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Executive Summary

Leadership skills are essential skills for everyone or anyone who aspires to be a leader or is already a leader. My leadership story is long and I have undergone quite a long process to be it to who I am today. If you are ready to be a leader then be ready to learn and receive critics as well. My leadership story is long and was gained through quite a long process. My journey to leadership started some years back when I joined Lawrence Technical University (LTU), one of the most renown universities in Michigan which excellent engineers from its engineering field. I was taking Mechanical Engineering and so I had to take the Engineering Economic Analysis Course, which is a mandatory course for all students taking Mechanical Engineering at Lawrence Technical University (LTU). The course is of vital essence to Engineering students because it helps in understanding how to analyze their engineering activities, and how to analyze economics. The course I must say had a lot of commitments and assignments here and there and so, it required one to be a good manager when it came to time. This is because there used to be assignments and was to be submitted on the set date and time. This work made me look for a way of handling all these assignments, classes and my personal life and realized the solution to all this was to manage my time properly. Initially, at the beginning of the course, I used to be late for my classes, late in submission of assignments and additionally, I sometimes would miss classes because I would remember the classes when they were almost over. I started struggling with time management and with time I developed the skill and it helped me go through this course easily meeting all set deadlines and submitting my assignments in time not forgetting being punctual to classes. This was how I learned my first leadership skill of time management, which is one of the most important skills for any leader. Therefore, this marked the start of my leadership journey.

Introduction

My journey did not stop there; I give credit to all my mentors who helped me be the leader I am today. At Lawrence Technical University, I took a COM 1001, course where I had an interview with Dr. Ken cook. Dr. Ken is one of my professors at Lawrence Technical University. Dr. Ken is one of the senior lectures in the Manufacturing Engineering Technology department. In the interview, he helped me understand the leadership skills for any leader understood better the best qualities of a leader and I additionally gained good communication skills from this interview. You know how one is supposed to talk to his seniors and especially when the person is such a senior professor and your lecturer in this case. Therefore, in the interview, I gained a general understanding of a leader, the qualities and communication skills.

The next experience that gave me more leadership skills of patience and holding ethics was during sis sigma 2 course. If I may ask what would you do if your friend asked you to do him/her a favor which you know is not upright? Would you bend the value of ethics as a leader? Well, I am not exceptional. In my engineering course during six sigma two, unit our professor gave us an individual assignment, which was to be done and submitted for marking during the set time. To my surprise, my friends decided for once to joy ride in this course and copy mine. I must say I do not bend my roles I was in the journey of leadership and so I was to act as a leader. Their pleas and requests landed on deaf ears, for once I did not head to their begging. I had to be ethical because I knew the consequences, which accompany such irregularities, and I was not ready for them either. So this trying moment helped learn how to be ethical and do what is required of me as a leader.

Additionally, I learned to be patient, humble, sympathetic, creative and a good speaker during a volunteer activity I had in a daycare center. My interaction with young children needed me to apply all these skills for me to have a successful period of volunteer ship. if you have ever taken care of a child below five years you know how nagging and bothering they are. Without these skills dealing with such children would not have been easy. In daycare, these children are left without their mothers and so they need things to keep them busy. So designing for them toys and other tools for their games enhanced my skill of creativity. To add to this, I also learned communication skills during another volunteer period at Gleaners Community Food Bank. This period demanded me to interact with many people with a different understanding and so to work with them perfectly needed good communication skills. I had the responsibility of keeping the records for all foods delivered and supplied to and from different stores. This meant that I should not be late or absent from work. The incidence that shaped this skill further was my encounter with the manager following my absenteeism from work without notice. Explaining myself to him was not that easy but I am happy because that helped me gain good communication skills.

A leader should learn to be patient because he/she at some point will interact with either people who require different attention to express them. This is where as a leader you apply patience as a skill. I learned this skill at Lawrence Technical University during Technical Project Management. During this course, our professor gave us a group assignment, which we were supposed to do in-group work. I had quite a hard time tackling this assignment; my group members were never cooperative. We plan for meetings, they do not turn up, no apology, no contributions and above all no communication. This happened until the last two days when my members turned up at the last moment with their point. To listen to them present their points, explaining and combining the points needed for my patient and so that is how I learned this skill during my Engineering course.

Again, all through my course at Lawrence Technical University, I have learned several leadership skills even outside the class situation. not only in Lawrence Technical University but also all throughout my life as I grow up. In daily life, if one cannot live a happy life if he/she cannot learn to socialize with people well. So generally, in life, I have learned many leadership skills. Back from the family, I learn how to respect people. This was instilled in me since I was a young child. Respecting my parents, siblings, elders and anyone else was my foundation of this skill. I later grew to respect my classmates and their opinions. Respect is a necessary skill for any leader; he/she should be in a position to respect others and himself/herself. To add to this I have learned how to socialize with people during my study period right away from my first level of study up to now in university. In each of these levels, I make new friends and keep those I find worth keeping. A leader must learn how to socialize freely with people from different backgrounds. Communication skill is another skill I have learned in life. Learning how to express myself to friends, teachers, parents, and friends have helped me gain this skill.

To nutshell this, my leadership journey has been gained through different ways in life. I gained some skills formally like during my courses at Lawrence Technical University like the Technical Project Management, six sigma 2, Engineering economic analysis and COM 1001. these helped me learn skills of time management, patience, being ethical, etc. Outside the formal organization, I gained communication skills, empathy, patience creativity, socialization among others through volunteering at Daycare Center and Gleaners Community Food Bank. As you read this piece of writing you will understand more about the leadership journey that has shaped me to be the kind of leader I am today.