Last of all, there’s the Ernst and Young Leadership Seminar. For those that don’t know what the seminar is, it’s a weekly session facilitated by Ernst and Young professionals (for the most part). The topics range from how to have useful conversations (“fierce conversations”), trying to figure out what drives you, to diversity and much more. There’s only so much that can be accomplished within a two hour weekly window and the topics tend to move pretty quickly, so it’s difficult to point out any one particular thread or topic that the seminar covers.

While there’s no homework involved in the class, there are two assignments. One is a community college outreach program – for me, it involved heading back to Moorpark College and presenting on the ACCT/IS program at CSUN (as a side note, I attended one of these presentations myself three years ago, it’s one of the things that solidified my Accountancy major choice). The other assignment is developing a “leadership board” – a board that defines what we learned about ourselves and how we see ourselves developing as a leader. Sounds right up my alley, right?

The only problem is, it’s really not that easy for me. I mean, my view on leadership is such a hodgepodge collection of different ideas that it’s hard to distill down to an essence. I view myself as a newborn when it comes to leadership. I’m trying to get as much exposure to it as I can, but I haven’t had much chance to practice it. It’s rather like accounting or IS: I have a theoretical background, but I have little practical experience.

I remember my first job out of high school as a customer service coordinator at HomeGoods. I looked up to my manager, Gary, because he seemed like a good leader. Now, I look back at his petty nature and underhanded dealings and wonder how the store managed to do well. It’s interesting to think about how my views on leadership have changed. It used to be that, like Gary, the people I looked up to were the ones that had power granted to them by their title. Whether it was manager, professor, or CEO, the title did it for me. That was all I needed.

Then, I figured out that a title doesn’t mean all that much. There are good leaders that have no official title. There are terrible leaders that have the highest titles. In fact, I would almost say that there are more leaders of the latter kind than former. The more I learn about leadership, though, the more I realize that it doesn’t matter to me. It reminds me a lot of one of the sayings my dad went through the trouble of printing out and handing to me: “Leadership is in your actions, not your title.”

So, with these conflicting ideas of leadership rattling around in my head, the question still stands: where do I see myself going?

I think the answer for me, right here, right now, is this: I see myself being more like me.

That sounds weird, right? At least it looks weird to me when I read it. However, I think it’s true. I don’t think the me that I am right now is really me. There’s too much of other people, of my past experiences, of my unknown biases for it to really be me.

As a good friend and mentor once explained it, it’s like a pencil: take all your biases and thoughts about a pencil away, remove the past and future of the pencil, and it’s still a pencil. I don’t think I’m to that point with myself yet. I still think of myself as a product of my actions, of my experiences, of even my biological background. I know appallingly little about me.

So, I see myself becoming more like me. And, as I get to be more like me, I think my own style of leadership will develop. If I had to predict, I think it’ll incorporate a lot of elements of other successful leaders, but it won’t be because I’m really trying to emulate or be them. It’ll be because I’m me.

I just finished a “Strategic Management” (“Capstone”) class that all business majors are required to take before they graduate. Ninety percent of the people had this class as their last class or their second-to-last. With 24 units remaining, I had the most units left out of everyone in the class. It really does lead to a different type of group. I guess part of it could be blamed on it being a summer class as well.

Regardless, I’ve been trying to improve my group leadership capabilities. I am of the opinion that there really aren’t any bad groups, just like there aren’t too many really bad group members. All it takes it figuring out how to motivate people and how to approach the situation so that everything gets accomplished. It seems like the role of group leader seems to fall squarely on my shoulders a good majority of the time.

We all know what that’s like – the group kind of flounders around until someone steps up to the plate and starts making decisions. The type of person that does this can make a huge difference. Sometimes they’re kind of an asshole about it and they become a leader, but not a respected one. Sometimes you get the benevolent, rather shy leader that’s too nice to say “no” and ends up trying to make everyone happy. Then, sometimes, you get a true leader that seems to make everything flow smoothly. They can assign tasks without feeling domineering, they can make suggestions without sounding overbearing, and they just make sure stuff gets done.

If I had to guess, I would say that I leaned more towards the benevolent/shy leader type until a few years ago. I viewed myself as smart, and I was often willing to put in more effort than most other group members. This meant that I knew more about what we were doing, had an opinion on how to accomplish the task at hand, and also volunteered to do everything. I knew how to do whatever needed to be done. I knew how to do it right. Fine, I’ll do it. You other group members just sit back and I’ll take care of it.

I can point to my Gateway (another class heavy in group work) sessions as a prime example. I would get input from other team members and incorporate their ideas, but I wrote the majority of the papers. That’s fine, whatever, it’s easier than having to go back and redo it when the other people don’t do a good enough job anyways. Looking back, I wish I had known what I know now.

So, what do I know now? Let’s see:

1) A good group leader doesn’t take charge unless he really has to; winning over your group members with charm and pleasantries leads to much more loyal members that are willing to accomplish things together.

2) A good group leader listens. I can’t stress how important this seems to be. Being a good leader doesn’t mean sitting in front of your group and telling them what to do. It means that you listen. Listen to what the assignment is. Listen to what group members think and say. You even have to listen to what your group members don’t say. Listening does really seem to be immensely powerful.

This makes intuitive sense to me, because I know I like to be listened to. Most people think they’re right all the time and they want to be heard. By the way, this applies just as much to shy people as outgoing people. The outgoing tend to be more vocal, but typically shy people want to be heard and feel they’re right; they just don’t go shoving it down your throat.

3) Building off the thought above, ask questions. I mean, ask a lot of questions. Make them open-ended enough so that they generate conversation, but try to make them specific enough that you answer a question related to whatever you’re working on. I think the key thing is to direct your question to someone, too. If you’re always just asking rhetoric questions to the entire group, 90% of the time it will be answered by one or two people. The others are left feeling excommunicated – especially if you have a rather shy person. Asking them questions directly keeps them in the conversation, gives them a chance to put in their input (which is valuable), and keeps things going smoothly.

4) It seems like leading a group is a lot about guiding conversations. It’s kinda like using the Socratic method on a group. Guide them to the answers by asking questions. This seems to lead to a group consensus much faster and easier than arguing about it. Asking questions (mind you, it can’t be in an accusing way) leads to interesting discussions instead of setting someone on the defensive.

This is a lot harder than it seems, at least for me. It’s hard for a couple reasons. One, you have to be willing to accept other people’s opinions as right (that means admitting you’re wrong sometimes). Two, you have to constantly keep track of the end goal. Debate and discussions can rapidly devolve into discussions that have absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand. That’s not always bad, and can let you get closer to your group members, but it can eat up a huge amount of time.

I think that’s enough for tonight. Thoughts for next time: forming, storming, norming, etc (from MGT 360). Set concrete goals early. Don’t take on too much work yourself. Thank everyone constantly and compliment them on what they did well. Ask people to do something, don’t command them.