Ian Knight’s Leadership Biography

My leadership career started in the late 1990’s, and because my manager, whom I was a delegate for, would always take unapproved extended absence and I would end up doing all his work. I never thought about being a leader or manager, probably because I came from a working class background and struggled through my school career. I was an average child with average grades, but always performed at more than 100% in whatever I did. I was not afraid of hard work; my first job was delivering milk at 5:00 am every day before school, and my second job was to deliver newspapers within my neighborhood seven days a week. This job was one of my most rewarding jobs as some of the people in the neighborhood were elderly and I was the only contact some of them had.
The paper delivery shaped me in that it was hard work, and it often rained and was very cold during winter, but I knew I had to get the job done and never shies away or gave up. It was rewarding each week to get that £7.50, and then be able to by sweets (candy) or save for whatever I wanted. From my paper delivery days and the experiences of going to work with my father learning how to cut the grass, look after horses and other animals I ventured on my own into a Saturday morning job for a game keeper, where I would do the very same thing. These life experiences helped me to understand hard work, being reliable, a sense of achievement and that I had a job that I liked to do. All these were intrinsic motivators that gave me a meaning of life and framed the way I am today. The extrinsic motivators of being paid were a bonus, but the experience of being able to put into practice what my father had taught me was priceless (George, Sims, McLean, & Mayer, 2007).
After leaving school and making it through college, my poor grades did not allow me to seek my University aspirations. I landed a job as a laborer, the bottom of the