RUNNING HEAD: INSPIRATION 1

Inspiration

OGL 482 Organizational Leadership Pro-Seminar II

David Brown

July 14, 2021

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Inspiration

My life has always been full of turning points as I grew up, from watching my elders and

how they treated others and their leadership traits. You never understand it as a child or young

adult until you yourself get older and learn things, from who you want to be as a person and how

you want others to look at you. I moved around a lot as a kid until I was in high school, my

father was a truck driver so when I wasn’t with him during school time staying with different

people in my family I was on the road with him. I had (to say the least) a different childhood

than most kids, traveling, living in different places in the country experiencing things most kids

do not. Even though my father did not make some of the best decision while I was going up he is

still the best leader I know, always showing me right from wrong, treat others the way you want

to be treated and always lead by example even if others will look down on you for doing so. As I

got older I noticed how important it was to be a leader and show others they can depend on me

and come to me for direction.

I bounced from school to school growing up until I hit high school, meeting new people,

having to make new friends, seeing how each new teacher a leader in their own way was the

different styles of teaching each of them had. I had one teacher in the sixth grade in Colorado

who I can’t remember her name, but she had a big impact in the short time I was with her. She

had a genuine concern for what it was that I saw my self doing when I grew up she would always

said “you’ll be grown up before you know it, what do you want to do when you grow up?” I

have always thought about that after I left that school. My father and stepmom were always

working or on the road for work, so I was left to tend to my younger sibling for almost my whole

life no mater where we were at. I knew one thing about the comment “what I want to be when I

grow up” was I knew for sure I wanted to be a father at some point, but not to early in life. After
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my father and stepmom split when I was about ten and him and I left we ended up in Las Vegas

and I somewhat felt lost without helping raise my younger siblings. I started focusing on sports

thinking I would be able to get a scholar ship of some sort in sports, I played football, soccer, in

high school I was also part of football, dive and track and field and I was really good at track and

field and thought I could go the distance.

By the time I had hit the seventh grade I knew I wanted to go to Annapolis to become a

Naval Officer, everyone in my family for generations had served in some branch or another of

the military and I knew I wanted too as well. The men in my life have always been great leaders

to me and I wanted to be a great leader as well, I knew that there was an older veteran that lived

down the road from us that I had talked to every once in a while to but started to talk to him more

and more as I got older, and he became mentoring me once I told him I wanted to be a Naval

Officer. He told me often that “you need to have good grades and keep good grades if you want

to get into any good college or military academy, if you can’t read and write good you can’t get

anywhere.” He had said come to him when he was old enough and ready to join he would write

me a letter of recommendation to the Naval Academy. I had always been an A and B student all

through out school no matter the subject I was good at it, in the seventh grade I was inducted into

the National Junior Honors Society with a 4.0 gpa I was also inducted in the eighth grade at a

brand-new school it was also their first year open as a school.

Even though by this time I was starting high school and a moved again I hadn’t moved

states I just moved across town and had to start all over again, I still had Naval Officer in my

mind of what I wanted to do and continued to maintain my gpa high. I entered a freshman in high

school in honor classes and was proud I knew the last four years could determine my future and

what I could do with it. It was my last semester of freshman year, I was passing all of my other
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classes with A’s. My final grades came out and I had saw I failed my algebra honors class by

0.2% I was so beat down and knew that grade had shot down any chances I had to be accepted

into Annapolis Naval Academy. I took summer school to help my gpa and bring it up, but I was

so beat down from receiving a low grade in a class I felt it was hopeless.

Once my sophomore year started and failing the class before it had left a bitter taste for

school and was pretty much done with school after that, I became the lazy student, never doing

my homework but still getting A’ and B’s on the test but homework was part of the grade, so I

started to become a B and C student. I still knew if I could not become a Naval Officer I wanted

to serve in some branch because my family had. I had focused more on the high school sports

seeing how I was a good athlete each sport season would come around and I would do football,

or dive team and track and field. Many of the coaches I had were lacking in true coaching style

and rarely showed any leadership or inspiration to the non “star” players they showed a lot of

nepotism to those who they were certain that would do anything to get the win for them.

When I wasn’t playing sports, I was working with my father who was a concrete finisher

and supervisor of a concrete company. He was a leader to many of the guys on the crew his style

was always more of the aggressive or authoritarian leadership it was “his way or the highway.” I

had worked with him during my sophomore summer and knew going into junior year was a year

to become more serious about my future. I knew I wanted to join the military and my first choice

was Army I wanted to be a paratrooper I knew there were recruiters that would hang out in the

halls of the juniors and seniors. After standing back and observing the Army recruiters of how

they dresses and acted I was not impressed, even they were in uniform they looked so

unprofessional and didn’t have tidy uniforms and never talked properly. The Marine Corps

recruiter was there as well, and he looked and talked professional and held himself with pride,
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but I was never able to get ahold of him to talk further about what steps I needed to take. The

other branches never seemed to be in or around our school for me to talk to them. There was a

new recruiter that was assigned to our school who actually showed up at my doorstep asked for

my father who obviously was too old to serve anymore, he sent in for a free t-shirt. My father

had asked him if he wanted to talk to me since I was interested in joining, I was on board and

swore in, in my junior year I was apart of the delayed entry program and would leave once I

graduated from high school.

