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My Leadership Journey
There is so much to learn in order to become a good leader. Some people say they were
born a natural leader and I believe some of us have those traits. Which in a sense can be true, but
most of what makes you a great leader is taught to you by those around you. I’ve been working
since I was just fourteen years old. My parents always taught me that things didn’t come easy
and once I had the opportunity to work they pushed me to find a job. I had to learn to start taking
care of some responsibilities such as paying for a phone if I wanted, having to save money for a
car when I turned 16, and many others. I had my first job for 2 years and the only reason I had
left was that I was moving away. When I started there I was just in charge of running the rock
wall but by the time I had left was in a small leadership role. It wasn’t until I was 18 that I would
have the taste of leadership again. I was working at Kmart and was offered a lead position in our
holiday section of the store. I was in charge of making the department look like the corporation
wanted, but was allowed to have my own endcap isles stocked the way I liked. From there I was
giving a small promotion and was head of our ad team at work. I know what it is like to have a
little power and I know in the future I would be someone to use it in a positive manner. Some
role models I have in my life are Elon Musk, Howard Schultz, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark
Zuckerberg. They each have certain traits that make them great leaders. They are all charismatic
but they use it in a favorable fashion.
You may be surprised with some of my choices but they all have their reasons. In order to
make the perfect leader I need traits from all these individual leaders. Elon Musk is someone
who shots for the stars. First and foremost he is extremely ambitious. Anything he thinks has a
practical chance of the becoming the item of the future he goes above and beyond to make it
happen. Two prime examples of his are Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla had dreams of making a car run

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500 miles on a single battery charge while at the time most models were at around 75 miles
charge. While the US was slowly neglecting NASA’s space exploration program, Elon was
thinking we can do more. He has plans to have a manned mission to Mars within the next 10
years. The big trait to take away from Elon Musk is that you should always reach for above and
beyond. If someone tells you something you are trying to make is impossible, show them that it
is possible.
My next leader, Howard Schultz, is someone who I can relate to. He didn’t grow up with
money and had to work for the things he wanted. One thing that is always true of Howard is just
how much passion he has for his work and the people involved. He is credited with re-inventing
Starbucks in the mid 80’s and helped bring it out of its slump in 2008. The thing I admire most
about him is how he models his company. He says “he wants to make a company his dad would
be proud of” that’s someone I could definitely get behind as a leader. Bill Gates is someone I
have looked up to ever since I was little. He was a very bright student who was always at the top
of his class. During his sophomore year at Harvard he decided to drop out and start work on his
own computer software company with Paul Allen. He was someone that lived modestly while
having a substantial amount of money. He was known to fly coach up until he bought his own
private jet. In 1994 he would sell some of his Microsoft stock to start the William H. Gates
Foundation. Just 6 short years later he would go on to create the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation which is currently the wealthiest charitable foundation. He has numerous awards and
recognitions to make anyone proud of him. The main thing to take away about Bill Gates and
Howard Schultz leadership style is that you should do something that whoever you asked
wouldn’t have a problem with it. Everyone involved with the product should feel good about it in

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one way or another. That being the shareholders, the stakeholders, and the people who use and
don’t use the product.
My next role model, Steve Jobs, is someone that I have always heard the bad stuff about
and just assumed the worst. His company Apple has one of the most famous startups in the tech
industry. Steve was a man who could take other people’s dream and turn them into a profitable
item. In the beginning of his life most of his work can be contributed to Steve Wozniak. But
while he has some shortcoming he is also the reason Apple is the company it is today. In the mid
80’s in retaliation to something Steve Jobs had heard within the company, he had thought up a
plan to get rid of then CEO John Sculley. When word got out of Steve’s plan he talked about
resigning and a few short months later, on September 17, 1985, he resigned from Apple. I would
say from this point forward is where Steve really starts to shine. In his 2 year absence from
Apple he would go on to create 2 brand new companies NeXT computer and Pixar. NeXT would
go on to be bought by Apple in 1897 for the sum of $437 million, a costly mistake for Apple.
Pixar first movie, Toy Story, propelled it into the spotlight and is now one of the biggest
producers of animated movies to this date. He was able to run two companies successfully and
also contribute to them in a creative fashion. Usually when someone tries to run 2 companies
they tend to put focus on just one of them, he was able to be there 100% for both companies.
Something that is extremely hard to do and only the most talented CEO’s can do. The main thing
to learn from Steve Jobs is to never give up. Through-out his early career at Apple he was told no
and when he finally resigned from Apple he could of just gave up then, but didn’t and is now a
name we will remember forever.
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most well-known CEO’s of my generation. He is famous
for being the “creator” of Facebook, the most widely used social media networking today. It

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started off as a small network of prestigious colleges in the area that included the likes of
Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton. While some of his early actions in his career are a little flaky he
has become a well-respected businessman. He was found by the court in 2008 to have stolen the
idea of Facebook from students at Harvard, awarding the students 1.2 million common shares
and $20 million in cash. Facebook was hit with another high profile lawsuit that was settle
outside of court. This time it was between him and co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Now with all
the dust settling Mark Zuckerberg has taken a company that was at first making no money at all
to one of the biggest grossing websites in the world. He and his wife also recently set up a
charitable found in their name. They plan on donating 95% of their Facebook stocks to charity
over the next few years. They are joining a growing trend in which the super-rich donate a
majority of their money to charity throughout their lifetime. The trait I take away from Mark
Zuckerberg is that of vision. He had a vision for Facebook that would be of way more use than
Myspace. Myspace was more about the user, while Facebook was set up as more of a directory
of people. Some may argue Mark doesn’t have charisma but some of the moves he made I can
only imagine he accomplished due to his charisma.
For the remainder of my paper I will be going over my SWOT analysis. My strengths are
something I have been working on my entire life and are things that I am proud of. Some of my
strengths are organizational skills, interpersonal skills, technical skill, research and planning, and
my education. With my interpersonal skills I have the traits I need to get myself into the job I
want to be in. I am always someone who has a positive attitude and will always catch with a
smiling face. My organizational skills will make sure I get all my work done in a timely fashion
and that I never get to stressed at work. My technical skills and my research and planning skills
will help me with any work that I may have trouble with down the road. For my weaknesses

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these are skills I have been working on recently. One of my weaknesses is my communication
skills. The way I have been improving this is by speaking more while in groups and practicing
my speech before I have to give it. Another weakness I have is my industry knowledge and
management skills. Up until last year I hadn’t taken a management class and the chances I have
had to manage have been short lived. While short lived my times managing just a few people
taught me a lot as well as my time spent in classes. This class has challenged me more than any
other class to go above what it normally takes for me to do well. This class has really challenged
who I thought I was as a manager and who I want to become. We started the class with what we
thought a leader should be and I am also going to end on that but change it due to what I’ve
learned is this course. A leader is someone who can take a group of employees and collectively
motivate them all to achieve the same goal. They must be able to adapt to different situations and
take their companies through the good and the bad.