Kaylee King

Major Reflection Essay

A successful leader to me is one who can communicate a vision that inspires and
motivates their followers and develops a positive corporate culture. Throughout the
semester I have learned a great deal of information about becoming a successful leader.
Some of the many concepts I learned were self-awareness, social-awareness, emotional
and behavioral intelligence, leading others and teamwork, effective communication,
building professional relationships, diversity, community outreach, influencing others,
and lastly identifying and using strategies to effect change. I have also been given a
plethora of resources to continue to build my professional leadership model after the class
is over.
One of the first topics covered in class was the importance of becoming selfaware to understand ones true potential and effectively lead others. Self-awareness
allows a leader to really understand their own emotions as well as harness their strengths
and confront their weaknesses, which is a vital part of emotional intelligence. If a leader
can understand themselves, they will have a grasp on reaching out and trying to
understand their employees better. Self-awareness also correlates to the leaders ability to
recognize and accept how others perceive them. The sooner someone realizes their
behavior and emotions are effecting another person in a negative way, the quicker this
problem can be resolved and fixed without causing problems. Chapter nine in the New
Leadership for Todays Health Care Professionals book and the video on How Good
Leaders Become Great were both key resources used in gathering information to fully
grasp these concepts on self awareness as well as how to manage self-awareness and
ways to improve upon it. The talent inquiry and Myers Briggs assessments also showed

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the key role self-awareness will play in my own personal leadership model. The Myers
Brigg self-assessment showed that I was an ESFP. Being an extravert I tend to focus my
attention on the outer world of people and things, which I believe is especially beneficial
to me in my personal leadership model. Going off of that I also deal with the outer world
by perceiving which means I am very flexible and open minded. As a leader is important
to perceive especially in the healthcare world as things are constantly changing. I also
take in information by sensing and prefer to make decision based on feelings. These
results helped me better understand my personality type and made me cognizant of
strengths and weaknesses that I wasnt previously aware of . I will take this information
and continue to mold my personal leadership model as I continue to become more selfaware and improve upon my emotional intelligence.
Another key part of emotional intelligence is social awareness. Being socially
aware means thoughtfully considering someones feelings when acting, as described in
another great resource Emotional Intelligence: A Core Competency for Health Care
Administrators. This article goes on to explain that social awareness is an important
competency to constantly improve upon to build effective communication and listening
skills. A group role-play prepared in class discussed solutions for handling a difficult
worker who critically lacked social awareness. This project taught me ways to handle a
situation in which other people who I may work with lack certain emotional intelligent
competencies such as social awareness. This assignment also showed ways to help the
worker to become more aware. Becoming socially aware builds relationships founded on
trust and respect because you consider what people want and communicate with them to
meet their needs. The self-assessment was another great tool for assessing my own social

Kaylee King
awareness. The results showed that I make decision based on feelings, which means I
tend to make decisions based primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of personcentered concerns. Taking that into consideration I know I still have a lot of room to grow
as I sometimes have a difficult time picking up on the emotional cues of others as well as
their needs. It is of value to me to continue to improve my social- awareness in ways such
as attending seminars on emotional intelligence, watching videos, and making an effort to
pay attention to nonverbal cues when engaging in a conversation. I want to make sure I
am socially aware as a future healthcare leader because I always want to be mindful of
others and how my actions and leadership decisions will effect those I lead.
The next concept I learned was the importance of emotional and behavioral
intelligence in a leadership role. As previously mentioned self- awareness and social
awareness are two elements that define emotional intelligence, but there are also three
others. These other three elements are self- regulation, self-motivation and social skills
which were also nicely explained in the article Emotional Intelligence: A Core
Competency for Health Care Administrators . Self- regulation is being able to reflect on
your actions and thoughts, the ability to adapt to change, and saying no to impulse urges.
I believe this is one of the hardest concepts and challenges I will have with my emotional
intelligence as I can be stubborn and dont always no when to step away from an
argument. But it is critical to my success as a healthcare leader to improve upon my selfregulation so I can handle situations in a professional and healthy manner as well as
continue to evolve with the ever so changing health care field. The next concept is selfmotivation, which is described as being driven to achieve, having passion for the
profession and enjoying challenges. I am the kind of person who loves to stay busy and I

