The purpose of this assignment is to help you explore leadership, your views of leadership and how you plan to be a better leader in the future. You will have 5-7 double spaced pages to complete the assignment. Each of the 6 sections must be completed and you must use content from the provided articles or scholarly journal articles you locate on your own. You are required to use a minimum of 3 sources.

I. Leadership definition

            Drawing on your personal experiences and the academic literature, define what leadership is (one paragraph). You must include at least one citation to a scholarly source in this section.

II. Reflection on influential leaders in your life

            Reflect on two specific leaders who have been highly influential in your life. Briefly describe who they are, and what they did to be such influential leaders in your life. Support your position with specific examples.

III. You as a leader

            Describe traits, attributes and behaviors that you see in yourself that you feel will help you excel and be a leader.

   Describe traits attributes and behaviors that limit your effectiveness as a leader.

            Describe one specific opportunity you have had to be a leader—formally or informally or describe a situation where you plan to take a leadership role.

IV. How others view you as a leader

            For this section you will need to report on how others view you as a leader. Interview at least 2 individuals who would have knowledge of you in a leadership role. Please find 2 different people from different settings (a co-worker, an employer, a parent, a friend, a fellow student). You should ask them the following questions:

        What would you say are my key leadership skills?

How do I influence people around me, or how do I influence you?

Can you think of an example(s) where this leadership skill/influence showed itself?

From your perspective, what are things that I can do to improve as a leader?

For the write up of this section, feel free to use bullet points to report answers to the questions

V. Your leadership philosophy and plans to act

            Develop your own leadership philosophy and provide at least one concrete action you will take to apply your leadership philosophy in your life. A leadership philosophy will likely address one or several of the following questions:

            How should leaders lead?

            What behaviors, attitudes or attributes should leaders display?

            What does leadership look like?

            What values or most important when it comes to leadership?

*Draw from the literature and cite at least 2 sources to build your philosophy.

VI. Leadership and your service experience

            Reflect on your 100 hours of service this semester in light of what you have already written about leadership for this assignment. Answer at last 2 of the following questions:

            Did I develop any leadership skills from this experience? (If so, explain which skills and how you were able to develop them)

            Did I see good or poor examples of leadership in my service experience? (Explain what you saw as good leadership and what you saw as poor leadership.)

            How did the leadership I saw in my service experience match with my philosophy of leadership?

            Would you do things differently or the same way as leaders you saw in your service experience? (Explain what you would do differently or the same and why).