My personal mission is to constantly strive to be the best overall person that I can be within my personal and professional life. My goals are to inspire and help others and myself around me to achieve greatness that will maximize our potential to transcend the boundaries of our dreams. In addition, my core life values are the foundation of my mission statement, which allows me to uphold my promises and standards. These promises and standards will afford me the opportunity to improve the life of others and myself for the better.
Therefore, there are four particular core values that I live by each and everyday. The four values are: commitment, compassion, dedication, and optimism. The first core value, commitment, embodies the theme of loyalty and honor. I work hard each day to live up to the promises that I make to finish tasks, help others, and meet the expectations that I place on myself or by others. The second core value that I live by is compassion, I wholeheartedly believe in being kind to everyone and helping those in need. The third value that I live by is dedication.
Along with the previous two values, dedication is an important factor because being dedicated to someone or something allows a person to display their character of being steadfast and passionate—even in the face of adversity. The fourth and final value that is a foundation for my personal mission is optimism. Having a positive outlook on life or certain situations is a critical part of my core values because to accomplish dreams and goals, as well as inspiring others, you have to maintain hope and positivity to keep and build morale.
These four core values are my foundation that will help me to become a better leader (and team member) in both my personal and professional lives. Similarly, my four core values along with my personal mission statement are influenced by two quotes that I learned as a young child, which I have carried with me into my adulthood. These two particular quotes constantly reminds me that the goals that I have created are not solely for my benefit, but to benefit and support others, my family members, friends, or friendly strangers who I may come into contact with.
The first of two quotes is a bible scripture that reads, “ [s]o in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you […]” (Luke 6:31, New International Version). My beliefs and values are deeply rooted in this scripture simply because as I stated earlier, in my opinion, that everyone should be treated with equity and equality. This scripture reminds me that to be a leader either in my personal or professional life that success is not based on individualism.
Rather, success and being a leadership is the ability to help and encourage others to follow and ultimately live out their own dreams. The second quote that influence and inspires me to help and support others, as well as becoming a better person, intertwines with my first inspirational quote. This second quote comes from educator and civil rights activist, Dr. Booker T. Washington. Dr. Washington’s quote states, “ [i]f you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else” (Brainy Quotes, n. d. ).
This quote eloquently states that success is not measured in how you support yourself, but how you use your success to help others around you. Once you treat others as your equal and are able to have compassions for others, then your success and/or leadership mean much more than simply holding power. Self-Assessment When I received my report, I was expecting to have an outcome of come of a mixture of the influencer and steadiness behavior style. However, my report indicated a different behavior style.
Interestingly enough, my SportManager DISC profile relates positively, in some areas, to the values and ideas that I hold. According to the personalized Sport Manager DISC profile, I am assessed as having a behavioral style of CS/CS styles. The two CS styles mean that I have a mixture of both the conscientious and steadiness behavior within my adapted style, which is “how you think you should behave” (Personal Communication, SportManager DISC, P. 6, 2016) and natural style known as, “ the ‘real you’”(Personal Communication, SportManager DISC, P. 6. 016) due to my percentages being higher in those two categories. Figure 1: Displaying my strengths and weaknesses among the four personal behavioral styles. Therefore, based on my behavioral style assessment, my Conscientious and Steadiness styles are behavioral patterns that are a part of me either if I acknowledge it or not, which plays a large part in how I deal with my personal and professional relationships.
Firstly, when it comes to having both a Conscientious and Steadiness behavioral style there are both strengths and weaknesses. However, I will first explore and discuss the kills that are positively associated with my behavioral style. A person like myself with a Conscientious behavioral or “C” style is known for its “ accuracy, reliable facts, precision, and high standards” (Personal Communication, SportManager DISC, p. 5, 2016). This simply means that I hold those around me and myself to a higher standard and esteem. This is similar to my work ethic. I like to make sure that everyone around me live up to their full potential and that I live up to a high standard and character, which my work has to reflect as well.
