Taking Initiative: How to be More of a Leader in Your Own Job

Course Description:

Leaders are born not made.
I could never be a leader because you have to be really great, like Martin Luther King, Jr., or John F. Kennedy.

These quotes represent a very traditional viewpoint about leadership – that leadership is a mysterious quality granted to only a few privileged people, and if one is not born with that quality, one cannot acquire it. Contemporary viewpoints hold that leadership is more than an invisible quality acquired in the womb. Today's theories of leadership are based on the belief that leadership is a composite of behaviors that can be learned, developed, and used by anyone in working with others to carry out a task. In other words, leadership often may mean taking initiative, seeing a need or a job to be done, and taking the lead to get it done, regardless of whether or not one is called a leader.

In today's "work smarter, not harder," highly competitive work arena, it is essential that all members of the work force, at all levels, take the lead in improving productivity. When workers take initiative, speak up, share ideas, and make input into how a job can be done most effectively and efficiently, the entire organization benefits. This one day program, developed specifically for those who do not have the title leader or manager, is designed to broaden participants' understanding of what leadership is and to raise their awareness of how they can take the lead in their own jobs.