Vision and Goals

Share your life sentence and what your thoughts were for putting down what you did for the sentence. Share the team vision/slogan/motto that you and your teammates came up with and the explanation behind it.

I want to be known for my respect, honesty, confidence, sportsmanship, and my passion for what I do.

This is my life sentence. I wanted my legacy to be that I was someone who was the ultimate example of respect, honesty, and doing what I love with passion, and loving what I do. My thinking behind this was that I value all of these things highly and they are all very important to me. So, why not live what you preach? If you believe in something, you have to live that way. You can't hold anything back and you need to be that ultimate example. If it is something you truly believe in and a lot of passion for, why not be that ultimate example of it? I need to show people what is important in life and how to live it to the fullest.

-Invincibility always follows the passionate team-

This is the team motto that I developed for my team. My original saying was, "A team that has fun playing the game is good. A team that believes in each other is better. But a team that has fun TOGETHER and plays TOGETHER with passion every time cannot be beat." I figured that this would be a good slogan because in the beginning, our team seemed like we weren't having fun playing together as a whole. We needed to have fun and play together as a team, instead of playing as an individual. When we would play as a team, we wouldn't have any passion, and we couldn't stay focused and just played because we had to, not because we wanted to be together playing there. We wanted to be unbeatable, so I decided to be invincible like that, we were going to have to play together with passion.

Leadership...

What is leadership? What is the difference between vocal and performance leadership? Which one is your strength and why? Are leaders born or made? Why?

To me, leadership is knowing your roles and what your job is, following through with it and assisting others will being successful in their roles also. A leader does whatever they can to make their team successful.

Vocal leadership is when you have a leader who is very encouraging, positive, loud, and also comunicating with you, letting you hear what you need to do in order to achieve a goal. Performance leadership is when your leader is not as loud, but instead they lead by example. They always know how to get their job done. They work hard in practice and they show you what goal you want to achieve by actually showing you. They make it their priority to do what they think everyone needs to be doing.

I believe that my strength is being a performance leader, because I lead better by example than I do vocally. Recently, my vocal leadership has been getting stronger, because I realized that both are equally important and I needed to heighten my abilities in both of these areas. In one of the first packets that we read in this class, which was Chapter 1 of "The Team Captain's Leadership Manual", it explains that "leaders by example lead not by what they say but more in how they conduct themselves." It also states that "vocal leaders display the same commitment, confidence, composure, and character of leaders by example, but they go a critical step further in that they are willing to step outside of themselves by verbally encouraging, motivating, challenging, and holding their teammates accountable." This is implying that vocal leadership is just as important as performance leadership, however, vocal leadership goes that "critical step further".

I believe that leaders are made, not born. I think this because a person is shaped by how they are raised. They grow and learn by seeing those around them and what those people believe. They need to have the leadership qualities shaped into them. For example, a person can only learn commitment if they learn the importance of it. They gain confidence by seeing those around them and deciding how how they want to view themselves. Character is gained by learning from your parents what morals and values are "right", and then you can decide from there how you want to live your life.

Trust & Honesty Go Hand-In-Hand

1. Define Trust

In my eyes trust is when you have such a special connection with someone that you are able to confide in them when you need help, and you can share your real feelings with them and believing that they will share their same feelings with you. You know that they will always be there as someone to talk to, and they can always be that extra support when you feel you need it.

2. Define Honesty

Honesty is very important to me, and I would define it as displaying your true feelings and never holding anything back. It is when you give your real opinion about things, and you aren't afraid to tell someone what you are really thinking. However, when I think of an honest person, I don't think of someone who is blunt and rude to people, even though it is their real opinion. Honesty also entails constructive criticism and true praise. You cannot pretend to be happy for someone and then not be genuinely happy.

3. What do trust and honesty have to do with each other? Do they go hand-in-hand?

Trust and honesty have a lot to do with each other. To gain trust or trust someone, you need to be honest with each other. Also, honesty requires trust, because to be honest with someone you need to be able to trust them to not only keep your thoughts to themselves, but to believe your thoughts and understand what you are saying. They definitely go hand-in-hand, because it is difficult and awkward to have one without the other.

4. How do they both relate to leadership and what are their importance to leadership?

Trust and honesty both relate to leadership because in order to lead your peers, you need to gain their trust and you need to trust them that they will believe in what you are leading them to do. In order to gain their trust and have them trust you, you need to be honest with them. Honesty is one of the biggest ways that you can gain someone's trust. This is very important to leadership because without them leadership would be nothing. Trust and honesty is the basis as to which leadership is created, and without these two qualities, no one would lead or follow with their whole heart, which is what is needed.

