LDR 200L, or Intro to Leadership theory, is a required class for all LAS students. This class was offered both online and in person, which was nice because LDR 100 was only offered online. Since I was able to take this class with most of my cohort, the in-person aspect of it gave me the chance to better connect with some of those I had yet to meet or interact a lot with. In the first half of this class, we focused heavily on some of the leadership concepts that the Leadership Institute bases their philosophy on. We talked about theories such as adaptive leadership, servant leadership, assigned vs. emergent leadership, etc. The second half of the class focused more on applying certain leadership theories in our everyday lives and through different projects.
Knowing all of the different leadership theories and what they truly are is just the base of why you need to know them. In order to be successful at using and performing these different leadership theories, you need to have experience trying to apply them to your everyday life situations. We were challenged almost every class to think of examples and ways in which we can apply these different theories in our lives, and which ones were better to use depending on the given situation. Probably the biggest project of the year was our Adobe Project, which focused on a growing social issue. One of the major aspects of the project were deciding which leadership theories were needed to help in fixing the issue or what leadership theories were already being shown by those who have or were currently working to fix the issue. Not only is it important to know when these theories should be applicable to your life, but actually putting them into use is much easier said than done. One thing we talked about in class is that you will never be perfect. Your attempts at using these many strategies and theories might not turn out the way you want them to or they might not be successful. That’s okay. The important part is trying to put them into use and learning and growing from each experience.
I was definitely glad we dove pretty deep into these theories. I think they’re good starters, if absolutely nothing else. I have learned how to apply them to my everyday life, and even have learned to recognize when I am using them subconsciously. However, just because I know a bit about each theory doesn’t mean that I know everything I need to know about them and will be able to use them flawlessly all of the time. For me, something that I will need to pay attention to is the number of times that I am actually putting them into use. Overall, I really enjoyed this class. It was a fun part of my day and I always looked forward to going to this class. I think that this class has set me up with a good foundation of leadership theory knowledge that I will be able to use in future classes, and throughout the rest of my life.
Samantha McDonald 