This weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to step out of a situation visualize what and why something is happening, and being able to take control of that situation or group and lead them to a common goal, while staying true to your values. The best leaders utilize their strengths to influence their followers, build relationships, trust, earn their respect, and Strategically think on how they can best serve their community in an ethical manner, and communicate their ideas with their followers. Leaders shouldn't be afraid to fail and need to be able to stay calm through difficult and stressful situations.

Reasoning:
The in class and activities and reading were good this week but again, I didn't feel like I should change my definition. I like the definition that I have and haven't been convinced from the reading that it should change, but I did add a little thing about how leaders need to be able to communicate to their followers, and the followers need to be able to communicate with the leader. I feel that my definition is getting too long and I will need to make it shorter for next weeks blog. I really enjoyed the questions to consider about context in this weeks article. I didn't realize that there were so many contextual factors that affect our communication.

Reference:
Saphiere, D. H., Mikk, B. K., & Devries, B. I. (2005). Factors affecting communication style: Starring acts in the circus. Communication highwire (pp.47-82). Boston: Intercultural Press

This weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to step out of a situation visualize what and why something is happening, and being able to take control of that situation or group and lead them to a common goal, while staying true to your values. The best leaders utilize their strengths to influence their followers, build relationships, trust, earn their respect and yours, and Strategically think on how they can best serve their community in an ethical manner. Leaders shouldn't be afraid to fail and need to be able to stay calm through difficult and stressful situations.

Reasoining:
This weeks reading talked about knowing oneself and how it is aligned with knowing others, and respect for others. I felt that my definition already had something about knowing oneself and knowing your followers but I didn't have anything about respect or trust in my leadership definitions, which is also a crucial part to being a good leader. I felt I needed to add a little something about trust and respect in my definition. I also reworded a few things this week.

Reference:
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 weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to step out of a situation visualize what and why something is happening, and being able to take control of that situation or group and lead them to a common goal, while staying true to your values. The best leaders utilize their strengths to influence their followers, build relationships with them, Strategically think on how they can best serve their community, and execute your leadership in an ethical way. Leaders can't be afraid to fail and stay calm through difficult and stressful situations.

Reasoning:
I kept everything the same as last weeks definition but I did add one sentence to the end. After reading the article about panic and failure I thought I should add something to my definition to include that leaders can stay calm in stressful situations. Leaders can be afraid but they shouldn't be afraid of failure because through everyone's course of leadership they will fail. They just have to pick themselves up and brush it off and keep going.

Reference:
Gladwell, M. (2000). "The Art of Failure: Why some people choke and others panic." The New Yorker, 84-92. Retrieved from http://www.gladwell.com/pdf/choking.pdf

This weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to step out of a situation visualize what and why something is happening, and being able to take control of a situation or group and lead them to a common goal while staying true to your values. The best leaders utilize their strengths to influence their followers, build relationships with them, Strategically think on how they can best serve their community, and execute your leadership in an ethical way.

Reasoning:
I felt really good about my definition of leadership last week and didn't feel that after reading this weeks article that I should change anything. In the article he talked about groups and ways to understand them. It was a good article and made some excellent points, but I felt like I already had a strong enough definition that this article didn't influence me to change it

This weeks definition:
--Leadership is being able to step out of a situation visualize what and why something is happening, and being able to take control of a situation or group and lead them to a common goal while staying to your values. The best leaders utilize their strengths to influence their followers, build relationships with them, Strategically think on how they can best serve their community, and execute your leadership in an ethical way.

Reasons for Change:
I changed beliefs to values. I thought values better represented what I was trying to say in my leadership definition. After class and working with our strengths I realized that we need to understand what our strengths are. If we know our strengths we can utilize these strengths to become better leaders. We can also utilize other people's strengths in the group/organization to help in our leadership journey. In other words you really have to know your followers to become a good leader.

Reference:
Clifton, D. O., Anderson, E., & Schreiner, L. A. (2006). StrengthsQuest: Discover and develop your strengths in academics, career, and beyond. (pp. 1-11) New York: Gallup Press.
Lee, R. J. & King, S. N. (2001). Base your leadership values on personal values. Discovering the leader in you: A guide to realizing your personal leadership potential. (pp. 55-70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to step out of a situation, visualize what is happening and why to better understand the situation in order to direct and lead people towards a common goal while being true to ones belief's.

Reasons for changing:
Heifetz opened my eyes and showed me that one needs to be able to take him/herself out of a situation in order to better lead his/her group. In order understand what is happening one needs to understand why it is happening. I thought this was a great article and liked how he made everyone step back and really think.

Reference:
Heifetz, R. A., & Linsky, M. (2002). "Geton the balcony." Leadership on the line: Staying alive through the dangers of leading (pp. 51-74). Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

This weeks definition:
Leadership is being able to direct people towards a common goal. Good leaders stay close to their beliefs and act in an ethical manner.

Reasoning:
After reading deciding what you believe and the Ethics of right vs right, I decided to change my definition of leadership to encompass beliefs and ethics. To be a true leader one must start true to him/herself and stay true to their beliefs. There is usually more than one right decision and you must choose the decision that best coincides with your beliefs.

References:
Terry, R. (2001). "Deciding what you believe." Seven zones of leadership: Acting authentically in stability and chaos (pp. 20-40). Mountain View, CA: Davies- Black Publishing, Inc.