FINAL REFLECTIONS

HDF 290 was hands down the best class I have ever taken in my entire life. Learning how to be an effective leader has benefited me in almost every aspect of my life.  Perhaps the most important aspect of the class were its leadership theories. My favorite one was servant leadership. Servant leadership is defined as “a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.”  (Greenleaf, 1970) Servant leadership is a style of leadership were the leaders main goal is to serve who they are leading. Similar to the biblical figure Jesus Christ turning water to wine and multiplying fish to feed his followers. (Matthew 14:13-21) I have a coach that still consults with me sometimes who loves to give out information, coaching advice and even food for free. Coming off of a major injury he coached me for free for 5 months over email and in person just because he wanted to see me succeed. When I finally did well towards the end of my season it was the best feeling to tell him that he was the reason why. In my own coaching experiences I have often tried to emulate this theory because seeing other people happy makes me happy.  This theory comes up again in my leadership inventory. The inventory was an extremely difficult introspective assignment which took upwards of 15 hours to complete. I learned just from doing the assignment that i have the endurance, focus and sheer will power to complete hard task when I really want to. I also learned how to look at myself without bias and tell stories that pertained to a certain subject in an objective way. This has helped me grow more mature as I can look at subjects that used to mentally break me down and learn something from them. Greenleaf. (n.d.). What is Servant Leadership? Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/