their journey through whatever obstacle or project facing
them. But perseverance is needed because every project or job is going to face
adversity, and if the groups leader does not have perseverance, they will crumble
and not be able to continue. And the final trait that is important to me is empathy.
If a leader cannot empathize with his/her constituents, followers, or group members,
then there is no way they can lead them since they do not know what they are going
through.
My symbol for philosophy goes along with the Trait Theory . Since I believe
that leaders have to have certain traits, it would make sense that my symbol would
go along with it. When you ask people what characteristics leaders have, most of
them will agree on these six, plus a few others. While there is not one leader who

can encompass every single characteristic someone says leaders need, these few are
very important in my opinion. There are many more that I think are important for
leaders to have, and some might be more important than these, but in my opinion,
these are six that most people can agree on when it comes to traits a leader should
have.

References
Briggs,J.,&Peat,F.(1999).SevenLifeLessonsofChaos(p.8).
Moore,T.K.(Director)(2015,March9).AirForceROTC.ExploringLeadership.
Lectureconductedfrom,.
Komives,S.(n.d.).TheChangingNatureofLeadership.InExploringleadership:
Forcollegestudentswhowanttomakeadifference(Thirded.,p.57).