Introduction

Some of the most revered catchphrases from the early 2000’s, were statements like, “Reach for the sky, or Theres a snake in my boot.” These simple catchphrases catch the ear of many millennials across the United States of America. These catch phrases are from the well-known franchise of “Toy Story”. Toy Story, for those who are not as familiar with it, is a fictional movie franchise about the lives of some toys. To make a long story short, there is one toy specifically that the story revolves around. To be even more precise, these catch phrases are said by one individual character from the franchise.

This character is known to everyone as,” Woody the Cowboy”. Woody is at the center of this introduction for a few simple reasons. First, throughout every struggle Woody endures and keeps pushing towards his goals. No matter what obstacles come his way, he strives to keep his principal values and strives to the future he sees. This is all done in a way where he is clearly the leader that everyone wants to follow and admire. Secondly, Woody in these box office movies is clearly a leader that others admire. Throughout the different movie series Woody is loved by pretty much everyone until the end of the films. This aspect of Woody reverts us to the main topic of this excerpt. This is a leadership concept that not only emulates throughout the Toy Story account. But is seen in many prominent leaders in history. This concept is called, “Model the Way”.

“Model the Way”, is the leadership concept/topic that I chose for many different reasons. This concept is important to me because I believe it is the foundation for all the other aspects of great leadership. The idea that this concept is the foundation to the other concepts of leadership can further be symbolized in the text, “The Leadership Challenge” (Kouzes & Posner, 1987). It is symbolized by the author as being the founding foundation. This is done in a simple way, The author names 5 different ways to further a person’s leadership capacity ability. The very first foundation is,” Model the Way” followed by, inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Thus, one could say that this makes this concept the foundation to the foundations.

Personally, I find the idea and practice of Model the Way to be interesting. At face value this concept seems easy to understand and practice. On the surface one would think this just simply means, to be a leader you must act and perform duties that are becoming of a leader. As you dig a little deeper you start to understand far more intricate aspects of the concept. One of these ideas for me that was difficult to comprehend was the step of answering the question: who am I? As stated in The Leadership Challenge, “To effectively Model the Way, you must first be clear about your guiding principles. (Kouzes & Posner, 2023 pg.5) Throughout this excerpt we will dive even further into the leadership concept of, “Model the Way”.

To align the Introduction with the purpose of this topic. In general Woody encompasses what it is to be a great leader that keeps his values by first understanding himself and what he holds value to. In the future I want us all to be able to understand and encompass what it is to really Model the way. By doing this topic for the Capstone I am hoping to not only get a better understanding of what it means to be a leader. I hope by the end of the project to understand and be able to state my values and what I stand for, without any doubts or reservations. Hopefully by the end, we all can gain a firm foundation of self-values. This will help us be more equipped to understand each other’s values. Thus, bringing everyone together to more readily compromise in situations where the latter seems impossible.