Leadership Point of View
To be a good leader you must first know of to follow. My first job was at McDonald’s when I was 15; I have to say the greatest influences in my life came from my time at McDonald’s. Two managers come to mind Marilyn Smith and Ambrose King. Ambrose was the store manager, and the leader he believed in treating every employee with the same respect, and dignity he expected to receive. He never acted as if he was better than anyone else or that there was anything he was too good to do. He would never ask you to do something he would not or had not done, for example cleaning up after an ill customer. He taught me that a true leader is humble, patient, and kind. He was the type of leader who did not need to ask for or command respect it was given willingly because he earned it. Marilyn was the first African American woman in my life at that time that had accomplished something. She was the assistant store manager, and she was hard working dependable, confident, and well respected behind her back, and in her face. Good managers need certain skills to manage, conceptual, interpersonal, technical, and political (Robert Katz 1974, p. 901-902). I may not have known it at that time, but I know now that it is a rare thing to find all these skills in the same manager, and Marilyn had them all. The most important thing I learned from her is to have confidence in my abilities and others will see it, do the work and, learn the job inside and out.
The one event or time in my life that had the greatest impact on me regarding how to lead others occurred while working toward my, Bachelor’s degree. I worked in the foreclosure department of a bank as a Foreclosure Associate. The manager who hired me transferred to another department and a new manager was assigned to my area. She was rude, disrespectful, and unprofessional and, generally had a nasty