Week 6: Leadership can be seen as a way of guiding people or peoples. According to Goleman, there are six different styles of leadership and, "leaders with the best results do not rely on one leadership style" (2000, pg. 2), as they typically use different styles depending on the situation. Since sometimes it's a matter of neutralizing a situation it's important to, keep your hand on the thermostat because if the heat is consistently too low, people won't feel the need to ask uncomfortable questions or make difficult decisions, but if it's consistently too high, the organization risks a meltdown: People are likely to panic and hunker down" (Heifetz et. al., 2009, pg. 67). Astin explains leadership in relation to a well constructed musical band as he says both, "need to have a common purpose while celebrating the individuality of each member" (1996, pg. 5). He goes on to further explain that this is called collaboration and that it is a necessary quality for leadership.

Changes: I did not change anything from my previous week besides adding a new quote from Astin's model. I liked the new quote because I think it brings in the fact that leadership can be a team effort and everyone doesn't have to do the exact same thing and perform like robots to do a job proper, but as long as each other's differences uniquely mesh you'll have a "fine tuned band" as he says. I think this is an important change to take note of because it adds to my original definition in that it can be more than one person doing the leading.

**Missed Week 4's deadline :(

Week 5: Leadership can be seen as a way of guiding people or peoples. According to Goleman, there are six different styles of leadership and, "leaders with the best results do not rely on one leadership style" (2000, pg. 2), as they typically use different styles depending on the situation. Since sometimes it's a matter of neutralizing a situation it's important to, keep your hand on the thermostat because if the heat is consistently too low, people won't feel the need to ask uncomfortable questions or make difficult decisions, but if it's consistently too high, the organization risks a meltdown: People are likely to panic and hunker down" (Heifetz et. al., 2009, pg. 67).

Changes: To be technical my changes from this week to last week was that I actually turned it in! ;) But on a practical note, I tried to make my first sentence less "tautological" by removing lead from the definition. I also tried to sum up "my definition" section into one sentence to make more room for quotes from the readings. I kept my quote from my previous posting and added my favorite quote from the Heifetz reading. The new quote was my favorite because it made me look at leadership in a new light. I've never thought about the fact that a little heat can be beneficial for a company and lack thereof can be damaging. Since it made me think, I felt as though it would make others reading my definition think about it about differently. I felt as if the quote was one you could use and apply to everyday situations.

Week 3: Leadership can be seen as a way of guiding or leading a group of people. It is an act that can be done by one person or by a group of people. According to Goleman, there are six different styles of leadership and, "leaders with the best results do not rely on one leadership style" (2000, pg. 2), as they typically use different styles depending on the situation.

Changes: To my week three definition, I first changed the beginning portion, that I'd created in the first week, to make it less tautological. I also tried to make the quote shorter so that way when I find an appropriate quote in my next weeks readings (I didn't really find anything that I would have liked to add this week) it will not become too long with mostly quoted information. I also tried to summarize part of the quote's end so that way I did not end my paragraph in a quote--english no-no. I find the current quote to still be important to topic, but I wish to find more information for my definition in future readings! :)

Week 2 : Leadership is to guide, inspire, lead, manage, and/or take control. Leadership can be done by one person or by many. According to Goleman there are six different styles of leadership and, "leaders with the best results do not rely on only one leadership style; they use most of them in a given week-seamlessly and in different measure-depending on the business situation" (2000, pg. 2).

Changes : To my week two definition I included the fact that there is more than one style and how it's important to use all six from time to time depending on the situation in order to be an effective leader. I took out the last sentence of my original definition because it felt like a filler sentence that was not needed. I think all of the readings this week touched on the fact that there is more than one style of leadership (six to be exact) and in order to do well with leadership you have to assess the situation and decide which style is right or the situation at hand. I think that this is important to take note of because I agree that there isn't just one leadership style that fits for every occasion. If that was the case I think everyone could be a leader just by "memorizing the steps"'; having different styles means that half the battle is just deciding which style to use and that is something that isn't as easily learned as it is practiced.