In like manner of the Conscientious behavioral style or “C” style, the steadiness behavioral or “S” style follows the same principal. However, the steadiness style encompasses having “ a great deal of patience, focused, and consistent work-load,[…] and not alter[ing] direction […]” (Personal Communication, SportManager DISC, P. 5, 2016). The “S” behavioral style allows me to understand that my leadership and management style represent that when I have a task or goal at hand, for either myself or others, that I am focused on completing any given task within a timely manner to ensure that it is done correctly.
Therefore, with the combination of the “CS” behavioral style, there are strengths that give a great foundation to continue to build into a leader and teammate in the sports world and personally. In the assessment, it states that some of my strengths as a CS style are: • […] Provide an objective reality-focused view of the training processes and logistical issues affecting your preparation […]. • […] Take your responsibilities seriously and exercise your leadership in a sincere and conscientious manner.
Not an extremist in your views and will be supportive of team efforts. (Personal Communication, SportManager DISC, p. 9, 2016) these three particular strengths along with others that I have acquired because of my behavioral style will and has allowed me to transition easily into a leader, but also, a team member when it is necessary. My strengths display that I am the type of leader and team member who will help train and support fellow worker without any hesitation or stress to complete and accomplish a task successfully.
Existing Experience and Personal Goals Consequently, many of the skills and strengths that are outlined in my SportManager DISC profile correctly describe both my natural and adapted behavioral skills. Some of these skills and strengths have been utilized in the leadership positions that I have held. There are two particular leadership opportunities that taught me and strengthen my communication, time management, and logistical skills.
Both the leadership opportunities that I held were in the form of jobs. Nevertheless, one was within the sports (collegiate) industry and the other in the music industry. Even though I have held leadership positions, many positions have been through being an emergence leader rather than an appointed leader (Kane, 2015). However, holding different leadership positions has allowed me to interact and support different groups of people and accomplish many different tasks.
The first of the two leadership positions that I will talk about bing my leadership position within the sports industry. While working this past fall, I worked under the University of Florida’ University Athletic Association (UFUAA) as a Gator Guest Service Ambassador during Gator Football home games. My responsibilities, working as a Gator Guest Service Ambassador, ranged from distributing game day rosters and promotional items to assisting in the set-up and maintenance of Booster suites and club levels at Ben Hill Griffin stadium.
Even though, as an ambassador there are supervisors who the ambassador reports to, there are many opportunities during either game days or suite set-up days, which allowed me to use my leadership skills either communicating with my fellow ambassadors about rectifying a problem or making sure that game day visitors were enjoying the game day experience by taking a emergence leadership role (Kane, 2015). Even though I was not appointed to have a leadership position, I made sure that if any problems or questions rose that get it was fixed promptly and that my fellow ambassadors felt supported during their shifts.
The second leadership position was through an internship that I held last summer as a personal assistant for a professional singer. During my internship, I was in charge of many different tasks such as contacting agents, creating business agreements, maintaining business records, and creating marketing plans. By being awarded this position as a personal assistant, I was afforded the opportunity to have an appointed leadership position (Kane, 2015) because of my patience, excellent communication and writing skills, and time management skills.
Due to having an internship that placed me into a position of leadership, it allowed me to use many of my leadership attributes correlated to my behavioral styles to present ideas that would benefit my supervisor’s and her executive team’s marketing and promotional campaign. As a result, playing such a pivotal leadership role in both of my previous positions has molded me into becoming a stronger leader in my future career. Consequently, the leadership abilities that I have possessed due by personal experiences and working for the UFUAA and as a personal assistant has been wonderful training to accomplish my professional goals.
After graduating from the University of Florida with my Master’s in Sport Management with a concentration in Sport Marketing, my professional goal is to either move back to my home state of Georgia or stay in Florida. From there, I want to start my career in Sport Marketing at either a large or small marketing firm as a marketing manager and work my way up the ladder. The valuable skills that I have acquired through life experiences and working are: being dependable, hardworking, consistent, and a critical thinker.
With that being said, my professional goal is to enter the sports marketing industry to create and implement new plans and strategies to bring more diversity and inclusion to the demographic that consumes and participate in sports. Therefore, my overall professional goal is to use my leadership and team skills to work on improving the marketing and promotional ideas to welcome individuals of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and creeds to all areas of the sport industry.