After the reviewing the lesson plan in class about Empowerment, I managed to build my skills of encouragement up.  We were told that empowerment refers to, “To give power to someone thus resulting in a greater sense of confidence/self-esteem and ability to do a task.” Having experience with being a leader, I am comfortable with empowering my peers with high self-esteem within their selves. Last year I was a softball captain and one of my daily routines was encouraging the teammates to have confidence within their selves when they failed to do a good job on the field. One example in particular was when a new girl made the team and had little experience with softball. Despite her being new to softball I gave her power and confidence to teach her how to be a better batter. Whenever she would go to bat she would always strike out, and I notice she was feeling down on herself, but I would always encourage her and give her techniques to do better whenever she went to bat. Even though her batting skills did not increase that much, she still had confidence within herself to improve her mistakes and practice hard every day so that she could be better in the batter box. After having experience with empowerment I found myself using motivation which is; “an incentive or move to action”, by motivating the aspiring athlete that she could do good when she was in the batter box. Encouragement; “to inspire with hope, confidence, or courage,” I always managed to say positive remarks to her to boost her confidence and courage with softball. Recognition; “to acknowledge the contribution of another” I recognized her for her hard work and dedication by practicing during her free time to get better with her batting skills. Praise; “to recognize others and praise them for good work”, I praised her again for trying her best to become better as a softball player. And appreciation; “to thank others for their contribution”, I appreciated her contributing to a difficult skill but still managing not to quit or give up even though the sport was difficult for her. I often noticed and interpreted that the other team captains hardly empowered the team because they did not have much control of team. The team captains lacked respect from on the team because they would not like a captain, they would always act childish along with the team which should not be a leaders characteristics. This is due to because whenever they would try to be serious and demanding the team would not take them seriously or respect them because they were used to the team captains being silly and immature. But I believe when there is a team leader around who is mature and reliable, their protégés will always look up to them for empowerment and motivation whereas vice versa from a leader who is immature. But having empowerment within an organization builds a bond and strength where nothing could break that individual or team down.

While reading the excerpt I too agreed that trust is the central issue in human relationships inside and outside of organizations. I believe in this statement because two years ago when I was part of a club, many individuals in the group disliked how our leader was making decisions and coming up with ideas that it led to everyone in the group not agreeing on one accord. So in consequence with all the disagreements, many people in within the club began to have little trust in our leader fearing she would turn her back on the group. This was a big mistake because not only did it break the group up, but it led to inappropriate behaviors that were unacceptable because everyone disliked what was going on and did not have trust within one another. Just as the excerpt stated “because they can’t bear to be dependent on the words and work of others…”[they] supervise work so closely that they become over controlling.” And that is exactly what happened in the club I was in because our group leader began to be controlling and evil towards the group. I believe if everyone put their differences aside majority of the members could have clarified their problems and identified an alternative scenario so that everyone could agree on the same thing. It is always best to have trust within people especially within a workforce. Being around individuals who do not trust each other causes an unstable environment and unbalanced team crew. After being in a situation where there was no trust, I learned from that experience and positioned myself to be around a more decent group of people who were trustworthy and dependent. After being elected president for yearbook in my senior year of high school, I adapted ways from my past to manage a calm, easy going organization where trust was the key factor. Having numerous personalities with various people was challenging to direct because there were issues that were not agreed on that caused confrontation. Being the leader I did not want to see another episode of trust going down the drain. It was stated in the excerpt that; “the leaders behavior is more critical than that of any other person determining the level of trust that develops in a group.” I agree with this statement because followers look up to their leaders as an influence of their own actions, as well as guidance in their work field. So if I was to lie and hide the truth from my acquaintances, more than likely they are going to do it also. Therefore when my yearbook committee began to have confrontations, it was up to me as the leader to state the honest opinion to clear the air of negativity. After I broke the ice everyone began opening how they felt on the situation and we slowly began resolving our issue and also began forming a trustworthy foundation.

