I’m a natural born leader. I was told I was a leader back in kindergarten, and at that time, I didn’t know what that meant. As I’ve grown into who God has called me to become, being a leader is everything to me. I’m more conscious of how I use my words and my presence.
I consider myself an example of walking empowerment. My personal mission is to empower, educate and encourage individuals through engagement. If I’m engaging someone, whether it’s a genuine conversation or a formal meeting, I always look to offer encouragement for them to push forth.
Through pursuing my education, I learned more about who I am as a servant leader. When you are a servant leader, your passion is what pushes you to do what needs to be done. However, that can also be a barrier if you don’t learn how to balance and implement those things. When you’re taking care of and leading people, you have to know how to contribute to yourself and how to keep professional development at the forefront to continue moving forward.
Practical Application to HOAP
Through the organizational leadership program at Cornerstone University, I learned my strengths, my weaknesses, things to focus on and different tools that can be used in a team setting. Everything I was doing as a leader of HOAP Inc. matched what I was learning in my program at the time. It was almost as if God had the curriculum strategized to help me to answer questions that needed to be answered and implement and tweak things that were already in place.
Obtaining my degree at Cornerstone’s Professional & Graduate Studies had a direct influence in changing things with HOAP. We now have a team of young mothers who are helping us see where the future is for HOAP. We can’t serve our audience if we don’t have our audience involved in the organization and its mission. Being able to put that team together was a direct result of what I learned at PGS.
Our leadership team started looking at how we were doing things based on what my knowledge was when I started and how things could be done to work smarter and not harder. I could attribute what I was learning and make executive decisions by looking at our foundation. I gained a sense of what takes place behind the scenes in order for any business to be successful.
Leadership and Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning is certainly important for any leader. We will never know it all. Every day, we can learn something new. I’m also a firm believer that if you don’t apply what you’re learning, then you’ll continue to get the same results.
Education is power—it’s extremely important to continue your education. Yet we also need to pay attention to the future that God has for us. Had I not gone through the experiences that I went through, I would not have the direction I have today. There’s a reason for all of us. We’re all born with a purpose, and we need to know what that purpose is. PGS affirmed that purpose for me. And I’m able to grow stronger than ever because of the education I was able to get at Cornerstone.