With being in the delayed entry program you were supposed to go with all the other

recruiters on the weekends and run or train with them. The head recruiter wasn’t a fan that I

didn’t show up to all of the runs on the weekends, since he didn’t like my I didn’t get the job I

wanted. I wanted to be able to get a job in the Marines that would translate to a civilian career

when I got out. I didn’t get a choice and ended up in Communications repair. After graduating

and going off to boot camp I can’t really make a statement on the leadership techniques, it was

more of a culture shock for me, so I never paid attention to any specific leadership. I was used to

the authoritarian leadership due to my father being a military man so that what it reminded me

of. So, boot camp was fairly easy for me being I was a good athlete and commanding wise from

growing up.

Throughout my whole career in the Marines, I never had any negative reports against

me, I was promoted before my peers. I didn’t truly identify my leadership style until I became in

a leadership rank, I was squad captain for many months and would have the highest scores as a

test in those months I was squad captain. Of all the places to learn how to truly lead within the

military in my opinion was with in a combat zone while deployed in Afghanistan, you know you

have to be on top of your game and be able to lead your team to safety each time you leave the
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base until you get back. I have always been a persuasive leader even when giving a command I

give it in question form, I knew I had to be giving a command, but I also wanted to show my

support and also show that I was a good leader. During my time in the Marines, I had those

leaders that were lazy didn’t show their peers that could trust them in a combat situation or

played favorites. I realized than that is not the type of leader I wanted to be or was going to be, I

wanted to be the leader everyone could look to for support. I never forgot where I came from and

many of my leaders had forgot what it was like to be in those lower ranks. I never gave a

command that I wouldn’t do or hadn’t done before myself, I always took care of my

subordinates, always assisting them or covering for them when I shouldn’t have.

When it came time to get out of the Marines and start my civilian life I found it difficult

to find employment that matched my experience level even though I had been in a supervisor

position for over three years. I had problems finding a career that would accept the leadership

and management experience that I had gained as a Marine. A lot of people had a hard time

identifying with that. So unfortunately, I had to start my career in the civilian workforce as if I

had just out of high school. This was one of the most trying times for me as an adult in my

middle twenties having to work as if I was an eighteen-year-old. I did find work that I thought I

could make a career out of, but I was in a position that matched an eighteen-year-old experience.

Luckily that position was short lived because the supervisor I had was also a military veteran and

knew what I was going through when switching from military work to civilian work force. He

saw that I was able to not only lead but I would take on any tasks that were assigned and give no

back talk and would get it done fast and with more quality than anyone else. So, within a year

and a half I had been promoted to Workflow Specialist which is the team lead or supervisor. I

had to readjust not only my leadership style but my outlook on my leadership abilities because I
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was no longer in the military. Now the people under me were able to criticize and critique my

abilities and the tasks that I assigned them. The start of my college journey started in order to

take a management position due to the Health and Safety Environmental manager retiring, so an

OGL degree fit the bill to do what I wanted, and I felt it is where I belonged.

I want to be the person that doesn’t just lead my peers, but I want to be able to be the

leader that helps create more leaders as I go, I want to be able to make a difference in someone

else’s life in their journey to becoming a great leader. I know I have the confidence to make the

tough decision as it comes to being the great leader an organization needs. When I started this

journey, I was only out to do it for myself and my family to be a better person to support them.

As I went further into it I realized that it wasn’t going to be just for me I was doing it for

everyone around me, I have seen so many videos and TEDtalks throughout my classes and they

each spoke to me in a different way. The TEDtalk with Emily Esfahani Smith kind of tied all of

the others I have seen. She explains the four pillars of meaningful life, I never looked at it as

belonging, purpose, transcendence, and storytelling. Everyone wants to feel belonged to

something, I never really cared until I got further into my degree, I wanted to be more valued

with what knowledge I had of leadership and what I could do. I had a purpose when I went to

work I am able to share my strengths with others and help them become better people. Most

people who have never taken a leadership class would never understand what it is to be a great

leader.

Every leadership experience I have had throughout my life has helped me get to where I

am today, whether they were good leadership experiences that will stick with me forever, or bad

leadership experiences that I know that is what I never want my self to be as a leader. Getting

this degree in Organizational Leadership is a steppingstone in my life to help me succeed and

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have the tools to succeed in my life both professionally and personally. I know I can honestly say

that everything that I have learned has made a difference in my life and I know I have been given

the proper tools to succeed. Each and every one of my professors has been phenomenal leader in

my life along my journey to getting my degree.

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References

TEDtalksDirector. (2017, September 26). There's more to life than being happy | Emily Esfahani
Smith. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Trdafp83U.