Leadership Reflection
Zeb Barrett
LEAD-344-06: Leadership in Organizations
MAJ Michael LaRocca
December 3, 2024
HR: PPT slides
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I’ve always thought of the essence of leadership as the power to make people do what
they do not want to do. Of course, there are several layers to this that were omitted like
efficiency, however, that’s not the point. My goal coming into this course was to be able to
confidently lead people into doing what they do not want to do. Unlike my peers who come to
VMI wanting to know how to lead to lead others in the future, I came here to learn how to lead if
no one can or willing to lead well. This passive approach can be frowned upon but surprisingly,
I’ve stepped up more often than I thought I would. This is philosophy and goal remained
unchanged throughout the semester.
Believing the cultivation of leadership is based predominantly on experience and outside
the classroom, I’ve found it hard to apply leadership concepts naturally in leadership situations.
Throughout the semester, I’ve seen this course be a supplement to my leadership journey. Many
concepts, much like psychology, is simply putting labels to commonly known things. For
example, an employee would work under a boss and listen to what he says because the employee
gets paid. The incentive for a stable wage is what drives the employee to behave accordingly. I
don’t need to know that it is called transactional leadership. Knowing this, arguably, does
nothing toward the cultivation of one’s leadership abilities. I can see situations where labeling
universal concepts could help make someone be conscious of such concepts and apply what they
know to achieve their respective goal, otherwise, it’s fruitless. Although much of this course was
plagued by this labeling phenomenon, there were undoubtedly some materials which were
insightful and not universal knowledge.
One of which was the followership concepts and assessment. One thing I never put much
thought toward was the role of the follower in respect to the leadership role. A leader means
nothing without its followers. The concept of leading from the following role, I found intriguing
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and something I could apply as in my life if I was not doing so already. This material, like many
others, is simple and obvious when said out loud but nonetheless, it was not said out loud until I
took this course and made me conscious of the importance of the follower in respects to
leadership.
The essence of authentic leadership was leading with accordance to who you are, and I
saw it as one of those obvious universal concepts. I mean no one will want to listen to a leader
who merely imitates—humans, somehow can tell when on is not being genuine. However, even
when much of authentic leadership is common sense, it nonetheless emphasizes the sheer
importance of a genuine character with a burning passion. I’ve been told many times in my life
that one should pursue their passion because no matter how many times one falls, they’ll get up
one more time. I see this same concept being applied to authentic leaders.
One more concept I’ve pulled from this course is the significance of emotional
intelligence. Nothing upsets me more than not being in control of my own person. On the
emotional intelligence assessment for self, I maxed it out. I believe the world is directed too
much by decisions based on emotional reaction and not based on logic. As apathetic as that
sounds, I am not saying there is no room for empathy nor am I a the-ends-justify-the-means type
of guy. Even though I believe this, this assessment made me realize that I am lacking in what the
emotional intelligence assessment titled “Other-management of Emotions” where a lower score
means one has less of an ability to make other feel the way they wish and seems like a weak
point of mine. Though illogical at times, there is no doubt that emotion is one of the most
powerful things in existence and the power to understand and control others’ emotions to an
extent will undoubtedly shape you into a better leader.
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As far as my goal for this course goes, it was not accomplished, nor do I think it will ever
be accomplished. Consistently convincing others to do what they do not yearn to do is situation
dependent. Leadership is not definite, there is no “right” option in leadership. Convincing others
to do what they do not want to do can take the form of countless possibilities and is completely
situation-dependent and all I can really do is account for as much as I can and come up with a
plan. I believe, through personal experiences, I will learn naturally to be able to see the right
course of action needed to achieve what I want in terms of leadership.
Taking account of what I have learned from this course, I predict it will have no
conscious effect on my decision-making in regard to leadership situations. Much of what we
learned consist of adding labels to universal concepts, using key words that relate to leadership
with no additional meaning, and broad concepts that one would naturally know or already do.
This is not to say that there were no concepts whatsoever, however, with the little new and
applicable concepts of leadership I’ve learned, I can only say with certainty that if the content
I’ve absorbed affects me at all it would be subconsciously. I see myself working for myself in the
future and will undoubtedly see myself in a position of leadership. From this course and my life
experiences up to that point, I believe I will be ready to take on any challenges that come my
way and even if I am still not confident in making others do what they do not want to do, I
believe I will find the path to my desired outcome.
