Date: March 1

st
, 2014
Subject: Speakers Styles and Messages
To: Dorothy Bullitt
From: Mitchell Walton

The speakers represented in this course have all contributed to my understanding of
leadership in a professional setting and on a personal level. Two speakers, Father Stephen
Sundborg and Sten Crissey, provided the class with messages that I strongly connected with.
Both presentations gave me insight into how I can improve as a leader and reinforced the
importance of people and relationships in successful leadership.
Father Sundborg started his lecture on Leading From the Heart by saying that
leadership is personal and that is about the way that you engage and relate to other people. I
connected with this statement as someone with a blue communication style and an affiliative
leadership style because I feel that my strong relationships with others are the main factors that
allow me to be a strong leader. Engaging with people and forming relations is a priority for me in
any leadership setting, and Father Sundborg represented that ideal well in his opening. I was
impressed by his story where, when lecturing to a group, he redefined leadership as influencing
others through relationship. This definition allowed his audience to see themselves and those
around them as leaders. This message would have been important for me to hear in my early
years of high school because I never saw myself as a leader. It took a long time for me to change
my view of leadership to incorporate myself, so his message is one I will share with my kids one
day to help them gain the confidence to see themselves as leaders. Another defining aspect of
Father Sundborgs lecture was his message about incorporating the I and the It in any
leadership role. Integrity is a core aspect of my leadership style, and although I had not heard this
message before Father Sundborgs lecture, I found that incorporating of who I am with the roles
and responsibilities of any job I hold is important to me. Maintaining my responsibilities as a
leader while maintaining my integrity is a goal I will strive for in every future situation, and
Father Sundborgs lecture helped clarify how significant this is to me. The final lesson that I
received from his lecture was about work-life balance. This is somthing that I would like to
improve on, and the way that Father Sundborg finds balance inspired me to try harder in this
area. His message about reflection and its importance connected with me, so I started a journal
after his lecture in order to be more reflective about my feelings and interests. Writing something
down every day has allowed me to understand how I deal with good days, stressful days, and
other experiences, so I am looking forward to continuing this journal and reflecting back on it.
Sten Crissey spoke about how failure can lead to success, and his message was one that I
needed to hear because, like many people, I fear failure. It makes me uncomfortable and causes
me to doubt myself. Last spring, I went through multiple failures while applying for jobs and
volunteer positions I hoped to get for fall quarter. I worked hard to make sure my applications
and interviews were strong, but I was unable to secure my target job, my back-up job, or the
volunteer positions I wanted. All of this bad news came within a two-week time frame, and I felt
terribly about these failures. Stens story about Valentines Day resonated with me and allowed
me to reflect on last springs situation. After his lecture, I was able to realize that those failures
are only going to help me grow as a leader, and that taking time to reflect and reorganize myself
would be beneficial. He knew what had gone wrong on Valentines Day, and found solutions to
overcome those issues the following year. The message I got from his story is that this year is my
second chance. I am going to come up with ways to strengthen myself as an applicant so that I
can achieve success with my job and volunteer aspirations for next year. The organization that he
showed by compiling his suggestions for overcoming flower-shop failure into a book really
spoke to his green and blue communication style. He was organizing his thoughts while
simultaneously providing help to others, and I really respected that. Another aspect of Stens
presentation that connected with me came when he spoke about how failure builds character,
especially when you own up to it. I was slightly bitter after my consecutive failures last spring,
and I wish I would have known that the best course of action is to own up when things go wrong.
I know this would have helped me get over my initial frustration more quickly. Sten said that if
you never acknowledge error, you can never correct error, and now I know that
acknowledgement will be the first thing I do when I come in contact with failure again. One
thing that I appreciated from his lecture was that he took the time to build relationships and
connect with people through his failure. His action of calling his customers individually and
apologizing was humble, sincere, and showed me how important people are to him. Sten said
that his measure of success was whether or not his employees were smiling at the end of the day,
and I will never forget that. Those words embodied his blue communication style, and I highly
respect him for his caring approach to leadership.
Presenter Class
Communication
Styles
Leadership
Styles
Leadership Message/Work-Life
Balance
Bill Center
Taking Care
of Your
People
Brown/Red Coaching
Know your stuff, be a person of character
and integrity, take care of your people,
and study history. Had no work-life
balance in the Navy.
Paul Ishii
Intuitive
Leadership
Brown/Red Coaching
Know your product or service, dont jump
to conclusions, avoid panic, find good
mentors, and keep an open door policy.
Work-life balance: You are lucky if you
like your job.
Paul Dziedzic
How Can a
Team Achieve
Success?
Red/Blue
Coaching/
Authoritative
Understand what success is, and focus on
succeeding together. Work-life balance is
more likely achieved when you ask
yourself What do I enjoy doing? and
figuring out how you can connect that to
a job.
Father Stephen
Sundborg
Leading From
the Heart
Green/Blue Authoritative
Leadership is personal. Leading from the
heart is the core of leadership. To lead is
to influence others through relationship.
Integration of whom you are and what
you need to do is key. He achieves work-
life balance through journaling, poetry,
reflection, and taking time off to relax
and take [his] spirit for a walk
Grace Chien
Leading
When You
Are Not In
Charge
Green Democratic
Two types of leadership platforms:
Formal Platform/Authority and Informal
Platform the ability to influence the
actions of others. Informal platform is not
positional, and depends on trust, shared
values, and shared vision. For work-life
balance, prioritization is mandatory.
Balance demands of work with quality
time spent with others.
Sten Crissey
How Failure
Can Lead to
Success
Blue/Green
Affiliative,
Pace-Setting,
Democratic,
and a bit
Coercive
If you do not acknowledge error, you can
never correct error. There is not a line of
distinction between work and life; they
overlap. The substance of life becomes
more enjoyable as you engage in it.
Adrienne
Quinn
Motivational
Leadership
Green/Brown Coaching
Motivation can come from a clear vision,
a plan, from praise, from engaging in
decision-making, and from focusing on
the gain to be had. Exercise and having
time to sit and think are important for
work-life balance.