¢  After the class discussion in class, I polished my understanding of ethics. As defined in class ethics is stated to be “Social rules that govern and limit our conduct, especially the ultimate rules concerning right and wrong. “ I have learned to polish my ethics more widely. For example, I use my schooling, family, religion and experiences to shape my ethics. Being spiritually close to god assists me to be a good leader to other individuals. I learned that by knowing right from wrong increases my chances of reaching out and influencing other to people to follow in my footsteps because god wants his children to resist from cruelty. Also I am shaping my ethics from my family because they are by my side constantly through all my troubles and hardships and push me to continue moving forward. They give me the responsibilities to be mature and handle situations on my own to be a young adult. This correlates with ethics because I am learning self-discipline. I have experienced be being around unethical people that have slightly drove me away from my own ethic beliefs. For example, I was influenced by stealing merchandise from a store which is highly unethical to me because my morals is to serve god and walk in his pathway and by breaking one of the commandments I felt angry with myself because I easily let another person pull me away from my ethics and morals into doing something I was forbidden not to do. After reviewing in class it is not ok to let someone influence into doing something unethical because they are doing it also made me realize I need to strengthen my ethics stronger.  i have always been told the golden rule by my grandfather, but I did not fully understand what he was talking about, but now as I get much older and wiser from past experiences I come to understand how Important the golden rule is. The golden is to be defined as; “Do what you would want others to do to you.” I find this saying very true because from past experiences I have found that wanting respect and appreciation is only returned if I extend it out to others as well. For example, I have always found being respectful to my enemies very challenging. But one day I showed appreciation and gave respect to one of them only to generous and shortly after a couple of more of the same practice to that person, I found myself receiving the same action done towards me. That is why I truly believe that by treating others the way you want to be treated is very true due to my past experiences with the situation. To this day I treat everyone the same respect that I would want to be treated because it is pleasing to me and that person also. I have also found that the rules ethics is an ethic that I tend to follow by. Rules ethics is stated to be, “Do what you would want everyone else in the world to do from now on in this situation.” I believe if we treat everyone the same way that we would like to be treated could lead to peace in the world because everyone is following into the same trend of generosity.

After reviewing the excerpt from Ms. Peggy, my views on that article we content and a bit frustrating. I felt it was irrelevant because I believe everyone is born with different privileges that we did not request. Peggy insisted temporary equal-ness within everyone to exemplify unity but, we obtain certain honors due to the choice of God. I do understand that there are issues everyone attains that we are not proud about, but I believe by confidence and humbleness we all can make way through our flaws. For instance, there is a large number of homeless individuals in the world, and I believe it is not a privilege and choice for them to be without homes, but they were set in those positions and they have to make way through their struggles and tribulations day by day because it is their lifestyle until they make a change for themselves. I agree with this quote from class stating “Horatio Alger in the mid-20^th century said that all men were equal, but some just worked harder than others and that is why they were better off.  If other people worked as hard, they would be well off too.” I believe this is true because men set their selves apart to obtain the dominance that they have now, I believe that everyone should act in this way if they do not respect their privileges. For instance with the homeless, no one in this world can fore take and solve our issues that we have  but ourselves, and either we have to accept it or not but if so they have to make self- change if they are unhappy with the privileges they attain. But in class I did comprehend a different aspect towards people and their privileges. I interpreted that by holding your own identity is a privilege towards yourself. For an example, by me being a young African-American female I have numerous privileges for holding this aspect because there are other individuals in this world who wish to hold the titles that can have and obtain. Privileges are related to hard work because where we stand is from the success or failure we had in the past.  It is how we approach our situations in life to be where or how we want to be in life. “Some overcome barriers created by oppression and succeed through hard work. [Pursuit of Happiness].””Some cannot overcome barriers created by oppression no matter how hard they work.” I believe this quote is where everyone either gives up or push through trials because once again it is up to us to have a great future, or to have a decent or horrible one. But regardless of my interpretations from the excerpt, class discussion and life experiences I do have a better view about privileges we hold in life.

After reading Diversity is Transforming Leadership my views on leaders from different cultures open more because the excerpt helped me understand that by having different leaders from a diverse culture helps widen unalike leadership styles to follow. Recalling from the text when they explained “shaping leadership into a multicultural form” I believe that is true and she be expected because it I time where we see our nation have different skin tones within a business or organization because it expands the association 10 times more than it was before. The excerpt defined multicultural leadership as “an inclusive approach and philosophy that incorporates the influences, practices, and values of diverse cultures in a respectful and productive manner. Multicultural leadership resonates with many cultures and encourages diverse people to actively engage, contribute, and tap their potential.” My middle school played along with this definition by expanding other culture customs. For an example of how diversity is good for leadership was when I was in high school and our ASB committee was general composed of Caucasians and Philippines. The school felt certain races were left out when events came around because they did input any other race opinions. So the school voluntarily cast votes for additional staff on the ASB board to make it more diverse so that all voices and opinions from different background were heard. This also led to a new diverse leadership because the school soon began doing traditions from Mexican American, to African-American backgrounds by following in their cultural traditions. For instance also, we followed our leader’s tradition celebrating Dead Day from the Mexican background and celebrating Kwanza from the African-American background. This not only shaped and diverse our school but also taught the school different traditions from outside cultures they did not know of and brought unity within one another because everyone enjoyed celebrating the events together. Without unity and acceptance from different cultures will only lead our vision of unity to destruction. “The discrepancy between the vision of democracy and the reality of racial and cultural segregation has caused a continuing tension in U.S. society.” I believe this quote is very true because if no one is coming together as a whole from different backgrounds then that can lead to separation and hate between each other. For example, Whites and Blacks did not meet eye to eye because they viewed the opposite race inferior. There was separation for the two races to dine in and eat and also join together in classrooms. This battle between the two lasted for over a decade and caused tension in the U.S. but activist leaders seen differently that both races can and will soon be together as one positively motivating the nation. And soon with laws formed and races soon reconciling their differences, the United States soon came together by the influences of different leaders. In an ending result I am a supporter of believing that diversity can and do cause transformation just by past experiences and well known political uprisings.

