Essay 3 Questions: How do you want others to describe you as a leader? What role does your personality play into this description?
To answer the first part of this question, I figured I’d go to the best source of that information: people that I work with. So, I came to the Hintz Family Alumni Center which houses Lion Ambassadors, an organization that I’ve been involved with for almost two years now. Within Lion Ambassadors, I served on the executive board for one year and have chaired multiple committees.
So as I started writing, I asked the people around me: “how would you describe me as a leader?”
The first response was “you listen really well to other people. And it always seems like you care.” The next was, “you delegate well and let other people do their thing, but you’ll get involved if you need to.” “You aren’t afraid to speak up, but you don’t hover over people.” “You’re warm and really easy to approach.”
I was honestly happy to hear that those things are how my friends classify me as a leader. As a journalist, I am constantly listening to people and I do genuinely enjoy hearing what people have to say. As a communicator, I am clear when establishing goals and expectations. As a producer, I place a lot of trust in my team and expect results. As a person, I am friendly toward everyone that I interact with — regardless of why I am interacting with. And as a leader, I try to embody all of those qualities.
My leadership style is constantly evolving and always changing depending on the situation that I am in. When I am leading a committee within Lion Ambassadors, I am much more collaborative than when I am producing a newscast because the situations, people, and desired outcomes are all different. Variable factors always play a role in how I approach different situations, especially when in a leadership role.
That being said, there are core aspects of my leadership style that I believe come from my personality, which is also shaped by my values and morals. I believe I am an kind, outgoing and friendly person who isn’t afraid to just be myself. But obviously, that’s biased. So, I decided to look at the Meyers Briggs personality test to get a better sense of what my personality might be classified as.
According to the test, I am ESFJ, which is Extraverted, Sensing, Feeling and Judging. I am 78% extraversion over introversion — no surprise there. I am 1% sensing over intuition, 25% feeling over thinking and 11% judging over perceiving. To me, this shows that I am definitely an extrovert, but other than that, I am fairly moderate in all of the other personality traits. This honestly does not surprise me. Looking at the other categories besides extrovert/introvert, there isn’t one that I feel that I strongly belong in. There are many things from the ESFJ description that I definitely see myself embodying, such as “generous entertainers”, “enjoy being in charge,” “exuding warmth,” and “vibrant emotions.”
While an online personality test does not entirely define me, many of the characteristics are what I see in myself. Having an understanding of these characteristics and how they affect me and my leadership style is very beneficial, especially moving forward if I choose to pursue any leadership positions within
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