As I think about professionalism, I feel that I am very aware of myself in this area because I have been brought up in a way where I was taught to encompass these aspects. I would give myself a score of 47. In evaluating my punctuality I would say I score a 9. I was always on time for meetings with my team, as many of my team members can attest to. The extra meetings with career services, and others, I was always very prompt. The reason I would ding myself one point off is that I was slightly tardy to class on two different occasions; no more than one or two minutes late, but still late. With regards to my participation I feel I scored a 10. I was always engaged with the lectures and class exercises. Though many of our class exercises were in partners or small groups, in contrast to having large class discussions, I feel as I contributed fully to the activities. For example, in the design-thinking workshop, I worked thoroughly with my partner to take part in the exercise. I always filled out the documents we received in class to supplement our learning during these activities. Respecting others is a category I felt I scored a 10 in. All of my group members know that respect is something I hold in very high regard, and would reinforce my abilities. Our group meetings were focused and I was sometimes the one to redirect conversation from others being distracted. Respectfulness is a characteristic I have always possessed from the example my parents set for me at a very young age. My dad always said that “there is no age in which people should be respected more or less, everyone deserves the same amount.” I truly try to establish respect with everyone I encounter because I do not know how it could benefit me down the road. Preparedness is an important part of being organized, and I would peg myself as a very organized person. My self-score for this area would be a 10. The weekly readings and keeping up on the to-do list were priority for me. I do not function well in chaos, and so I make a point to be as prepared as I can be for what I am working on. In my evaluation of one of my team members, I even noted that he needed to be more prepared for our meetings. Being up to date with the assignments and readings would have really helped our group work more effectively. This in itself shows that I take preparation very seriously. In the area of motivation and initiative I would give myself an 8. Motivation in university, not just this class, is something I have always struggled with. I feel that sometimes my attitude was not very positive towards certain tasks performed in this term. I was motivated to do well academically, but sometimes was skeptical of assignments and whether they would truly benefit me personally. I really appreciated all the work we did with the Career Services and that helped me during this season of internship searching. That was valuable knowledge that I wish I knew at an earlier time. I took quite a bit of initiative with our project in doing further research with international students and their career struggles. My group members, and their feedback can support my evaluation.

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During the course of the term, I have observed and learned many things about myself, and how I interact with others. I established at the beginning of the term that I wanted to improve my Challenging of the Process, and my self-management. Another small portion of my improvement was to work on Inspiring a Shared Vision. As my teammates mentioned in the first feedback session: “work on inspiring a shared vision, think more outside the box, be a little more open minded.” Those are all good critiques of what I needed to work on. This evidence suggests that what I decided during the first two weeks of the term lines up with what my teammates had observed in me during the first half of the course. It is encouraging to know that I was able to accurately pinpoint my weaknesses from the get go. The only caveat to that is those feedback responses were at the mid-way point of the class.

Obviously self-development takes a fair amount of time to start making changes, but I am a little disappointed that I did not seem to progress a fair amount during the first half of our project. I would say that my actions and behaviors I changed in the first half were listening more in group meetings, and changing my tone when speaking during those meetings. The reason I chose to listen more is that I could help to challenge the process. I am quite a vocal person, and I tend to command conversations in a group setting. I consciously worked to listen more so that I could ask those questions that would help develop our ideas for the proposal. When I would just speak freely to what we were discussing, I would lose perspective on what to think about, and was too busy thinking to infuse my own ideas rather than build on other members. In being aware of my tone, this really is an aspect I continually work on to manage myself. Group members are directly affected in how I present information, and how that information is framed. For example, when conducting research for our project, I could come back with the results in a very positive manner, but the results may not be actually helpful to our process. I could also relay the findings in a lower key fashion, which would maybe have less of an impact, at least on a surface level, but really be groundbreaking data. Granted, this level of self-awareness is hard to measure, but I feel that from the final feedback responses, I made less progress in this situation. Members of my team stated to me that I could be more enthusiastic about the class, and the project. In this situation it is tough because I do really care about the success of the group and our project, but I find it hard to convey that to others in order to inspire them. Schoolwork is the same at every level; my perspective has changed only slightly over the years. I have never been super excited about school related activities. I enjoy learning, but do not always find that in the format of courses I have taken. What I guess I am trying to say is that I have never been one to promote the fervor to love doing tasks for a grade. I think that is the main reason I struggle with inspiring others to work towards a goal that is seemingly fictitious in nature. With that said, I am still going to need to work on this aspect of my leadership development. I am certain that when I work in the real world, I will be faced with tasks that seem pointless and redundant, but need to be completed with precision and diligence. So in looking forward, I shall be aware of my tone and attitude towards projects and group work. The emotional intelligence aspects are much more difficult to work on compared to the 5 behaviors from Kouzes and Posner’s practices of leadership. These things are more engrained into my character, and will be harder to make drastic changes to.

