This Week's Definition:
A human quality in which a collection of strengths including: foresight, confidence, collaborative/decision-making skills, and personable manner positively affect the performance of the resources available them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
This week I decided to add the leadership quality of "decision-making skills" to my definition of leadership. This week's readings reflected on how easily, and sometimes unknowingly, our decision making processes can be influenced by outside sources. They also revealed how detrimental biased thinking can be to the successes or failures of a leader. For example, President Harding's outward appearance mistakenly placed him into the highest position of power in the United States (Gladwell 2005). It was only in retrospect that those who elected him into office were able to perceive his shortcomings as a leader. This example of poor, snap judgement as well as others that were depicted within the readings have given me a strong foundation for altering my definition this week. I feel that proper decision making skills are a critical for an effective leader; maintaining an ability to remain subjective and unbiased in your decisions can responsible for resolutions that can either end or jump start the career of a leader.

References
Gladwell, M. (2005). "The Warren Harding Error: Why we fall for tall, dark, and handsome men." Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (pp. 72 - 98). New York: Pushkin Enterprises.

Tatum, B. D. (1997). "Defining Racism: Can we talk?" Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (pp. 3 - 17). New York: Basic Books.

This Week's Definition:
A human quality in which a collection of strengths including: foresight, confidence, collaborative skills, and personable manner positively affect the performance of the resources available them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
I chose to leave my definition of leadership the same again this week. I'd rather not do this for a second week in a row, and I've managed to avoid doing so thus far, but I just didn't find anything that impacted my views on the definition of leadership enough to alter my current definition. As with last week's readings, I did enjoy reading them and they provided some insightful views on the dynamics of different leadership styles, I just didn't see them changing my definition in any substantial way. I felt that these articles were also very appropriate for this class because I'm assuming that most groups (at least all the groups I've worked with) conduct their meetings online, and because this is an online-delivered class. I think it will be important for many members of the class to know about how face-to-face meetings can affect their team dynamic positively, particularly if all of the group members participate (Sessions, 2010). These articles also may increase the likelihood of some of the groups' meeting sessions; the option to meet in person may seem like a better idea now than it had before if for no other reason than to improve the relationships/discussions of the group members.

References
Sessions, L. F. (2010). How offline gatherings affect online communities: When virtual community members 'meet up'. Information, Communication & Society, 13(3), 375-395. doi:10.1080/13691180903468954

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Learning together in community: Collaboration online. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, Retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/04_1127.pdf

This Week's Definition:
A human quality in which a collection of strengths including: foresight, confidence, collaborative skills, and personable manner positively affect the performance of the resources available them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
I really enjoyed the collaborative theme that came together in a few of the readings this week so I wanted to add something about it in my definition. I just to replace "group-decision making skills" with collaborative skills because I feel that collaborative skills include group decision-making skills but include a much broader range of leadership qualities at the same time. Astin and Astin address the challenge of leadership in modern democratic societies when faced with the dilemma of individualism vs. community (1996), they later go to explain their ensemble approach and I felt that I connected to that very much. I like the idea that, as a functioning group, it's important for everyone to highlight each others' strengths while at the same time complimenting those of the other group members. I prefer this over finding someone with the greatest strength (or most developed, depending on the case) and having everyone else try to compliment that one. My concept of a group and leadership has always been a collaborative approach and I would like my definition to reflect that.

References
Astin, H. S., & Astin, A. W. (1996). A social change model of leadership development: Guidebook (version III) (pp. 4 - 27). Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute.

This Week's Definition:
A human quality in which a collection of strengths including (but not limited to): personable manner, foresight, confidence, and group-decision making skills integrate to positively affect the resources available to them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
I hate to just keep adding qualities to my definitions but hopefully by the end I will have a more concise and inclusive picture of leadership defined for you. For now, I just want to be able to maintain the primary ideas that I think are worth keeping so I don't forget them in the end.
I added 'group-decision making skills' to my list after reviewing this week's readings. I was trying to think of a way to refer to ethical decision making as a quality without using a subjective term like "ethics". In the end "the greater good" in leadership boiled down to the ability to choose what's best for the group. Ethically speaking, the decisions for a group can be a bit hazy. But a good example of group-decision making comes from reading #2: "Foster adaptation, helping people develop the "next practices" that will enable the organization to thrive in a new world, even as they continue with the best practices necessary for current success." (Heifetz et. al. 2009). The importance of being able to make decisions like these affects your effectiveness of a leader tremendously.

