Long Story Short

I've heard that all good things must come to an end. So sadly, this sassy blog is coming to an end. But I wanted to highlight a few of the things I've learned about myself and leadership throughout this journey. One major takeaway for me, was how far leadership as a theory has come. From trait theory to path goal to transformational vs. transactional it's honestly hard to define what leadership is. It's so complex and dependent on so many factors it's hard to explain and hard to keep consistent. I named my blog "Self Made: The Leadership Confidential" because I believe a lot of leadership comes from within yourself. And the confidential part just means I can speak my sassy mind about these topics without any judgements.

According to the trait theory people are born as natural leaders. They hold specific traits that make them a leader and if you don't have those traits you simply were a follower. But this is where the self comes in. You can have all the "needed" leadership personality traits and qualities but simply not want to be a leader and on the other side, you could maybe not be born with ambition and drive but you can develop it by following your dreams and finding your dreams that are worth chasing after. You make a leader out of yourself. It is not anyone's right to define who you are or what you are capable of. You are capable of anything you set your mind to. Which brings me to my next point.

I'm not sure if it was during this class and learning about the theories or what I was going through in my personal life that helped me realize this, but I realized and have accepted that I can indeed make all my dreams come true if i work hard enough...but that doesn't mean they come true immediately after graduation. We are changing individuals constantly and are in the decade of our lives where we change probably the most. We graduate college, maybe move to a new town, jump from job to job trying out what fits and what doesn't, some of us may get married and even have children during these next 10 years (yikes! when did I become such an adult). You know the cliche saying, "no body said it'd be easy, they just said it'd be worth it" well that's the mindset we have to have for ourselves. Our after college years are going to be the hardest and most stressful years of our lives, I don't think it gets easier after this people! But remember life is what we make it, self made.

Now, some major takeaways I learned about myself would have to be the importance balance all things important to me. This was very apparent to me when we did the tree exercise outside and while doing my blog. Things important to me are my career and doing what I love, I love weddings and social events. I love celebrating love and hearing the stories of each client. Which in turn, reflects how I feel about the special events in my own life. A work life balance with the company I work for is very very important to me. I would almost say probably one of the most important things. With all the possible things happening for m in the next 10, 20 years I need a job that understands if my best friend is getting married, if my little brother is celebrating his high school graduation, or that as a mom I need to be at my sons 3rd grade play. It scares me, as I know this is the hospitality industry and there's sacrifices i will need to make but there are certain sacrifices I just am not okay with. This ties back to one of my favorite and the most interesting topics of the semester of the hedgehog theory, basically, long story short- Self Made: The Leadership Confidential is all about adaption and balance.

I'm excited to see what the next chapter in my life holds. I am one to change (a lot) so I'm interested to see where I end up job wise-personally, and professionally in my career. I'm not expecting anything to be be perfect or for me to be the perfect leader after ll of this but I do believe that I can be great if I continue to strive to be great. Baby Steps, but I'll get there. For now, I'm gonna keep doing my sasy thing and doing life the way I want to do life- Self Made.