Cohesiveness

After reading the excerpt The Nature of Group Cohesion, I came across numerous examples of being cohesive within a group. Cohesion was defined as “strong sense of belonging to an integrated community-are actively involved in their groups are more enthusiastic about their groups, and even suffer from fewer social and interpersonal problems.”  This quote retains to me because I believe and work along with this quote because I believe in order to have success within a group differences within one another has to be set aside in order to accomplish a goal that was settled for the individuals. For example in the passage the hockey team was once against each other because they all remember each other from when they competed against each other in high school. But due to their differences they put their dissimilarities aside in order to win games that were held upon them.  I have been in this predicament before with a group of individuals I played with on my softball team. We all had known each other from playing against one another in recreation softball in our communities and we held hate and competition within each other because we always wanted to beat them. But when we got older and went to the same high school and played softball together, we had to sit our differences aside because being divided within one another would only let our team fall and not win any games we played in. “Forces that keep a group intact by pushing members and countering forces that push them apart.” This quote correlates with me because within the team we set aside issues that we knew would be pushing us apart. As years went by we grew close with each other and started calling each other a family because held similarities and passions with each other because we worked together to accomplish our objectives and did it with positive attitude and unity. Another example of cohesion I settled with was having a roommate. “They would even sacrifice their individual desires for the good of the group.” Having a roommate to me made me be cohesive because my roommate and I shared a little room together that we would take up our personal space, but in order to have a good year in college and with each other we had to come together and make sacrifices and be unified as one.  My roommate and I shared many differences with each other because we were totally opposite, but she and I decided to make arrangements of who took a shower at a certain time to make sure we did not have any differences that would lead to us not enjoying our freshman year in college. “The ease with which cohesiveness can be described has been accompanied by an astonishing difficulty in defining it in an agreed on-matter.” Reviewing this quote acknowledged to me that difficulties should be worked out to have ease.

Leadership

As I read over the excerpt, I highly agree that in order to be a leader there has to be a vision require. I agree with the statement, “The vision operates within both the wants and needs of participants in the leadership relationship while also expanding their zone of tolerance for change”. I agree that this is true because no person alive can establish anything without viewing how they want to for take that dream. There is persistence and drive from supporting participants who want to see that vision come true. For example my softball coach had a vision of winning number one in the championship for our division team. He had assistant coaches who supported his every need and want to make sure his team was well prepared for the upcoming team we were going to play against. Also the assistant coaches and parents accepted and tolerated his request in having more practices during the week to fulfill his vision. Even though it was rough getting the teammates to come to every practice, he still went out on the field working with the little group of people who showed up. Just as the text explained, “Leadership is neither a clean nor constantly satisfying activity for an individual”. That is true because every practice was not satisfying to him because he did not have his whole team on the field participating in working to get better as a team. But he never let his vision go. He was still motivated to walk on that field everyday whether or not he had a full squad or not.  “Importance of vision: provides the leader with an additional moral justification for changing an organization and its members” and that was exactly what my coach had. I like visions because it gives the leader and his or her organization something to lean on for motivation and inspiration. When times get challenging I remind myself of the reason why I am fulfilling this duty. “It is the driving force of the vision of a desirable improved condition for members, the organization, and society that inspires the leader, the benefits of this desirable future plateau generates the duty to endure the trials associated with leadership”. I respect this quote because it reminded me of a time when I wanted to give helping 5^th grade students with their homework at a afterschool program. I continued to push myself because of the vision I had seeing the kids getting good grades on their tests and quizzes from the help and techniques I gave them. I could not let them down and quit helping them because I am one of the reasons for helping them do excellent in school and perhaps is the next scientist for a cure. By having my vision it brought me new friends because we all came together in doing the same thing for the children. “Creates a bond within the leaders and followers”. Having people by your side that is fulfilling the same vision as you creates a positive bond within one another and leads the organization down the right road into making that vision come true.