I enjoyed reading “Forbes – Top 10 Qualities That Make A Great Leader” by. Ted Myers because it made me reflect on how my own leadership style has developed organically. Before adding a Leadership: Cross-Disciplinary Studies Minor onto my degree plan at NC State, I didn’t have any formal leadership coursework, but I had been placed into leadership positions prior to this minor. One specific example is my role as the Program Director for a pre-college program, where I hired and led a team of 10 staff members through summer programming.

While this article discusses leadership more in the context of leading a team through a business venture, the key qualities it describes are very applicable to my work as a Program Director. I will be highlighting ones that stood out to me. The first trait is honesty. Honesty was by far the most important element of my role when working with my team and leading alongside other staff and Program Directors. It is vital to be clear about expectations and responsibilities up front and, as the article says, your employees “are a reflection of yourself” (Myers, 2016). Next is delegating. I found delegating to be so essential within my team, but even more important was understanding my team’s strengths and capacities. Delegating can only be effective if it is done to the appropriate groups or individuals, and the article re-emphasizes this when it says “the key to delegation is identifying the strengths of your team, and capitalizing on them” (Myers, 2016). The next and final trait I would like to discuss is communication. Having the ability to describe how you want something to be done or explain a concept I’ve discovered is a constant learning process. I think communication skills can only grow through experience, putting yourself into situations where you have to practice explaining. I would have students coming up to me at the end of my program telling me how they saw my public speaking skills improving over the time they were with me.

Overall, I’m learning through this article that I have come a long way as a leader, but there will always be areas for me to grow in through further experience. Moving forward, this list of traits will be helpful to build off of in our group simulations throughout the course.

Myers, T. (2016, March 8). Forbes – Top 10 qualities that make a great leader. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forbes-top-10-qualities-make-great-leader-tedson-myers-cpa-mba/