References
Kidder, R. M. (2003). "Overview: The ethics of right vs. right." How Good People Make Tough Choices (pp. 13 - 29). New York: Simon & Schuster.

Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). "Leadership in a (permanent) crisis." Harvard Business Review, 87(7), 62-69. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=41997981&site=ehost-live

This Week's Definition:
Leadership - A human trait in which a person's personable manner and confidence in their own abilities positively affects the resources available to them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
I decided to keep my definition relatively the same this week because I felt that the readings mostly reiterated my previous statements. Kyle's concept of "presence" I feel best represented this: "How a leader blends this positional power with his own charisma-his personal power-will determine how favorably or unfavorably followers respond to the power of his position." (Kyle 1998). This general definition of "presence", as well as his later more specific definitions of characteristics of the Sovereign Archetype, can be interpreted (interchangeably, almost) with my use of "confidence." It restates the concept that, when presenting yourself in such a way, there is a beneficial reaction in the people and things around you. The Goleman article also delves into this with their sections on mirror neurons and social awareness. I'd added the personable manner portion of my definition this week because of both Goleman's social awareness discussion and Kyle's "Shadow Sovereign" concept. They made me realize that by simply having confidence in your own capabilities and displaying it, there leaves little room for differentiating between a truly effective leader and a tyrannical leader.

References
Kyle, D. T. (1998). "The sovereign: The power of presence." The Four Powers of Leadership: Presence, intention, wisdom, compassion (pp. 159 - 191). Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications Inc.

This Week's Definition:
Leadership - A human trait in which a person's personable manner, foresight, and confidence in their own abilities positively affect the resources available to them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
After reviewing this week's readings, I decided to add the concept of "foresight" to my definition of leadership. I came to this decision even before the Lee and King article while writing my Personal Leadership Journey, this week's reading simply reaffirmed and reinforced the idea in my mind. Lee and King (2001) state: The absence of an embracing vision quite often means a lack of direction for yourself and those for whom you may be responsible" (p. 31-32). After examining my own leadership journey and my current position coordinating a group home, I felt that this particular sentence from the reading encapsulated the importance of vision and foresight qualities in a leader. In my opinion, in order to be an effective leader, you need to be leading your support system on a path to a better future. Without direction and a clear goal, productivity loses much of its meaning.

References
Lee, R. J., & King, S. N. (2001). "Ground your leadership vision in a personal vision." Discovering the Leader in You: A guide to realizing your personal leadership potential (pp. 31 - 54). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

This Week's Definition:
Leadership - A human trait in which a person's confidence in their own abilities positively affects the resources available to them.

Analysis of the differences in the definitions:
The changes in my definition this week were affected by two things. First, I wanted to my definition to be more concise and understandable. Second, I wanted to include a theme that I found valuable in this weeks reading: emphasizing the importance of confidence in a leader. Self-confidence has a pervasive impact on a person's life beyond leadership. A 25-year longitudinal study by Judge and Hurst revealed that individuals with higher self-confidence throughout life had exponentially higher income levels, greater reported career satisfaction, and 33% as many health problems affecting work attendance compared to individuals who reported low levels of self-confidence (Rath & Conchie 2008). While I maintain that the primary responsibility of a leader is to maximize productivity, I would like add that satisfaction of those involved is of equal importance and should be included in the definition of productivity under any context.

A happy worker is a productive worker!

References
Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths based leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people follow. New York, NY: Gallup Press.

I'm looking forward to learning new ways of developing my ability to utilize my own potential in this class.