Concept of Leadership

Concept of Leadership
Kandace Sims
Siena Heights University
1/20/2016

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Leadership Vs. SHU Mission

Leadership encompasses so many things and is a huge part of our every days life. Its
part of who we deal with, its part of how we learn, part of how we are taught and even part of
how we conduct our everyday lives. In this case, we are going to look at how the different
concepts of leadership fits with the mission on Siena Heights University.
SHU Mission Statement
Part of SHUs mission statement says to assist people to become more competent,
purposeful and ethical. These are three very important characteristics in what a leader wants out
of the people that they are leading. This part of the mission statement is the epitome of what Dr.
Henry Cloud talks about in his book when he says this is the kind of character has a basic stance
that is for the other person, i.e. neither neutral nor against them (pg. 80).
Participatory Leadership
This type of leadership fosters humanistic values especially trust, honesty,
cooperation, caring and person responsibility and to develop authentic person relationships
(Harmon pg. 227)
This is right in line with what Siena Heights Universitys mission talks about. In order to
assist people purposefully in their lives, we have to have authentic dealings with those people.
That means that you are going to have to build ethical relationships in which to be able to assist
in that manner.
Harmon talks about how our relationships with others is mostly based on what science
presents to us; however, it is also very much based on how we view one another. Much of how
we view one another is because of how science tells us to or how the media tells us to. We have

Concept of Leadership
to learn how to use our own minds to be able to build a vision of people that fosters great

relationships. This will, in turn, help us to become better leaders.

Critical Thinking
One of the important concepts of leadership is critical thinking. According to Jean Garcia
one of the concepts of good leadership is developing the concept of critically so that students
can be encouraged to strive towards developing themselves as critical beings (Pg. 117).
I believe this is important to SHUs mission as well because in order to help students
become ethical, purposeful and competent, they have to be able to be critical thinkers too.
Leaders have so much to deal with on a daily basis it is almost imperative that they be critical in
the way they think. Some leaders have now idea how to do this and they end up with a team of
people that are disheveled.
Conclusion
Overall, there are many concepts of leadership to talk about and many of them are
relevant to what Siena Heights University would like to instill in their students. Many of the
concepts of leadership have to be more than just talked about however. Most times when
someone is in a position of leadership, in order to build trust and have a rapport with their
workers the way they would want that relationship to be, they must lead by example.
I think that once a person who is watching the way a leader works and sees that what
they say is less important in how they act. This is where SHUs mission plays a huge part in
leadership among their students. If they can achieve what they have set out to achieve through
concepts such as participatory leadership and being critical beings, then there will be more and
more people that are ready for leadership.

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References

Cloud, H. (2006). Integrity The Courage to meet the demands of reality (p. 80). New York, NY:
HarperCollins.
Garcia, E. Raising Leadership Critically in MBAs. Higher Education, 58(1) 130-13
Harmon, W. W. Two Contrasting Concepts of Participatory Leadership. Theory into Practice,
20(4), 225-22