Reflection Essay

This reflection focuses on how my leadership degree program helped me grow in leadership, communication, and attention to detail through both academic and personal experiences. Throughout the program, I connected leadership theories and coursework to real-life situations at work, in friendships, and as a mother. By reflecting on artifacts such as my leadership credo, workplace projects, technical documentation, and communication deliverables, I can see how much these experiences shaped the way I lead and interact with others. More than anything, this program helped me realize that leadership is not limited to titles or professional settings—it shows up in everyday life through communication, patience, accountability, and the way we support the people around us.

Throughout my leadership degree program, I’ve learned that leadership is so much more than having a title or being the person in charge. For me, leadership has become about how you communicate, support others, and show up consistently in everyday situations. Balancing school, full-time work, relationships, and motherhood has helped me realize that leadership often happens in small moments that people do not always recognize.

As I reflect on the experiences and artifacts included in my portfolio, I can clearly see growth in my leadership, communication, and attention to detail skills. More importantly, I can see how these skills have shaped me not only professionally, but personally as well.

One of the biggest things this program helped me do was define the kind of leader I want to be. Writing my leadership credo forced me to think beyond leadership theories and really reflect on my own values and actions. I realized that the leadership style I connect with most is rooted in encouragement, accountability, patience, and trust. Concepts like transformational leadership, which focus on motivating and supporting others toward shared goals, really stood out to me because I could connect them directly to experiences in my own life (Northouse, 2022).

One thing I’ve learned throughout this program is that leadership is not something you wait to do once you have a management position or an official title. You can lead from wherever you are. I saw this firsthand in my role as a project engineer when I facilitated a “lessons learned” discussion with my team. Instead of focusing on blame or mistakes, I wanted to create a space where people could openly reflect on what worked, what did not, and how we could improve moving forward. That experience showed me that leadership often looks like helping people feel heard and creating opportunities for growth within a team. Research also supports the idea that leadership development grows through experience, collaboration, and reflection over time (Day et al., 2014).

At the same time, I started recognizing leadership in more personal areas of my life too. One example I included in my portfolio involved encouraging a friend to stay consistent with going to the gym. While it may seem unrelated to leadership at first, it required many of the same skills I use professionally: encouragement, accountability, consistency, and leading by example. Experiences like this helped me understand that leadership is present in everyday relationships just as much as it is in professional settings.

Honestly, one of the biggest personal takeaways from this program has been learning how to communicate better with the people around me. Before, I often listened with the intention of responding quickly or solving the problem right away. Through my coursework, work experiences, and personal reflection, I’ve learned how important it is to listen to truly understand people first. That shift has improved my friendships, strengthened communication at work, and even changed the way I approach parenting.

As a mother, I’ve learned the importance of patience and meeting my son where he is instead of expecting immediate understanding or perfection. I’ve become more intentional about slowing down, listening, and understanding what he needs in the moment. In a lot of ways, motherhood has become one of the biggest places where I practice leadership every single day. This program helped me realize that leadership is not always loud or formal. Sometimes leadership looks like consistency, empathy, and creating a supportive environment where people feel safe to grow.

Another major area of growth for me has been attention to detail. My engineering coursework and professional responsibilities pushed me to become more organized, precise, and thoughtful in the way I approach my work. Artifacts like my research paper, Procore Request for Information (RFI), and panel energization tracking spreadsheet all reflect that growth. Before these experiences, I mostly viewed attention to detail as simply “not making mistakes.” Now, I understand that it directly impacts communication, teamwork, and trust. In technical and team-based environments, precision and accountability are essential because even small details can affect an entire project (Morgeson et al., 2016).

Communication overall has probably been the skill I’ve grown in the most. Through presentations, written proposals, charts, and collaborative projects, I became more confident in adapting my communication style depending on the audience and situation. Some situations required professionalism and precision, while others required empathy, patience, or collaboration. Effective communication is considered one of the core components of leadership because it allows people to work together, build trust, and create shared understanding (Hackman & Johnson, 2013). Through these experiences, I’ve become more aware that communication is not just about speaking clearly, but also about making people feel understood.

When I look back at all of these experiences together, what stands out most is how connected these skills really are. Leadership, communication, and attention to detail constantly overlap in both my personal and professional life. Whether I’m leading a discussion at work, supporting a friend, collaborating with coworkers, or parenting my son, those same skills continue showing up in different ways.

This reflection process has also helped me recognize areas where I still want to grow. While I’ve become more confident in leadership situations, I still want to continue improving my ability to navigate uncertainty, difficult conversations, and high-pressure environments. Reflecting on experiences and learning from them is an important part of continued growth and leadership development (Kolb, 1984). This process reminded me that leadership is something you continue developing throughout your life and career.

Overall, this degree program gave me more than just academic knowledge. It gave me a better understanding of myself, my strengths, and the kind of impact I want to have on the people around me. More than anything, it taught me that leadership is not limited to professional settings. It exists in the way we communicate, support others, solve problems, and show up consistently in everyday life. As I prepare to graduate, I feel more confident not only in my professional skills, but also in my ability to apply those skills in meaningful ways as a coworker, friend, leader, and mother.

REFERENCES

Day, D. V., Fleenor, J. W., Atwater, L. E., Sturm, R. E., & McKee, R. A. (2014). Leadership development: A review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 63–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.11.004

Hackman, M. Z., & Johnson, C. E. (2013). Leadership: A communication perspective (6th ed.). Waveland Press.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.

Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S., & Karam, E. P. (2016). Leadership in teams: A functional approach to understanding leadership structures and processes. Journal of Management, 42(2), 523–558. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315627376

Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publications.