Effective Leadership 
Tribal Leadership
According to David Logans presentation, there are five stages of tribal leadership. The first one is described as life sucks. An individual who is at this level has a negative perception towards society and involves people such as serial killers. The next stage is referred to as my life sucks. It involves who have a poor view of themselves and often include pizza delivery boys. The other one is known as I am great and is often evident among lawyers who believe that they are better than their colleagues. The fourth stage of tribal leadership is known as we are great. It describes people who are ready to set aside their individualistic competencies and work as a solid unit as is seen in soccer where teams have to unite to be successful. The last stage is life is great and can be seen when people come together to celebrate festive seasons such as the New Year.
According to my professional career, I am at Stage three where I am highly centric in nature. To move to the next level, I am willing to work with my workmates as a team to ensure that success is realized achieved as a team and not a single unit. One needs to be able to link people from all these different groups to communicate with people from all these stages. People at stage one will be influenced for the better by those at stage two. The ripple effect will carry on, and communication between the two groups will be made easier due to the present link. President Obama has been able to motivate people to move from stage one to five. His election gave many individuals who thought that life sucked to have hope. The ones whose lives sucked believed that they could make something for themselves. People stuck at stage three were pulled to the next phase and acted as a unit by his 2008 slogan, Yes We Can. Finally, his 2012 motto was changed to Forward to urge all the groups to unite for the betterment of the country.
Project Leadership/Experiences
I recently partnered up with two of my friends to start up a wine distribution business. We were good friends who had grown up together before we had reached adolescence and consequently had formed solid bonds. During the first three months, our project run well since we got all the permits and raised enough capital to start the business as scheduled. Also, the profits we recouped from the wine distribution were quite sizeable, and the return on investment was almost instant. However, as the business continued to grow exponentially, we began to run into unforeseen challenges. First, we did not have sufficient structure to scale up and had a slow delivery process. Additionally, since we were close friends, we did not see the importance to establish a hierarchy and duty as we were all equal partners. The nature of our relationship made the business structure to be informal with no defined structure for particular individuals. It turned out to be a gross oversight since there was plenty of duplication of activities. From my experience running the business, I learned that it was important to have a hierarchy regardless of the size or nature of the enterprise. If I had a time machine, the only two aspects I would change would prepare us adequately for the increased business, we were set to receive. Our storage capacity was quickly maximized and we did not have room to expand our operations. Also, I would ensure that we had adequate structures in place that allowed us to have defined roles in the company. It turned out to be our biggest problem since everybody could do everything which was quite confusing to our employees and other stakeholders. However, regardless of the mishaps, I would relive the experience again given a chance.
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Role of Creativity in Leadership
During my time in College, I was a soccer player and played as a striker. I was the best player in my position and scored most of the goals that my team ended up netting. At that moment, I felt invincible until the school decided to change the coaching staff. We got a new coach who was well known and respected by the team since his reputation preceded him due to the numerous achievements he had accomplished with other teams. Despite my initial happiness, I was soon frustrated since he was never satisfied with the amount of work I put in during training and matches. He always pushed me to work harder for the team and would occasionally bench me to the surprise of everyone in the team. At one point, I believed that he had a bone to pick with me. However, I decided to keep my head down and worked as hard as he demanded. Soon I was back in the team and was fitter and faster than before. Additionally, my scoring rate was through the roof and was the leagues best striker. The experience had a positive impact on me since it got me out of my comfort zone of only relying on my talent. I was able to unlearn the fact that talent alone was enough to take me to the top and play as a professional. From my experience, I learned that it was important to be open minded to new experiences and get out of ones comfort zone. In The Devil Wears Prada Meryl Streep was always critical of Anna Hathaway in a manner that most would think she was pushing her to the curb. She asked her prot?g? to go with her to Paris instead of Emily to exorcise her naivety and make her ruthless I the fashion industry. Also, when Anna left and Meryl felt she had developed as a professional, she recommended her to a New York publication.
SMART Goals
The most important of these targets is interpersonal goals. I want to improve my ability to interact with people from all walks of life with ease without getting nervous or afraid of saying something offensive. Presently, many people I feel free to interact with are from my community. To achieve this goal, I will ensure that I enroll in an exchange program that has people of different cultures coming together. It is imperative to learn about their culture which will be aided by such forums. To measure my progress, I will count the number of friends that I will have made in the next 12 months to establish whether I m making progress.
The next one which I will go after is individual goals by ensuring that I have a decent mastery of the Spanish language. At the moment, I am conversant in English making me monolingual. It happens to be a disgrace at a time when cultures are intertwined, and it is easy to get people who speak two or more languages. Statistics indicate that many people are either fluent in two or three languages. Consequently, being able to speak in only one dialect in this day and age is not right. Therefore, I will enroll in a Spanish language center to study French for two years. To establish whether I am making progress, I will keep a close eye on my exam results. Also, I will regularly interact with the Latino community and practice my new language by talking to them.
The final goal which I hope to realize is on a communal level. The area where I grew p in is full of starving families who are heavily dependent on government food stamps. However, It is evident that these are not enough since many families go hungry many times. Therefore, it would be vital to come up with a means of ensuring that the poor in the community are taken care of by setting up soup kitchens. It might not be much, but community members will be asked to donate what they can in food or cash to the establishment to help in the acquisition of these commodities. People in the society will be encouraged to serve in these institutions as volunteers. It is a process that is set to take a maximum of six months before it is up and running.
Personal Mission Statement
I am at my best when I feel trusted. I will try to prevent times when working under pressure. I will enjoy my work by finding employment where I can make clients satisfied. I will find enjoyment in my personal life through Make my family safe and secure. I will find opportunities to use my natural talents and gifts such as making friends and having those that I am around feel good about themselves. I can do anything I set my mind. I will Resolve all global conflicts and make the world a peaceful utopia. My life's journey is resolving all wars in the world for the sake of humanity. I am doing it for the betterment of future generations, and the result is comprehensive peace. I will be a person who is glad to have lived my life as the loving husband of my dear wife. Throughout our marriage, I have shown her nothing but love and affection, and if she could do it all over again, I would still be the man of her dreams.
My most important future contribution to others will be bringing joy to the people around me. I will stop procrastinating and start working on being more patient with others and avoiding working at the last minute. I will strive to incorporate the following attributes into my life loving, rational, and brave. I will always renew myself by focusing on the four dimensions of my life which are working out, consistently pray, avoid drugs and have positive thoughts.
Reflections on Project Leadership/Mentorship Experience
At work, I was given a chance to head the IT Revamp Team where we were tasked with the responsibility of coming up with suggestions to improve the companys computer systems. During this process, I was able to realize that such activities tend to be riddled with numerous personality conflicts and varying interests. The company paid for a one week vacation of team building sessions to ensure that we successfully went through the four stages of group development. The experience differed from other experiences given the sensitivity of the issue at hand. IT is an integral part of any company and tempers could easily flare when discussing potential changes and replacements. The biggest challenge in leading this team was soothing the massive egos present. However, in the end, they realized that they were doing this for the company and came together to work as a solid unit without any personal biases. Serving as a leader is better than a mentor since the former needs the latters qualities making his or her role more important. Therefore, I would prefer working as a leader rather than a mentor.
