Melody Klatt

Leadership Reflection
OCCT 657B
3/28/16
During my academic career at Touro University Nevada, I believe that I grew
significantly in my understanding of leadership and my ability to act as a leader inside and
outside of the classroom. Admittedly, before I began the program, I never saw myself as being
much of a leader. I always considered myself to be more of a supportive team member, and
didnt believe that I possessed traits that made me a good leader. During the program, however, I
was given opportunities to discover that I can actually be a leader, and that what I previously
identified as being traits that kept me from being a leader are actually traits that just make me a
different kind of leader.
There are two leadership-based artifacts in my portfolio that I wish to highlight as a
representation of my growth in this area. The first artifact is a picture of me participating in
Health Advisor Day 2015 at Touro as a student ambassador, wherein several of my classmates
and I represented occupational therapy (OT) to various health professionals that came to campus
to learn about our profession. I believe that this opportunity to be a representative of the OT
profession and to lead demonstrations of OT practice skills was a very valuable leadership
experience for me, and it helped me to practice skills of advocacy and setting an example as a
leader in the healthcare community.
The second artifact is the YOUR Brand assignment that I completed during the
Leadership in OT class that my classmates and I took during our sixth and final semester. The
process of completing this assignment was one of the most eye-opening experiences that I had in

terms of discovering my leadership capabilities, as it involved us taking the Strengths Finder 2.0
assessment and identifying what types of leaders we could be classified as, as well as identifying
individual strengths that we all possessed as different types of leaders. It also involved the
process of us developing a brand that represented our strengths and values as a leader, and that
taught me even more about who I am and who I can be as a leader in OT. I ended up discovering
that I could actually consider myself as a leader, and I learned about the value of capitalizing on
my strengths when I take on a leadership role.
Through these experiences and throughout the rest of the leadership experiences that I
had at Touro, I believe that I have grown significantly in my skills and values as a leader in OT.
I believe that the things that I have learned about capitalizing on my strengths - and working
around my weaknesses - as a leader will help me greatly as I enter into my professional career as
an OT, and I believe that this will help me to be a better leader and example for both the clients
and colleagues that I work with. I hope to grow continuously and significantly in my leadership
skills as I finish out the program at Touro and continue on into my career as an OT, and in
particular I hope to work on my weaknesses (or areas for improvement) by developing more
confidence and improving in my ability to seek out leadership opportunities in whatever setting I
might be working in. I want to continue to grow in being able to see myself as a leader, as well,
because this has also been another weakness of mine, and I also want to grow in my ability to be
a supportive and effective team member, as I learned that that is also a very important part of
being a leader.