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Personal Leadership Philosophy

ENGR 100: Interpersonal Skills for Engineering Leaders

Pamela Daniela Nogueira

December 11, 2014

PERSONAL LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY

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Develop a personal leadership philosophy is a continuous process that will improves during

the life. I perceived that the person that I am now is not the same person that I was yesterday and

is not the person that I will be tomorrow, because each day is special and brings something unique

to my life experience. However, some experiences have more impact, and this course was an

example of that.

After this course, I can perceived that I established more clearly my personal values and

the type of leader that I want to be. This occurred because of various factors, such as my personal

experiences as an engineering student in Brazil and in the United States. In Brazil, I concluded my

second year in college, and, during this time, I had two experiences that played an important role

in my personal development. The first one was an internship during six months, where I perceived

the type of leader that I do not want to be, because, my supervisor did not show empathy, respect

and love with anyone.

After this period, I participated in a research for one year where our main objective was

treat the water for a rural community in my state. That was a period of great self-development, and

the principles for my personal leadership philosophy were established, because interacting with a

new reality and new people, I perceived how is important a real leader to lead to real

improvements. I learned that, to change, the own community needs to want the change and

compromise themselves with it. Also, that, to interact with different cultures, you have to be open,

with no judgments, and not put yourself in a higher level than the others. During this project, I also

perceived the reason why I want to be a civil engineer: I want to provoke changes.

After this, I came to the University of Nebraska, and I can clearly see how I have changed.

With this experience, I changed the way that I view the world, and, specially, the way that I view

the differences. This development was maximized with the course ENGR 100, because with the

ENGR 100

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materials, the discussions, and the service-learning project, I consolidated my ideas and my values

as a leader.

With all this experiences in mind, I can set more clearly my personal leadership philosophy,

and a phrase that sums up my ideas is from John Quincy Adams and it says, “If your actions inspire

others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Based on that, I

set my personal values: first, change, because I need to have the courage to change what need to

be changed. Challenge, because I need to be prepared to face challenges if I want to improve

myself. Balance, because I want to be able to get the most of all aspects of life. Integrity, because,

as a leader, I need to be compromised with my values and have them clear. Finally, love, because,

I want to lead with love and empathy.

As a leader, I want to be able to inspire others to improve themselves, I want to encourage

them to achieve what they want to achieve. I believe that, in order to be a good leader, I need to

know my followers, and respect the differences. As a leader, I want to improve every day my

communication skills, being open to listen, and to learn showing empathy. And, finally, as a leader

and as a person, I expect commitment from the others.

In conclusion, I believe that I have much more to improve and that my personal leadership

philosophy is going to change over time, but this course helped me to view leadership in a new

perspective. A perspective where anyone can be a leader, and this will not change.

ENGR 100