Personal Leadership Statement

Personal Leadership Statement

There are many definitions for leadership. According to Webster's dictionary, leadership can be defined as an act or an instance of leading. In my opinion, leadership is when a person influences others to accomplish an objective and guides the organization in a way that makes it better. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership characteristics, such as beliefs and morals, values, confidence, communication skills, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. As a freshman in college my life is only beginning, but I know that I want to continue to be a leader throughout the rest of my life. I established my leadership statement working from the future backwards in my life.

"Imagine that it is the year 2060...". For my leadership presentation I looked at my goals for the rest of my life and asked myself what type of leadership skills will I need to develop and use in the future to obtain those goals. I knew that it was important for me to show the class both what my goals are, and where I feel that my foundation of leadership comes from. I believe my foundation comes from my childhood in Boy Scouts. My goals for the future are many; So I took the 3 biggest and abstract ideas I could think of for my life -graduate from college, raise a family, and finally fulfill my goal of becoming a politician some day.

I am not a very creative person so I thought the best way for me to have a visual aid is to dress up like each of my goals. Starting with the outer most layer would be a suit, then a polo to look like a working dad, then a graduation cap, and eventually ending up in my eagle scout uniform. As I talk about each of my goals for my life, then next article of clothing is underneath. Just like in life you start with a foundation and build on top of it. Each role in my life will be with the help of what was built before it.

When creating the presentation in my head, I realized that I could not just talk about one specific characteristic of a leader and it cover each of my goals. The many different roles of leadership I hope to hold in my life all have different requirements. A student leader in college has different characteristics than the characteristics of a father raising a family. Just the same a Politician leads differently than a father.

My foundation of leadership was developed through my experiences with my scout troop and the Boy Scouts of America. The 12 points of the scout law and the many different parts of the Scout Oath helped for me to identify important characteristics of strong leaders. My scouting career was filled with different leadership position providing an opportunity for many different leadership style, skills, and experiences to develop. The development I went through in my scouting career built the foundation of my leadership abilities.

As a student leader many leadership characteristics are required. The 12 points of the scout law apply to my student leadership as well as to any leadership I will have the opportunity to hold throughout my life. As a student you have to be determined and inspirational. You make a decision to get involved and what you choose to lead. Whether it is Alternative Spring Break or Stripes I have the ability to choose what I want to be involved in and how I hope to change it.

As a father things are different. I can't pick