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know that will not change in my future career, but I sometimes find my self with an
overwhelming amount of responsibilities and so it will be important for me to keep
myself motivated. I want to place myself in a career position that I am extremely
passionate about and remain optimistic even in the worst circumstances so I can be very
effective in whatever I do. Having a fervent passion for whatever career I choose will be
an easier way to keep me motivated at all times. The last concept is social skills which is
when a leader is able to move people in the direction they desire. Having good social
skills usually means it is easy to talk to people and as for myself I desire to really harness
this concept so I can effectively communicate with others. In doing so I will be more
approachable and better able to manage disputes and build and maintain relationships.
Going back to my self-assessment my results made me aware of my strengths and
weaknesses, which contribute to my level of emotional intelligence. I am strong in the
fact that I am very socially aware, self-motivated and have great social skills as I am very
passionate about people. I am also sympathetic and eager to help anyone, as I am not
interested in judging or trying to control others. I also have many areas that I need to
improve on which relate to my self- regulation and self-awareness. Taking all the
concepts of emotional intelligence and behavioral intelligence into account will help me
stay people centered instead of focused on myself, build strong and engaged teams and
most importantly boost leadership performance. Continuing to improve upon my
emotional intelligence, especially in self- regulation and self-awareness will greatly
contribute to my personal leadership model.
After understanding how to manage yourself and display emotional intelligence,
you must learn to effectively lead others as well as participate as a team member. There

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are numerous leadership theories and models you can choose as a guide to lead by. For
my personal leadership model I believe the servant leadership theory and
transformational theory fit my personality and principles best. The servant leadership
theory explains that a leader will lead by example and really focus on the needs of the
employees. The transformational model focuses on four basic ideas for a successful
leader, which are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation,
and individualized consideration, which ultimately inspires positive changes in their
followers. During week ten we also discussed transformational leadership as a class and
created role-plays based upon it. My team found famous leaders and an inspirational
quote from each of them that described how they were a successful transformational
leader. I found this activity to be especially useful since it is one of the theories that I will
use to guide my own leadership model. Being a efficacious leader also means being a
great team player. It is important for a leader to balance interacting with their team while
still maintaining authority. It is equally as important for a leader to be able to create
effective teams composed of members who are fully aware of their expectations and
understand the teams goals. A number of resources were used during the semester such
as readings, websites, class discussions and case studies to learn how to build effective
teams. In the one case study my team was able to create an action plan for Jeff to help
him get his team more engaged in his project and with each other, as his team was
dysfunctional. This case study taught me the importance of team engagement and
effective ways to get members more involved along with team building exercises. It also
taught me how to handle teams that dont get along and exhibit a lack of enthusiasm for
projects. This case study also alluded to the assessment of my own team. At the beginning

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of the semester our team was a little rocky, but as the semester went on and we better
understood each members strengths and weaknesses and established roles, we worked
together to get all of our tasks accomplished. I am happy to say my team grew each and
every week and I am happy that we were put together. I will take the information I
learned on leading an effective team and how to actively engage with my team into my
future leadership career. I want my team to participate in team building activities
regularly even if its a simple game of bowling because it is a great way to grow closer
and form healthy relationships outside of work. I also want to make sure I am just as
much of a team player as I am a leader so I can maintain respect and reiterate the
importance of a servant leader. Another goal of mine is to constantly motivate and inspire
my followers as described by the transformational leadership method so my team knows
how important they are the corporation and to me.
Throughout the semester we have also drilled in on how important effective
communication is. No matter if its amongst your team, to another health care executive,
or to a patient communication is key. Communication was a big factor in our individual
groups as we had weekly projects and assignments to do through out the past three
months. We had to learn to talk to one another about our goals for each project and who
would take on what roles to complete the project. When we werent in class or face-toface in the library with each other we stayed in constant communication through email
and text message to keep each other up-to-date on the progression of the project. Through
out the course I also learned nonverbal communication such as facial expressions, body
posture, hand motions and eye movements are equally important as verbal
communication. As a future healthcare leader I must pick up on these nonverbal cues as

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someone may not always have the courage to speak to me verbally about an issue. A good
leader must also have to adapt his/her own communication style depending on the
audience. The way you may speak to your coworkers and employees is probably different
then the way you would speak to a patient. Another important part of communication is
listening. Sometimes listening more and talking less can be more effective. In the
interview with a healthcare executive the pharmacist explained just how important active
listening is. She gave her employees the respect they deserved when talking with them as
she learned to listen and not interrupt and to do simple things such as nod along to what
they were saying. I believe actively listening is something I desperately need to work on,
as I am bad about interrupting someone when they speak and/or tuning out what they are
saying if I am not interested. I need to practice listening skills as well as verbal and nonverbal communication to be an effective leader and to know how to communicate with all
types of people in my organization as well as outside of it.
Another important topic we covered this semester was building and maintaining
professional relationships. Professional relationship building means developing positive
and content relationships with others and is key to becoming a leader. Communication is
an important part of not only building professional relationships but also maintaining
them. After networking at a conference and meeting different people it is critical to get
their phone number or email so you can stay in frequent communication with them.
Another aspect to build relationships is disclosure which is the information shared in the
relationship. The more that is disclosed usually correlates to a stronger relationship, but
also keeping in mind who it is youre disclosing information too. We also discussed the
importance of building professional relationships and networking for college students

