PLC 3
3 Leaders In My Life
Karine Sergerie.
Karine is a taekwondo olympian, she fought for canada twice during her olympic career. The club I trained at had her come in multiple times where she led week long training camps, I’ve always admired her greatly.
One characteristic she holds is the ability to motivate. If it was the last day of the camp, and everyone was tired and low effort, she would bring her energy up in a way that actually increased our own. Calling us out by name, or asking us what our goals are were ways she motivated us.
Another was her ability to maintain a very personal level relationship with each individual training under her. Although there might have been 30-40 of us, she knew our names, and the things we shared in the group she would remember and follow up with us later about. She also had very personal compliments (and criticisms) for us making it feel like she really cared about your development as an athlete.
Kate Noseworthy
Kate was the owner of our taekwondo club and the main instructor for our competition classes. She is incredibly smart, blunt, and attentive.
One leadership quality I admire most about her is her technique of really pushing everyone to be their best. While she somewhat had a totalitarian approach to leadership, I’ve experienced believing that I can’t do any more, or go any longer, or kick any harder, but when Kate tells you she needs more, somehow you can. She also regularly instilled the idea in us that you are always capable of doing more, and that your mind gives out before your body during physical activity, so if you can control the mind you can control the body.
Another quality I admire of hers is her confidence in every move she makes. She has a habit of being right, and very good decision and problem solving skills. For this reason she is someone I had a lot of trust in, because I knew her judgement was very good. this applied to us students in situations at tournaments, if any of us were freaked out before a fight she would completely confidently tell you that you had nothing to worry about, and you believed her. In that way her confidence could sort of spread to all of us.
Stephanie Ponce
Stephanie is current manager at the restaurant i work at, peasant cookery. She has a more informal technique to leadership in the sense that she works along side us lots, rather than above us.
A quality she has is good personal communication skills, and I would assume a high emotional intelligence. She’s fairly new to the restaurant, and when she came in she allowed us to tell her what our existing systems were. She chose not to implement any new rules or work duties, even though we probably needed some at the time. By coming in and establishing herself as a good listener and a hard worker, we gained respect for her and can now take orders from her with no resentment.
Another quality I admire is her creativity and generosity. Sometimes there are certain items on the menu we need to sell at certain times. (food is going to be wasted, special item needs to be sold) Very often during dinner service she will put on little competitions of who can sell the most of a given item. She then rewards them with a free meal. If she calls you into work when you weren’t scheduled, she’ll usually get you a free drink for once you’re done your shift. I admire this because it’s a positive way for the business to make more money, and everyone benefits.
Personal Leadership Philosophy
Below are the main traits I hope to implement into my leadership strategy within my career.
Creativity. This is a trait I already possess but I hope can flourish throughout my career. I will need to apply creativity to solving problems, if I am to be a successful leader I’ll need to be able to keep up with the fast changing business environment.
Vision. I think having a clear vision, and being able to communicate that vision in a way that others can see it too, is one of the most important aspects of leading. People need reason to do things in their work, if they don’t see the reason they won’t produce the highest quality work. By showing others what the end goal or final vision is for a project or job, there is something to work towards and we see the work as having value.
Motivating. The ability to motivate is a very important asset to have as a leader because people will undoubtedly hit low points. Low productivity, low energy, or low interest. The challenge is getting others out of that state, and the reward is a better functioning team or worker. Regularly taking interest and showing an end product of work (the wholistic vision) can help people see the finish line and not give up. If your team is a car, motivating them is like a regular oil change.
Being personable. I think that if you’re going to be asking people to do things for you, they’re more likely to comply willingly if they like you personally. I’m not a naturally extroverted talkative person, but when in situations where I have needed to be on a coworkers good side, I feel I can get to that point by asking relevant questions, showing interest in what they have to say, and possibly even finding common ground on something other than work.
Rationality. Decision making when your
choices affect a whole team can be a lot of pressure. It’s best to make decisions based off of logic or real knowledge, rather than emotion or gut feeling. This also helps when presenting new decisions or duties to a team, as you can back up your ideas with reason making the team more likely to accept
Honesty, inside and out. It’s important to be honest with the team as transparency is the best way to remain on the same page as them. If certain members aren’t pulling their weight, it’s important to let them know and maybe inquire about why this is happening. This way the issue can be resolved. This goes both ways however, as a leader it’s important to have self-honesty. Take the time to evaluate your leading and honestly ask yourself, is this the best I can do for the team?
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