Focus and Communication

Hopefully this week you have paid attention to your focus when you communicate. Is your focus on you, your material, or the people you are speaking with? If it is not on the people what types of concrete things can you do or need to change to get better at this?

When I am communicating with people, most of my attention is probably on that person and on the team, but I have to admit that some of my focus is on myself. The majority of my thinking is that when I communicate a goal to someone, I need them to commit to doing this because without them doing it the team would suffer. If they did it, it would make them better as a player and they would contribute more to the team. However, I will say that there have been instances before where I have only communicated things to my teammates and encouraged things to them because I thought it would make me look better. I realize that this is the wrong way to think, and it doesn't happen very often, but it has happened. I think that your focus when you are listening is just as important. When I am really listening to someone, my focus is on them. I am making eye contact and comprehending what they have to say. If you aren't listening to them and you are only hearing them, you can't possibly be a good leader. In an earlier post, I quoted John Maxwell from one of his works on how "The Best Leaders are Listeners". In this piece, he says "When we hear without really listening, our leadership is bound to suffer - and so will our followers". I think this is an important statement because it shows that if our focus is not on the people we are communicating with, we will never truly understand what they are trying to tell us and we won't be any more knowledgable than how we were from the beginning. So, the things that I can do to be more focused when I am communicating with people is to take my time in listening to them. By this, I mean that I need to listen and hear what they are saying, then take the time to understand what their intentions are.

Inspire and Motivate

Can you inspire and motivate people? Do you express your vision in such a way that your people are able to understand, internalize, and implement it? When you talk to people one-on-one are you able to connect with them?

It is definitely possible to inspire and motivate people. It all depends on how you portray what you are trying to get across. I would say most of the time I express my vision in such a way that people are able to understand, internalize, and implement it. But I only do if I am focusing on how I am portraying the message to them. When I am focusing, I know that it takes a lot of energy and the extra effort to motivate my team. They understand my vision through the example that I set and they are able to implement how I think that we need to go about achieving that vision. It seems that I don't lead by example as often as I should, because motivating people is one thing that I struggle with, and I can never learn enough about. When I talk to someone one-on-one, I connect with them much easier than if I was in a larger group. It is easier to connect with someone when you are only talking to them because you can focus on that one person. It is easier to listen to what they have to say and understand it. In a chapter of John Maxwell's book, Leadership Gold, he talks about how "the best leaders are listeners". He says that "understanding people precedes leading them". You cannot lead someone if you do not know where they come from and how their mind works. "Leadership finds its source in understanding. To be worthy of the responsibility of leadership, a person must have insight into the human heart. Sensitivity toward the hopes and dreams of people on your team is essential for connecting with them and motivating them". Maxwell couldn't have said it any better...
"[True] leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand".

Are you a good listener?

Are you a good listener? Why or why not? What types of things make you a good or bad listener? What types of concrete things can you start doing today to make you a better listener?

The question today was are you a good listener. Hmm... good question! I would say that I am a very good listener. I say this because I think it is important to understand a person, and you can only really understand someone on a deeper level when you listen to them. I believe one of my strengths is listening and relating to people on that level. You can tell a lot about a person when you listen to what they have to say.

There are many different types of things that separate good listeners from bad listeners. In my eyes, a good listener is someone who is humble and truly cares about other people more than themselves. Good listeners are able to realize that they are not the most important people and that they don't have to continuously talk about themselves or brag about what they have done better. They are genuine, and they can easily relate to others on a personal level. On the other hand, a bad listener is sometimes loud and obnoxious, and doesn't take the time to even hear others opinions. They are thinking about what they are going to say next instead of actually listening to what the other person has to say. This makes it difficult for them to understand the real point that the other person is trying to get across. It just causes lots of problems...

The kinds of concrete things that I can do today to become a better listener includes simple actions like making eye contact and smiling at a person when they are talking. I need to focus on the words that they are trying to say, and not think about the things that are going on in my life that may be distracting me. I need to listen deeper than what they are actually saying, and hear the message behind what they are telling me. These things will make me a much better listener.

New Blog!

This is blog was created because I am in a leadership class at Palisade High School. This class teaches us how to be leaders through sports and gives us special insight as to how to go about it the right way. We are creating blogs to further our communication skills, because communication is a HUGE part of being a successful leader. We are also doing this to organize our thoughts and give us something concrete to look at when we are no longer in the class. We can reflect back on these blogs and remember what it was that we were thinking when we were taught these new concepts. I am so excited to be in this class and I think it is a real honor to be in it. I have already learned so much about how important leadership is and how a true leader needs to behave and what they need to understand in order to lead the team to success.