leadership philosophy (intro)

I came across something else that I wrote last year for a class. This assignment was to write out our leadership philosophy, which is more of a favor than an assignment. It's an important thing, in my opinion, for everyone to have a base philosophy in life, an idea of what motivates them and guides their thoughts, words, and actions.

This was a pretty long paper, so I'm gonna break it up into four parts. Today is the intro, and then following three posts will be the three tenets of my leadership philosophy.

(by the way, if you have something you'd like me to talk about here, please let me know in a comment or email!)

8 days!!

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What should I think about when attempting to identify my leadership philosophy (LP)? To start, the PL300 course guide states the simple question, “what do I think about leadership?” It then goes on to say “identify what you believe about leadership in the form of a principle or tenet.” I would not label this as the most clear mission statement that I have run across in an academic assignment, but I think the intent is to identify the characteristic that drives my leader actions, that motivates me to excel as a leader, that I live by every day, and that forms my interactions with others, especially those I am appointed over. When I start thinking about LP in this manner, there is only one word that I consider and that describes me and my main motivation as a leader- compassion. Through various experiences in my life, I have come to believe that compassion must be at the cornerstone of a leader’s thoughts and that a leader must let compassion drive their actions every day and in every interaction they have with those they lead and even those they simply come in contact with. Compassion need not take on a connotation of love, but is manifested as a caring attitude for oneself, one’s subordinates and team, and one’s mission.