Leadership & Social Cognitive Theory

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Leadership and the Social Cognitive Theory: S.M. Kovach My sources of leadership are myself and my Store Manager. I believe, as our textbook mentions, that each person has their own inner leadership or self-leadership. I know that every decision I make effects how I handle my life and the lives I am responsible for. The decisions I make largely determine my future. My Store Manager is a source of leadership for me, as right now, I am striving to climb the corporate ladder into management and he exemplifies professionalism and leadership in many ways on a daily basis. I feel confident that he will not lead me astray as my mentor and I trust his judgment and ability to lead our team. Social cognitive theory is described as the relationship between an individual’s personality, behavior, and environment. To me, social cognitive theory is a concept of learning by observation from those around you as well as through your internal self. Thoughts and emotions influence our everyday learning. How we perceive a situation and how we act or react to the same type of situation at a later point in time whether it is in an hour, day, or month, is impacted by the observation of our leaders, peers, and ourselves in the current situation. A behavior change can change the environment (think of positive people who change a culture in an office to become a better place) and the environment can change behavior (think of how differently you would behave on the trading floor of Wall Street as opposed to a regulatory meeting with the SEC). The primary issue is that each of us acts differently in different contexts (Corbett, 2012). How my coworkers act in the back office and how they act on the sales floor is influenced by our managers and which manager is present at the time. When Chris, the store manager, is present everyone minds their manners and gets around and does
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