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preparing for a career. A lot of people fall into careers not entirely because of what they
know but because of whom they know and so it is crucial that I build relationships and
network as much as possible to build these connections. My ultimate goal is to become a
physical therapist and my first goal is to get into grad school. I have built professional
relationships with professors and therapists to help aid in my acceptance into grad school
through referrals and references. I have also attended conferences such as the Southeast
Chapter of American College of Sports medicine conference, a undergraduate research
conference, and leadership forums which have led me to networking with therapists and
graduate schools. I followed up each of these events by getting in touch with people I had
spoke with so I could maintain the relationship and continue to build trust and sincerity. I
also made sure to maintain myself in a professional manner by the attire I wore, making
sure to show up to each lecture in a timely fashion and display respectful behaviors. After
this class I have become even more aware of how important building relationships are
and so I want to continue to find opportunities such as these even when I get accepted
into a graduate school because the more people in your network the more job
opportunities arise. I also learned that social media is becoming more and more popular
for networking and professional relationship building. Websites such as Medical Mingle
and LinkedIn are great segways to communicating with business professionals as well as
for recruitment and advertising. I have had a LinkedIn account but I am going to take the
initiative to create profiles on other sites to broaden whom I network with.
Towards the end of the semester we discussed how imperative it is to value
diversity in the community. Diversity broadly defines people in terms of age, education,
lifestyle, sexual orientation, geographic origin and personality. Others may view diversity

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as a more focused emphasis on race, ethnicity, religion and gender. As a leader I must be
responsible for the actions that support individual and organizational cultural
competence. The case study on cultural competence brought awareness to a situation in
which a patient and a technician miscommunicated and because of the technicians lack of
understanding of his community the patient was offended and left. As a leader you want
to do everything in your power to ensure situations like this do not arise at your business.
You must look out into the community and survey the demographics and get a good
understanding of the diverse population you serve. As a healthcare leader I want to make
diversity a priority and get to know my patients and their differences. Being aware of
situations such as the one in the case study I will get a good understanding of the
population in which I lead in and then promote cultural competence by making sure my
company has a diverse group of workers and include services that are appropriate to each
patients cultural needs. It is easy to accidentally upset someone because of a
misunderstanding such as in the case study but creating a work place with cultural
synergy is a way for team members to work together solve problems that may arise
because of cultural concerns and issues. I found a diversity model in the book to be
helpful as it explains factors that affect individuals attitudes and behaviors and their
ability to work with colleagues and/or patients. At the center of the model is personality
and then going out is internal factors, external factors and organizational factors. This
model can be used to promote knowledge about personal and cultural differences
between workers and patients. I will take this model and use it in my own personal
leadership model.

Kaylee King
Another concept we spoke on was community outreach programs. Community
outreach programs allow an organization to go beyond their doors into the community
and offer their service through different projects. In class we used the internet to look up
different healthcare organizations and search what community outreach programs they
were involved in as most of all them did have at least one. I believe community outreach
programs are very important in a healthcare organization to not only promote your
company but also educate the community and pay service that directly benefits the
public. As a future healthcare leader I will hone on community outreach programs and
commit to serving the healthcare needs of the community.
Throughout the semester we also learned how to build consensus and influence
other. This was evident in many of the assignments we had such as creating an action
plan for Jeff who had a dysfunctional team. I worked with my own team to create an
action plan for Jeff to influence his team members to want to actively engage in his
project. We also made sure that his team members would be included in any decision
making process that was developed so that the team could decide whether a decision is in
the best interest of the whole. As the semester progressed I became more and more
attached to the transformational leadership theory because it deviates away from an
autocratic leadership style. As a leader I want others to be included in my decisions and
be able to come to a mutual agreement so it satisfies everyone and not just myself. Action
plans can also be the result of an individual who is causing problems or isnt progressing
like they should be so a plan is put into works to improve on their issues to avoid
termination. I believe action plans are very influential as a number of resources are
usually available for the individual to use such as a mentor or coach, videos, conferences

