As most of you know, I'm currently an M.B.A. student at ETSU. I'm taking my last two classes of my program before graduation in May. Anyway, one of the classes that I'm taking is an Independent Study course that will replace my leadership course requirement (lovely how course rotations never work out the way you need them to). Over the course of the semester, I have been assigned 5 books along with 5 ten-page papers about those books. So why am I blogging about this? Well, again, as many of you know, I'm part of Phi Sigma Pi National Co-ed Honor Fraternity. One of the legs of our tripod is leadership. While most Chapters use this leg of the tripod as a service component of the fraternity, I believe that leadership should also be embraced. This series of blog posts...well, let's just say it's a little bit of what I learned about leadership. Maybe someone will read this and obtain some inspiration and resources on how to be a better leader. More and more I'm learning the importance of leadership and how it really does affect my everyday actions.
Ok. The first book I read was StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. I actually had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Rath give an executive briefing while I was working as a tuition scholar during my first year of graduate school. At the briefing, I bought this book, along with Strengths Based Leadership (the longer and more in-depth version of the two books). I also was able to get him to sign both! ;) (Sorry, I'm a nerd.) Anyway, most of you know that I hate to read. So what compelled me, a broke graduate student, to buy not one, but two books at full retail price? The topic he wrote about really intrigued me and sparked a great interest to learn more.
Both books talk about strength psychology and its application to our every day lives. Rath continually brings up the example of how we as a society constantly try to overcome any personal deficiencies starting in our infancy even to when we are grown adults. The strength psychology suggests that by focusing on our strengths instead of trying to deal with our weaknesses, we will grow more! (I personally was interested in how this effective the workplace environment and how it could relate to potential leadership positions within an organization, but again, I'm a business grad student.)
So with the book came a special code that gave me access to the "Strengths Finder 2.0 Assessment". Basically it was several statements that I ranked myself on whether I was most like the statement or least like the statement. At the end of this hour long assessment, I was given a report with my "top five themes of talent". Mine were discipline, strategic, achiever, futuristic, and focus. Man did the assessment hit the nail on the head! I had a lot of trouble actually writing the paper because it was hard to write about myself for an academic paper. Anyway, I learned a lot of how I could apply (or in some cases continue to apply) these to daily tasks.
Now that you have read a short book report...why should you read it? You might be surprised how much talent you truly possess that can be molded into great leadership strengths! Ryan even took the assessment and read the shorter book. It wasn't surprising that we had different themes; however, many of our themes complemented each other. Which makes sense why we make a great pair! ;) Anyway, if you are interested, the books are above. I found them to be very interesting. I also have copies that I would be willing to lend out to responsible individuals who will return them. (Remember, they are signed!)
Well, that's enough for tonight. Off to the next book and start of the next paper. I've already read the first section and I know this one will be fun to write about. I already have a couple of people in mind to recommend it to!
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