FINAL REFLECTIVE PAPER
BUSN 683 Leadership Developments
Dr. William Sparks
Ms. Jen Shoemaker
March 4th, 2015
In my opinion, this course was all about learning what kind of leader you are now, what kind of leader you strive to be, and how to make the transition from one to the other. I can still remember walking into the hotel on Friday afternoon to start our first weekend residency eight weeks ago. I went there feeling very self-assured, and probably a little arrogant. Never once had I questioned what kind of leader I was. I was strong willed, overly confident, and didn’t let people’s opinions affect my judgment. In fact, I thought that I was a really good manager because of the qualities that I possessed. After doing some self-examining throughout this course, I have come to understand that some of the qualities that I thought were assets of mine are in fact hindrances. I started to realize this at the end of the residency weekend; however, I came to this conclusion after I wrote my own obituary through the eyes of my children and through the eyes of a colleague as suggested in a hand out from week 1 of our course. To say that the exercise was eye opening would be an understatement. I realized that I had been running both my household and my company division more as an autocracy rather than a democracy.
At work, I was so insistent on making sure everyone knew that I deserved to be in the position that I was appointed to, that I stopped listening to everyone around me. I guess in my mind having all of the answers showed my level of seniority. Rarely did I ask for advice or help, and if it was offered up anyway, I took it as an insult rather than the positive feedback or constructive criticism that it was meant to be. Constantly, I’ve tried to figure out why other people within my corporation are in higher leveled positions than me, disregarding how I’m actually doing in my current role. I have been so caught up in...