Practicing and Growing my Leadership Skills

This summer I enrolled in the Leadership Certificate Program at San Diego State University and for the past six weeks, I joined the 6-week LEAD Summer Program. I feel blessed for this opportunity as I view it as another stepping stone in building my leadership ability. The more I learn about leadership, participate and engage in leadership programs, and develop my leadership skills, I notice in myself a much more productive self and the expansion of my growth mindset. To me, developing my leadership style and skills are essential to my growth in my profession. I am passionate and highly enthusiastic about the topic of leadership. My goals are to deepen my knowledge about leadership and gain practical experience by taking leadership roles that will allow me to develop my leadership style and skills.

During these 4 weeks, I learned to distinguish between purposeful and servant leadership and obviously being a Toastmaster, I have been immersed in the latter concept. I am cognizant of the idea that as a servant leader, it is my responsibility to learn, teach, and guide others to success. Servant leadership is about collaborating on group projects and motivating team members to stay engaged in the entire process and contribute their ideas. Servant leaders understand the importance of building relationships and connecting with others who will help them in meeting their established goals. While the focus of servant leadership is to serve others, purposeful leadership allows us to be a purposeful leader. What I mean is that purposeful leaders have clear values and know their mission and they are determined and committed to making their vision a reality. Purposeful leadership is synonymous with the transformational leadership theory, meaning that leaders collaborate with their teams to identify change; create a vision to guide the change through inspiration; and execute the change with those committed team members who desire to see improvements. 

In addition to learning about purposeful leadership, I took two personality quizzes. The first one was 16Personalities and the second one was the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The results from 16Personalities defined me as an advocate and MBTI results showed that INFJ-T is my personality type. In the article “INFJ: The Advocate (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging)” by Kendra Cherry (verywellmind, 2020, one can see that INFJs are the idealists who contemplate on the future and meaning of life.They are empathetic and highly sensitive to the needs of others.They are the ones who take their values and use them to bring positive and lasting change. Yet, they are also introverted people who need time and space to recharge. Professionally speaking, INFJs excel in careers that allow them to express their creativity and support their desire to make meaningful changes in the world. Some career paths for the INFJ are artist, actor, entrepreneur, musician, librarian, counselor, psychologist, writer, teacher, and photographer. INFJs are reserved people who prefer intimate circle of friends and authentic friendships and while they maintain high behavior standards for their children, they will also focus on helping their children fulfill their individual potentials by encouraging them to pursue their interests and talents. 

                                

I am slowly becoming uncomfortable and seeking to continue developing my leadership skills by engaging in tasks that will allow me to achieve my personal goals. For many years, I chose to remain in the uncomfortable; yet, I am on the verge of discovery that I have a great potential of becoming more. My mission, vision, and values are the keys leading my ability to shift my mindset and finding opportunities to grow my leadership skills. I am looking forward to the leadership workshops and other leadership experiences part of this leadership certificate to continue learning and deepening my knowledge on the topic of leadership.