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Matthew Steinkirchner
HNRS 2020 Exploring Leadership
April 13, 2015

Philosophy of Leadership

If leadership were a simple task that could only be conducted in one obvious way, then
we wouldnt have been able to sign up for a three credit-hour class on the subject. However, its
not simple enough to condense into Because of the ambiguity in how leadership is defined, it is
important for each of us to develop and stick to our own philosophies of how to lead. Personally,
I identified strongly with the relational leadership model that was presented in our textbook,
since Im not a big fan of leveraging power against others to get things done. Peter Block
describes this style of leadership well in Community: The Structure of Belonging, when he says,
The experiences we create need to be designed in such a way that relatedness, accountability,
and commitment are every moment available, experienced, and demonstrated (Block, 86). In
my philosophy of how to be a good relational leader, I value three specific parts of the leadership
process:
1. You have to care about your constituents.
2. You have to be authentic and honest with your constituents.
3. You have to set a good example for your constituents to follow.
My assumptions about those who follow this style of leadership are that they have good
intentions for their followers and that they naturally follow a code of ethics that fits with
traditional values. Obviously, this is not the official rulebook for how to be a good leader, but I

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think that regardless of who you are or what your situation is, these three steps are quality
building blocks that create a solid leadership foundation.
In the relational leadership model, leaders accomplish goals through connecting with
constituents, building relationships, and working collaboratively. As the name indicates, this
model revolves around relationships. This is why I believe that the first step to being a good
leader is to care about your constituents and have a desire to build relationships with them.
Absentee leading might work on paper, but that requires followers to be naturally motivated and
not need any personal reason to accomplish a goal. However, this is not how things usually
work, outside of the military. Followers in a normal setting work much better when they know
that their leader cares about their well-being and isnt just using them as pawns in a chess game.
I experienced this during my time as a student-leader in my churchs youth group. Every week,
we had an objective to complete; I had to teach them a lesson from the Bible, and they had to
learn it. I was given enough resources that I could have just moved through a pre-planned lesson
and technically completed my task, but that would not have been the most effective approach. If
I had sat down with my small group and just said, Okay, guys, open your bibles and read this
paragraph, and then answer these questions, they would not have felt the least bit inclined to do
what I asked. Instead, I made sure to get to know each of the kids who I taught, and after a
while, they felt comfortable enough around me that they would willingly participate in the
lessons. When we convened in the small group, we would talk about how our weeks went and
share any highs and lows to further the friendship process, and this helped them to loosen up and
contribute to the discussions that we had about the lesson. Their willing participation was crucial
to the success of the small group meetings, because, as Komives, Lucas, and McMahon state in
Exploring Leadership, The purpose, vision, and values of the whole come to life as each

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individual member describes and applies them (Komives, Lucas, & McMahon, 110). The point
of this is that by making sure the kids saw me as a friend rather than just a teacher, our lessons
ran smoothly and we accomplished our goal every week. While a youth group isnt a huge
organization that needs to be led extremely well, this framework of friendship can be applied in
some way to groups of any size to make members feel more willing to contribute.
Along with caring about and befriending constituents, being authentic and honest with
them is another important step in building trust and collaboration between leaders and followers.
If the leader lies to the followers, or doesnt practice what he preaches, then the followers will
not respect the leader enough to follow him to the desired goal. Additionally, even if the
followers believe the leaders lies and are motivated to accomplish something, the leaders own
motivation has to come into question, since lies signal ulterior motives. Again, I can refer to my
experience as a youth group student-leader to vouch for this point. Teaching these kids about the
Gospel and being a Christian in todays world is challenging enough as is; teaching it without
believing it myself would have been impossible. For the message to actually get through to the
kids, they had to see that I believed it myself, too. Also, I couldnt just sit there and act like Im
perfect and they arent, saying things like, Now, how many mistakes did you guys make this
week? Thats not good enough, you have to get that number down When I was making a
point about a Christian behavior thats hard to practice in real life, I made sure to acknowledge
that I wasnt perfect and screwed up a lot, but that the important thing was to always try. This
got through to the kids, and they seemed to understand the point of what I was saying. This
transparency is obviously applicable in all leadership situations, so it is only fitting that it is a
main component of my leadership model.

