Legacy Leader

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Legacy Leader Throughout life we develop as a person through learning from those that we come in contact with. Experiences with individuals in our life begin to mold us into who we are, no matter if the lesson is from good behavior, bad behavior, a person that is in your life for years, or someone that you only knew for a few days, who we become is greatly influenced by others. The Army defines a leader as anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside and outside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization. To be a legacy leader i feel that those…show more content…
The legacy leader that has made a huge impact on my life is my current supervisor SFC Aaron Baca. Through his use of leader character, leader presence, and leader intelligence I was inspired to make numerous changes in my personal and professional life. More importantly I could also see the changes in others that he had influenced. By us taking those skills and displaying them to those we lead, his leadership is reaching far beyond his immediate range of influence, setting the stage to cement his legacy as a leader. A leader’s character may be the most important aspect of leadership. It is one of the first things that an individual will make their opinion of leader from. Character will be a factor in deciding if those that you are meant to influence will trust you or not, so without the right character attributes you will not gain trust which will be detrimental to your leadership. When I met SFC Baca he stood out because he did the right things when no one was around and even though there would be no harm to come of the situation by doing it the wrong way, and no one else would ever know, he did things the right way because he wants to be accountable…show more content…
I have noticed that when we work in place such as TRADOC where there is mostly SSG and above, we as leaders seem to forget that we need to still look out for each other and get to know each other so that we can notice changes in behavior. I forgot that as well until SFC Baca began to take others under his wing and give us the mentorship that we begin to lose at certain ranks and positions. By just talking to us in normal conversation on a day by day basis and being open with us about mistakes that he made, and we should avoid, its created a more comfortable and open environment, which creates the foundation for soldiers to feel safe bringing their work or personal problems to their peers and supervisors. With the current rates in suicide I feel that creating a safe and open environment is extremely important and can’t be overlooked by leaders. Another thing that he facilitates is debates about leadership styles and regulations. I have not been sure if he purposely does it, but for example: if I were to tell a soldier “I need your past 3 NCOERS for your counseling packet” he might respond with can ask for that?” or “do they have to give it to you?”. By doing this it usually ends up in discussions and point of views from the youngest soldier up to retired Army civilians, we also end up looking through regulations in order to support our
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