Leadership

I believe that leadership can come from many different places and can be defined in many different ways but one of my favorite quotes is from Alan Keith of Genentech and it states, “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.”  I like this quote because it doesn’t state that there is an authoritative power and put all of the pressure on one person, that a lot of definitions do, but instead shows that a team can instead have more than one leader contribute to the overall success.

The way that I am a leader is more of a democratic and participative way because I want to learn more about what the team ultimately wants to do and run off of that instead of just bringing my own perspective.  Two heads are better than one is how I think about it because no two minds think the same way.  An example of this is when I was captain of my soccer team in high school.  To be an effective leader in sports, like business, you have to have the persistence to win and make your team believe that you have what it takes to win.  The way I did this is I am a very outspoken person and do not like to play favorites so I was able to connect with the whole team, instead of just one line. 

As I have said above, in my 5 strengths, I am a consistent person that gives everybody the same amount of respect.  I definitely think that I was successful in being a leader for my soccer team because I was able to consistently respect the players on the team and in turn gained the respect back.  I think this also is true for business in a lot of ways because if you cannot receive/demand the respect that you need from your team then there will be biases and failure in your team dynamics.  There will be no communication and that is the team’s life line.  This is why I like Alan Keith’s definition of leadership because I believe it is very similar to my way of being a leader and the goal is for everybody to contribute or else you don’t have a team and might have as well done it yourself.  Usually this doesn’t work and you will have something mediocre instead of “extraordinary”.

My Top 5 Strengths

After taking my Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment, my top 5 strengths were competition, achiever, consistency, focus and significance. After taking this test it did not really come as a surprise to me that I am a competitive person.  I have always wanted to win. Attending a ski racing boarding school for high school, competition was the only thing we had amongst each other.  We made everything from a card game to a volleyball game a competition and there was no room for fault.  Because of my competitive mindset, I set high expectations for myself and only want to have first-rate results in anything I do.  I am not saying that I win at everything, because I don’t, but when it comes to trying to win I put forth my greatest effort.  If I do lose, I will be gracious to the person that won, but I am internally irate with what I did wrong and will try to fix the problems I see that held me back.

My second strength was achiever and that entails me being a hard worker.  Some of the traits that distinguish being an achiever are diligence, persistence and concentration.   When I look at some of the things that I do I believe that this is true about me, because I have great stamina in the things that I do.  When I had an internship this summer in New York City, some of the days were very long and my persistence and concentration through the long hours kept my work at the level it should have been.  This allows me to handle tension well and deadlines allow me to be more efficient and effective in my work.  A problem with this strength though is that I never know when I have achieved my goal because I am always moving forward to achieve the next goal.

The consistency theme allows me to treat everyone the same by adhering to a clear set of rules that I have made.  Routine I would say is one of the things that I do the best.  I don’t really enjoy getting out of a routine because then my efficiency and productivity goes down. I always have a methodical way of doing things in my daily work, and to work that is due in the future. An example of this would be being at school.  I have classes at a certain time each day and after a week or two I get into a routine of what I do before and after class, which seems to be the same thing each day.  Whether it is eating at a specific time with the same people to when I go to the gym or go to the library to do my work. This allows me to be very punctual and efficient in the work that I do.

I have always been a focused individual.  This allows me to take direction, follow through, and then make the necessary corrections for me to stay on track.  I prioritize, and then act on what I need to do.  An example of the focus that I have, has been apparent in everything from group projects in school to my future career.  Right now I am a junior and will have to start applying to jobs this fall and I have been researching the possibilities since last year.  I have already starting getting internships to start beefing up my resume and am focusing a lot on my future career and how I can get the best opportunity.  Being focused has led me, I think, to do less work when it comes time to apply because my resume and the hard work that I have already put into it will separate me from others applying to the same job that I am.

           The last strength that I read is significance.  This theme says that I want to be very important in the eyes of others.  I am independent and want to be recognized by the people around me.  This is probably the hardest one for me to read just because I never thought of me being gravitated to roles of importance, because I have always taken them for granted.  I have always tried to be a leader in sports teams and have always been a leader when it comes to group projects.  This theme allows me to stay focused on performance and look for opportunities that put me in the spotlight.  A perfect example of this was being captain of my soccer team in high school and being the person that was put on center stage if we did not have our best performance or the reciprocal if we did do well.

Career Vision

      I have been thinking about my future for a while now and currently being a junior in University has hit me that I graduate in a year. I need to start applying to, or thinking more about, my future career path.  Since I have been very young, my grandfather was a large influence in my life and got me into business, especially the stock market.  This is probably the reason why I am a finance major and very interested in getting into banking.  I was young at the time and didn’t really think much of what he was trying to teach me, but after he died I had a new found drive to pursue what he had tried for so long to teach me.  I am active in the stock market personally and am interning at an institutional brokerage firm, but I don’t really see myself right now as a stock broker, however who knows what the future holds.

     What has really gotten my attention is investment banking and hedge funds.  I read as much as I can on these industries on a daily basis and am trying to learn as much as possible before I apply to firms next year.  Although these are very selective and competitive industries I believe that I have the drive and competitive nature to do succeed.  Through the years I have been very fortunate to intern with a major bank, once in London, England and another last summer in New York City.  I have had a great time in both of these placements and plan on pursuing investment banking further for my future career path with possibly moving to a hedge fund later in my career, after I build the fundamentals in this competitive industry.