Successful community leaders may lead communities through relationships, goals and influence. For this assignment students were to informally interview 5-7 peers of our community to discover which leaders they identify with successful leadership. During the course of interviews, I made an attempt to interview varying levels of work experience and educational background of employees that work at the City of Bend, Oregon. As a result, my interviewees had working knowledge of the city ‘behind the scenes’ which might have produced some unintended results to my inquiries. In my interviews, I made no attempt to “correct” the interviewee, such as when additional information was requested of my questions. At the end of my interviews of
…show more content…
The Building Safety Division consists of approximately 40 employees that interact with the construction community directly on a daily basis. Joe was my most intriguing interview that spent the most time with me discussing leadership and what leadership is or isn’t. Joe’s example of leadership was our Program Manager, Melanie Paul. Melanie had recently taken over a slightly dysfunctional group of employees from another manager approximately one year ago. When asked why Melanie was a great community leader to himself, Joe consistently mentioned her ability to “get things done” and not “dilly dally” or waste time on irrelevant issues. He mentioned that Melanie commands respect and performance from the team, and doesn’t accept anything less than excellent performance. When asked what Melanie could do better, Joe mentioned that she is often regarded as “cold hearted” or uncompassionate. We both agreed that compassion might not have a place in the workplace, however great leaders would express it regardless of the context between the leader and the …show more content…
One of my primary conclusions is that all employees of at the City of Bend are community leaders in one way or another. Most of the employees interact with community members as part of our job every day, have general knowledge of the goals set forth by City Council, and are in a position of authority to the citizens of the city. If I were to pose the questions again, I would stress more on the entire community, not simply the interviewees experience and definition of their community. At the same time, this might encourage interviewees to produce a more “textbook” example of community leaders and distort their definition of leadership. In the end, all individuals are going to have personal leaders they look to for direction and alignment based on their relationships, and if one does not have a relationship with a “big” community leader, such as the mayor, that person will not be a leader to
The Building Safety Division consists of approximately 40 employees that interact with the construction community directly on a daily basis. Joe was my most intriguing interview that spent the most time with me discussing leadership and what leadership is or isn’t. Joe’s example of leadership was our Program Manager, Melanie Paul. Melanie had recently taken over a slightly dysfunctional group of employees from another manager approximately one year ago. When asked why Melanie was a great community leader to himself, Joe consistently mentioned her ability to “get things done” and not “dilly dally” or waste time on irrelevant issues. He mentioned that Melanie commands respect and performance from the team, and doesn’t accept anything less than excellent performance. When asked what Melanie could do better, Joe mentioned that she is often regarded as “cold hearted” or uncompassionate. We both agreed that compassion might not have a place in the workplace, however great leaders would express it regardless of the context between the leader and the …show more content…
One of my primary conclusions is that all employees of at the City of Bend are community leaders in one way or another. Most of the employees interact with community members as part of our job every day, have general knowledge of the goals set forth by City Council, and are in a position of authority to the citizens of the city. If I were to pose the questions again, I would stress more on the entire community, not simply the interviewees experience and definition of their community. At the same time, this might encourage interviewees to produce a more “textbook” example of community leaders and distort their definition of leadership. In the end, all individuals are going to have personal leaders they look to for direction and alignment based on their relationships, and if one does not have a relationship with a “big” community leader, such as the mayor, that person will not be a leader to