Semester Journal Essay

CDT. Joyner, Emiliano

ROTC, University of West Florida

MSL 2101

SFC. Blackmore, CPT. Yost

November 25, 2022

 This semester in the MSL2101 I believe I have learned a great deal of good and

valuable information that will not soon be forgotten. SFC. Blackmore and CPT. Yost

have covered a variety of topics that are essential in building an ideal leader for the U.S.

Army. The purpose of my writing today is to delve in deeper into what we have learned

this semester and specifically what I have taken away from it.

This semester we covered a variety of topics such as cultural awareness,

essentials of building teams, ethics, briefings, the law of land warfare, military code of

conduct, first aid, and finally leadership. As I have said previously, we packed in a lot of

information on a very short schedule. This was done because all the topics that were

covered are extremely important and are needed to become a successful leader. With

that being said, I personally found some of the lessons that we covered to be more

important and pertinent. In my opinion, the lessons on team building and leadership

analysis stuck out the most to me.

In the lesson that dealt with team building we talked about how to efficiently build

a team. To expand on this, we learned the definition of a team, three stages of team

development, attributes of effective teams, team roles, and communication. I feel that

this lesson was important because to be a good leader one must know how to

effectively build a team or at the very least keep one sustained. This lesson showed us

how to do just that and will aid me to do so in the future.

As for leadership analysis we learned to analyze the qualities, attributes, different

types of leadership, and even successful leaders of the past that we could learn and

draw inspiration from. To sum this lesson up, we talked about what makes a good

leader. This lesson is obviously very important because, after all, we are in this program
to become the future leaders of the Army. We spent longer talking about leadership

than any of the other topics, and I feel rightfully so. It covers such a span of information,

and the other lessons are often tied back into it.

I found both the lessons of teambuilding and leadership analysis to be important

because I believe they go very well together and are the building blocks to be a

successful leader. To be efficient in team building means to be able to work and

effectively communicate with your soldiers. If you are well versed in leadership analysis

you are able to mold yourself into a good leader that soldiers will want to follow. To be a

good leader one must know their followers and themselves.

These lessons were important to me because of my background. I came into this

program as prior service and was already enlisted in the U.S. Army. I have experienced

much of what we talk about in class firsthand and am well versed in a majority of it, such

as land navigation, cultural awareness, code of conduct, first aid, etc. I am by no means

a subject matter expert though, and the refreshers are much appreciated. With that

being said, something I have no real experience with is leadership in the army. I have

never been a leader at a higher level and going over leadership in class provoked much

thought and made me reflect on myself. As we were going through the lessons of

leadership analysis and team building, I thought of how I would and could lead in the

future. I will take what I have learned and build upon it and become a great leader.