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and seminars. I also learned the importance of influencing others through
professionalism. As a leader I want to be the professional that people respect and value
and can do so by exhibiting qualities such as honesty and integrity, holding myself
accountable for my actions and words, and the image I exude.
One of the last topics we discussed in class was on transformational leadership
and the ability to identify and use strategies to effect change. As previously mentioned
transformation leadership is about motivating followers and creating positive change.
Such change can be done by different transformational leadership strategies. These
strategies include integrity above all else, get down in the trenches, communicate, have
a meeting, and keeping the mission of the organization in mind. Integrity above all else
explains that a transformational leader will stay true to their words and not lie to their
workers as this can cause distrust and unwillingness to work hard for the organization.
Get down in the trenches means that a leader wouldnt ask their workers to do anything
they wouldnt be willing to do. As a leader I will abide by this strategy because I dont
think it is fair to tell someone to do something that I wouldnt want to do myself. The
next strategy is communication, which alludes to letting your workers in on almost
everything unless it is absolutely necessary to refrain something. I like this strategy a lot
because its not fair to keep anyone in the dark about anything just because there salary is
lower and there not in the position you are. This is also another way to create trust within
the team and prevent anyone from being surprised by anything. The fourth strategy is
having a meeting, which is important in the health care field as it is constantly changing.
Having meetings keeps everyone up to date on issues and allows them to get involved in
decisions. The last strategy is keeping the mission of the organization in mind which

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means that everyone is valuable to the organization in someway or another and should be
shown appreciation for it. As a leader I want to be mindful about spreading my time and
attention among everyone in my team instead of those with the jobs that seem more
important. Everyone should feel special, as each persons job is unique and important to
the success of the organization. Using the transformation leadership model and
effectively exercising these strategies will help me lead through change because is
inevitable in our healthcare system. As a leader we must be able to constantly prepare for
it and respond in the appropriate ways when it does happen. These five strategies will
contribute to my overall leadership model along with the transformational leadership
style.
After reflecting on the entire semester it is evident that my personal leadership
model follows a transformational and servant leadership approach. I want to lead by
example and inspire change in my followers. Some of the core competencies that make
up my leadership model are communication, flexibility, ambition and integrity as
described by my Myers-Brigg self assessment. I desire to be an encouraging leader with
followers will look up to me. As a leader I will put an emphasis on teamwork and the
importance of cooperating together for the success of the organization. Another important
aspect in my leadership model is the diversity model. It is critical in todays society that I
have workers who are as diverse as the population we serve and will have the right
knowledge to prevent cultural issues from arising. Overall my personal leadership style is
to embrace and influence change all the while challenging myself to constantly grow and
learn as I go.

Kaylee King
My self-assessments helped me to form my model by evaluating my strengths and
weaknesses. The assessments showed that some of my strengths were my compassion for
others, ability to adapt, and my attention to detail. It also exposed t some of my
weaknesses which included being disorganized, avoid planning ahead and I can become
distracted easily. Having a good understanding now of my weaknesses I can work hard to
improve upon them. I can also use my leadership style to compliment my strengths to
help me become a more effective leader.
After this class is over I want to continue to further my knowledge on leadership.
I want to become a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and get
involved in my local chapter. This alone will present other opportunities I can get
involved in such as leadership conferences, volunteer experiences, and a list of resources
to help me excel professionally. When attending conferences and seminars I will seek out
ways to continue to enhance my professionalism as well as talk to speakers to build my
network. I will continue to research and learn more about the leadership theories
especially the transformational and servant theories through articles, books, and videos. I
also found the interview to be very helpful so I wouldnt mind interviewing a few other
healthcare executives and this time maybe a physical therapist. Lastly, I will get more
involved in my community and become more aware of the culturally diversity in my
town back home so I can really understand the population.
In conclusion I am thankful I took this healthcare management leadership class
because it has supplied me with a plethora of information on how to become a successful
leader. I have found two leadership theories, which are servant leadership and
transformational leadership that will guide me as a leader. Throughout the semester I

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have learned how to effectively communicate with all parts of an organization, the value
of diversity to the community, important networking tips, teamwork, emotional
intelligence, and so much more. I am walking away from this class with so much more
than I expected I would have. I will take the resources that have been provided and
continue to enhance my personal leadership model to help me grow into an inspirational
and exceptional leader in the healthcare field one day.