Philadelphia Service Trip

(8) What kind of influence will this trip have on you as a leader?:
All my life I believed a leader should be a certain way, act a certain way, say certain things. I have grown up believing that a leader was born with certain qualities that make them great. Over the past few years, this mindset has certainly changed and been influenced by many service projects and leadership opportunities. While in Philadelphia the service work the Leadership team experienced was very diverse. We worked on sites that both showed short term and long term change. But it wasn’t necessarily the type of work we did that was so effective in my own personal leadership development. This trip to Philadelphia has shown me that it matters most where the service work takes place. It is important to assess the need, assess the surroundings, and assess your followers before going into a project. As a leader, you are in the position to make judgements about a situation and then it is your job to do what is best for your followers. Through my experiences in Philadelphia, I have learned that while in a leadership position it is necessary to work with others and allow others to lead at times for a project to be successful. There were many leaders that participated in one project alone, but yet not one leadership style specifically dominated. They all were able to work toward a common goal to achieve something great. This trip has taught me that no matter where I go, leadership will continue to work in successful ways and work in unsuccessful ways, that there are problems that may arise, but working with your followers to achieve a positive outcome may always work best when the leader works alongside their followers. Because we worked in parts of Philly that not just every tourist typically sees, because I traveled to the very top of a Philadelphia observatory, because I have seen almost all of the historical sites, I can truly say I have seen Philly.Les mer