Influence and Inspiration

Influence is affecting someone or something in any way. This can be positive or negative, it can be purposefully or not, either way it causes some sort of change in the person that you are influencing. Influence can be as simple as saying "hi" to someone in the hall (which makes them say "hi" in return) or it can be helping someone make a decision that forever changes their life. The only way to get influence is to earn it. Many people get influence by their every day actions and personalities. However, others try to gain influence by being vocal and dominant. I personally think that influence you do not try to have is much stronger than influence that is pursued but you have to earn it either way.

Influence is vital to leadership. "The true measure of Leadership is Influence--nothing more, nothing less." It is impossible for anyone to lead without having influence over the followers. That is the whole goal... to have an affect over people and make them do things that you want them to. "True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned."

I will have to come up with some concrete ways to influence people.... so.... to be continued

Vision and Goals

Life Sentance:

I want to leave a legacy through integrity, loyalty, and honesty.

=Team Vision:

We want our team to support eachother as we fuel our desire to play to our highest potential. Everyone will show dedication and class and will be remembered for their display of heart on and off the court.

Team Slogan:

Fuel heart with desire... you know

On Leadership

What is Leadership?

... The process and abilities it takes to achieve a desired performance or opinion from people.

When it comes to teams...

... The process and abilities it takes to achieve better performance and relationships from you and your teammates.


Performance vs. Vocal Leadership

Performance Leadership is leading by example. These people "lead not by what they say but ore in how they conduct themselves." Performance leaders often do not even realize that they are leading others, and they do not try. Since they lead through their everyday actions and and the manner in which they conduct themselves without trying, people naturally admire and follow them.

Vocal Leadership is when you lead through words as well as actions. Vocal leaders display the same qualities as a Performance leaders but " they go a critical step further in that they are willing to step outside of themselves by verbally encouraging, motivation, challenging, and holding their teammates accountable." Vocal leaders are more affective when trying to motivate people who lack the motivation in themselves. When the team is down they bring them back up.

I am mostly a performance leader. I am pretty steady in my conduct, character, and skill. People look to me often as an example of what to do physically and in conduct. This comes easily for me but vocal leadership is my struggle. I am good with the encouraging part of vocal leadership because I hand out complements and support like candy, it is not awkward for me. Also I can enforce codes of conduct if people are out of line. My trouble comes in telling people what they need to do when I do not feel like I have the authority in the situation. People younger than me or below my level, I can lead vocally, but people who are a level or a year above me, I do not feel like I can boss them around. I do this because I do not want to be thought arrogant. I suppose I need to figure out how to lead people above me while maintaining a humility in order to fix that problem.

Are Leaders born or made?

Leaders are made. They can be born with the natural characteristics and qualities of a leader but not develop those skills to a point that they are an affective leader. Some people are not born with these talents, but they want to be a leader so they work hard to develop them. Also people can become leaders out of necessity or a void in the team. If the team needs a leader, someone who would not be originally inclined to fill that position might become the leader because the role needs to be filled and they are the only one willing or capable to do it.

Trust and Honesty

1) Trust is being able to follow someone or something blindly because you truly believe that they/it will lead you well. You can have trust in skills, personalities, actions, and integrity. Each functions differently but is essentially the same consept.

2) True honesty is telling the truth all the time and not twisting facts or situations to fit an ulterior motive. However the degree of honesty or how you word it should depend on what you are trying to do and who you are doing it with. You are not going to tell someone that you know to be self conscious that they are terrible at what they are trying to do. Sugar coating is often necessary in order to preserve confidence. On the other hand, some people have some sort of wall built up in their head against what needs to happen and you may have to be brutally honest in order to get the point across.

3) Trust and Honesty do go together most of the time. You usually gain trust by being honest. However you can have one without the other. You can trust in someones abilities (their volleyball skills for example) but not trust them to keep a secret. Also you can have the most honest person in the world who you do not trust to get the job done. It just depends on whether or not you are referring to the same aspect of the person.

4) Trust and Honesty are key to leadership. People probably are not going to follow you if you are not honest with them or if they do not trust you. You cannot be a leader without some degree of trust from your followers. Why would they follow you if they do not trust that you will do what is best for them or the cause. If you are not honest with people they will not want to follow you for fear of being deceived.

Second Post

My ability to motivate or inspire people depends entirely on my personality around them and the role I play when interacting with them. It can even differ between teams of the same sport. On my club team, I am not the leader. I am not the dominant player and I often do not feel like I have the authority to lead them. I do however attempt to motivate the other players by encouraging them and reassuring them of their skills. I am not one who scolds other players or shows disappointment in their performance. However, on my school team, I often have to take the initiative to keep the team on track and motivate them in any way I can. By encouraging them and sometimes fixing their form or skills. I am much louder on my school team than in club since I am in more of a leadership position.

I am usually able to express my vision in a way that other people understand and implement. Like I said this happens less in club just because my role on that team is different from school. When I am trying to get the girls on the school team to play better, I usually motivate them by planting a desire to make the other team look as bad, and frustrated as possible. Usually it works and we pick on the players who are doing bad, make them quit, and win.

Talking to people one-on-one is better for me to connect with people. With girls on my teams, when I am able to talk to them by themselves and "try to listen to and understand them," I am able to build a trust with them. This makes team relationships easier in the future when I try to motivate them to play their best. Since we have had some prior conversations the communication becomes easier and more affective.

First Post

I am usually a good listener. It depends on who I am supposed to be listening to. I listen to authority figures such as coaches more intently than people on my own level. This is because I have more respect for these people and I think they have insights that are important. However I do listen to other people on my own level as well, sometimes I am just too distracted to actually listen to them. They also may or may not posess the ability to help me on what I need help on . When people are instructing me on things to improve on, such as volleyball skills, I pay more attention than people who are just talking about things in general.
Being easily distracted is definately one of the traits that weakens my listening skills. Being open to pretty much anything makes me a better listener.
I need to QUIT DRAWING when someone is trying to talk to me. I hear what they are saying but I do not listen as well when I am distracting myself.

First Post

Created a blog today... actually found out that I already had some blogs on here previously from 7th grade. That is so weird. Anyways this is the Leadership Blog for Borgmann's class.