Good and Bad Leadership Experiences in the Classroom
This reflection paper examines a student's personal experiences with effective and ineffective leadership in a university classroom setting. Drawing on encounters with two supportive professors and one disengaged instructor, the paper explores how qualities such as emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and servant leadership shape the learning environment. The student contrasts professors who fostered open communication and genuine student engagement with a professor who treated teaching as a mechanical obligation. From these experiences, the student derives personal lessons about the kind of leader they aspire to become, emphasizing humility, community, and a commitment to helping others succeed.
- Introduction: Overview of good and bad professor encounters
- The Two Good Professors: Servant leadership and emotional intelligence in practice
- The One Bad Professor: Disengaged teaching and dismissive leadership style
- Lessons Learned: Aspirations to practice servant leadership personally
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper uses vivid, concrete personal anecdotes to ground abstract leadership concepts — servant leadership and emotional intelligence are not just named but illustrated through specific classroom moments.
- The contrast structure (two good professors versus one bad professor) is clean and purposeful, making the argument easy to follow and the evidence easy to evaluate.
- The student's self-aware voice — acknowledging past shyness, personal growth, and the desire to model admired leadership — gives the reflection authenticity and depth.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates how to anchor personal reflection in academic theory. Rather than simply narrating experiences, the student ties observations to named leadership frameworks (servant leadership, emotional intelligence, destructive leadership) and supports claims with peer-reviewed citations (Schyns & Schilling, 2013; Anand et al., 2005). This technique — moving from lived experience to theoretical framing — is the hallmark of an effective reflection paper at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a four-part structure: an introduction that previews the contrast and states the student's leadership values; a section on positive professor experiences with specific behavioral examples; a section on the negative professor experience using the same behavioral lens; and a conclusion that synthesizes lessons into personal leadership aspirations. The symmetry between the positive and negative sections strengthens the comparative argument.
Introduction
In school I have had good and bad experiences in dealing with leaders. Two good experiences I had with professors at my university were in classes where the professors recognized that I was an international student. I appreciated their recognition because it is something that is obvious but not always acknowledged. One bad experience I had with a professor was a situation where the professor did not care to get to know the students and seemed to be there simply because it was a job, not because she loved doing it. My favorite teachers have been those who show a genuine interest in students. To me, they possess leadership qualities like Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence. They also demonstrate servant leadership skills, which I appreciate because it suggests they truly care about helping students achieve their goals.
When teachers act as though they are superior and all-knowing, treating students as unintelligent simply because they lack degrees, I feel the teacher is compensating for some internal absence and is not being a good leader. Bad leaders bring negative energy to an environment and can pull down morale (Schyns & Schilling, 2013) — and that is exactly what happened in my experience with a professor who did not show that she cared about students.
References
Anand, V., Ashforth, B., & Joshi, M. (2005). Business as usual: The acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organizations. Academy of Management Executive, 19(4), 9–23.
Schyns, B., & Schilling, J. (2013). How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 24, 138–158.
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