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The first two pieces of my philosophy are a little word-heavy, but the third component
setting a good example is an excellent representation of how actions can speak louder than
words. Even if a leader is telling followers the right things, the followers will still act the wrong
way if they see the leader acting wrongly first. The leader needs to set a good example for
constituents to follow, because this works just as well as, if not better than, simply giving orders.
Along with a good example being set, a positive attitude is an important component to
encouraging constituents to follow the leader. In the words of Daniel Goleman in Leadership:
The Power of Emotional Intelligence, Given that emotional contagion spreads most readily
from the top down, an intimidating, cold leader contaminates everyones mood, and the quality
of the overall climate spirals down (Goleman, 76). I witnessed this as a section leader in my
high school marching band. At a leadership seminar that I attended with other band leaders
during the summer before my senior year, several band leadership gurus stressed this idea of
being a good role model for the younger, less-experienced musicians, because whatever they saw
us do is what they would start doing, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. Of course, the
experts were right about this, and the other leaders and I observed this when we started having
our marching band practices that summer. If we just messed around, the others in the band
would take that as a signal to start goofing off, too, and unlike us leaders, they didnt know how
to stop when things had to get serious, and that became a major problem. Likewise, if we
actually managed to stay entirely focused for a day and work as hard as we could on the music
and drill, then the others would work hard and improve, as well. A lot of the bands success
depended on how we carried ourselves every day, and we always arrived at school with the task
of being good role models that day. Another example of leading by actions was this seminars
Air Force activity day. For each activity, a leader was appointed to guide the group through the

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necessary tasks and lead them to the end goal. Sometimes, the appointed leader managed to
effectively lead through words, but in most cases, the group didnt make good progress until
either the appointed leader or a bold follower stepped up and started actively figuring out how to
complete the given tasks. I distinctly remember the activity where we had to use pieces of paper
as stepping stones to get across the room, and Zach showed how a follower can become a leader
by stepping up and showing others what to do. He became the leader of the line as we went
across the room, and did a lot of visual leading as he figured out how to move along the paper
trail, which was much more effective than leading with words from the back of the line.
Leadership scenarios always require some sort of action, and these situations provide great
opportunities for leaders to step up and motivate their followers through their model behavior.
Even though its an unrealistic goal that most likely will never be accomplished this way,
I would like to use my method of leadership to reform the social behaviors of my collegiate
peers. Its no secret that college students like to get a little too crazy and do some really stupid
things, and I wish that we could all just settle down and handle our lives with a bit more integrity
than what many students show on any given weekend. There have been some initiatives to get
college students to be more responsible, such as the mandatory Think About It online course
that we had to complete during first semester. However, this was hardly effective, since the
message just didnt get through to probably 95% of the target audience. Instead, I would use my
three-step relational approach to leading my peers to living more responsibly. The first step
would be to identify a target group, and ideally I would have other leaders with me to target
several groups at once. I would introduce myself to these people and become part of their social
group, while I focus on communicating to them that I genuinely care about them and want to be
their friend. The next step would be to develop relationships with these people and show them

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that its possible to enjoy life without going to frat parties, getting wasted, and trying to slip
something in someone elses jungle juice every weekend. Along the way, I would need to make
sure they know that Im being honest and open with them, and that Im not just a poser who
privately drinks himself into a stupor after every exam or rough day of classes. The final step in
reforming their behavior would be for me to invite them to hang out with my friends and me and
do what we do, like throwing a Frisbee, playing cards, or exploring around campus on a Friday
night. Ideally, they would see me as a positive role model and be inclined to follow my example,
thus completing the process of relational leadership to accomplish positive change.
In all of these examples of real-world relational leadership, the actual act of leadership
can be expressed as some sort of metaphor or symbol. I like to view these situations using the
snowball metaphor. This idea lines up very well with the third component of my philosophy,
which is setting a good example and being a good role model. The goal of being a good role
model for ones constituents is that they will eventually begin to act in the same way, and the
positive behavior will spread throughout the group. This can be illustrated as a snowball that
begins to roll down a hill. At the top of the hill, the snowball is small, just as the singular leader
is small compared to the group. As the snowball begins to roll, it begins to pick up snow and
increase in size, just as the leaders behavior begins to affect nearby members of the group and
increase the size of the improved group. At the bottom of the hill, the snowball has picked up
snow and is huge in size, just like the improved group is when everyone is following the
leaders example for reaching the common goal. The goal of a relational leader should be to
encapsulate his or her constituents in this snowball of positive change through building
relationships and being a role model.

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Despite anything that may sound simple in this philosophy, leadership is a hard task to
master. One person might naturally be good at leading others, while another person might never
become an adept leader in his or her lifetime. Still, regardless of where you or I fall in this
spectrum, it is important to develop and practice a leadership philosophy so that when we are
tasked with a leadership role, we can at least have a game plan for how to get the job done. I
believe that my leadership philosophy of caring about ones constituents, being authentic and
honest with ones constituents, and setting a good example for ones constituents to follow can be
applied in almost any leadership scenario. Additionally, a leader in a variety of situations can use
the snowball metaphor as an illustration for how he or she should be affecting the members of
the group in order for everyone to work toward a common goal. Having this specific philosophy
of leadership in my back pocket from now on will be a valuable asset to me in the future, as I
will most likely be tasked with leading a group of engineers on at least a couple of projects
during my career. I will now be able to use a solid plan of action to lead my group, and because
of that, I think we will be extremely successful and do great things.

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Works Cited
Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler,
2008.
Goleman, Daniel. Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence. Northampton, MA: More
Than Sound, 2011.
Komives, Susan R., Nance Lucas, and Timothy R. McMahon. Exploring Leadership: For
College Students Who Want to Make a Difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.