Understanding What Makes a Leader
At my summer internship with Otis Elevator Company.
The class brought into context the definition of a leader. Many think of leaders as simply "managers" of workers, however readings from James Burns' Leadership and Bernard Bass' Handbook of Leadership provided a reading-based understanding that the class could build on with lessons and discussion.
The class used theories derived from the readings to build discussions with professionals in engineering and technical leadership, such as Rich Randall from New Level Advisors , that built on the reading material and began to ingrain specific concepts of leadership into our actions. I was able to map instances professionals referenced from my amount of working experiences in summer internships. Having personal experiences with engineering at an intern level, I was able to reflect on my weaknesses in leading design-work and analysis, over management of information and checking results. I realized that becoming more cognizant of leadership skills are not only applicable to those engineers in management roles, but can be applied to any job to increase productivity, as well as having more meaningful results.
The class used theories derived from the readings to build discussions with professionals in engineering and technical leadership, such as Rich Randall from New Level Advisors , that built on the reading material and began to ingrain specific concepts of leadership into our actions. I was able to map instances professionals referenced from my amount of working experiences in summer internships. Having personal experiences with engineering at an intern level, I was able to reflect on my weaknesses in leading design-work and analysis, over management of information and checking results. I realized that becoming more cognizant of leadership skills are not only applicable to those engineers in management roles, but can be applied to any job to increase productivity, as well as having more meaningful results.
School of Rock
An assignment in this block was to take in the leadership in School of Rock over our Labor Dar weekend as a lighthearted way of looking at leadership in everyday lives. The movie, though not having depth of leadership skill education, was a nice break from readings many pages of leadership theories to sometimes encompass things as simple as taking hold of a group with vision.