I think the largest part of leadership not captured by these readings or this course is that leadership is not a one size fits all behavior. Everyone has their presuppositions of what great leaders should look like, but in reality, there are many different leaders with various leading styles. Some lead quietly while others are boisterous and charismatic. I would say that leadership in itself should not be completely confined by a definition, or research of academics. There is the one immeasurable characteristic of leading, and that is presence. Nobody in the entire world can measure an individual’s presence. There is no formula or way to teach presence. When someone can be commanding just by walking into a room, you know that they can bring many other attributes to a team. The fact that they have experienced enough to create the presence they exude in the first place should be evidence enough for people to look up to them. I could tell that by towards this conclusion of the project, a few of my group members would arrive and command respect just by their presence. It was great to see this and I hope to emulate their progress in becoming successful leaders.

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In performing our final presentation, I think I need to work on my presentation skills a little. I fumbled words and some of my talking points. It was not because I did not know my material. Spending the last 3 weeks refining our proposal is proof of that. For some reason I was anxious to present to a faux committee. It could be my inherent human nature to fear this situation, but also could be my lack of experience in speaking opportunities. I never liked public speaking from a young age, it is not my favorite thing to do. Obviously I imagine many people share this view because it puts individuals in a vulnerable position. Furthermore, I compared myself to members of my group, which I feel all of them did a solid job of presenting. I should probably put myself in the position to have more speaking experiences, to better my skills for the workplace when I am going to be presenting things that have a serious impact. The project is clearly supposed to be taken seriously, but the actual implementation of these programs is not exactly bound to happen. Though I did speak with a professor of mine recently who is in a group of professors that are figuring out ways to incorporate international students into the LCB better. This was quite encouraging and I have sent him our final proposal. A bit nerve racking because it may actually be considered for students here in the LCB. So who knows what will come of this.

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Week 8 has come to a close, and I can barely stand to think about a proposal any more. My patience is waining along with my attitude. Trying to keep a cool head about presenting next week, but we are the first group to go. There is a bit of time pressure for our group to get everything buttoned up ASAP. On a positive note, the proposal has come together far more persuasive than our previous one. I would say our solution is quite doable and is something that many international students would benefit from. I am just so uncertain about the grading criteria of this class I feel I could get a C or an A, it is really very confusing. At any rate, it is one class of many.

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This week has been a test of patience. Our team has spent all week trying to figure out the root cause of out problem, amongst scheduling time to meet as members of the group are very busy. I have learned that we work much better together than individually. Group unity is a strength that we possess, and it should be a great asset to us as we finish up the term. The worst part about this week is the progress on the actual proposal final. We have spent much time brainstorming and figuring out our new direction, but not very much of that has been spent putting words on the page. Granted, we have a whole first draft to pull from, but it is quite incomplete when compared to the expectation of our final draft. Ron continues to stretch our minds in how we analyze a situation. He plays the devil’s advocate of every detail known to man… I would say the most critical professor I’ve had yet. This is great for innovating for the project, but not conducive to motivating team members. Yet another week filled with new problems, we come just that much closer to the end.

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This week we turned our first draft of the proposal in. Only 2 days before it was due, we changed the whole direction of our solution. Thanks to the advice of our professor, we  found a better solution. We came up with a case competition for international students. The end prize is a job with a company that is looking to hire international students. Writing the whole proposal in 2 meetings was quite the team effort. I learned a lot about managing time, being able to come up with realistic ideas, that could be used towards our project.

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Our project is taking shape in a different way each week. I would say that this week, between our presentation, and formation of our proposal, the direction of our project is becoming clearer. I came into the last few weeks thinking that we had absolutely nothing to show for. This week I have transitioned a bit of my thinking to figuring out the foundation of our proposal. The odd thing about the presentation this week was that only three members of our group had to present. I was not one of those that presented, because I feel confident in my presentation skills and wanted to give that opportunity to someone else that wanted to work on their abilities through the presentation. I helped formulate most of the presentation as far as content is concerned. It was nice to see everyone take part, and really work to their potential in contributing to the team. I think I have been a beneficial link in the team because I have taken initiative to set up meetings and make sure that everyone is on board with the direction of the team. I go out of my way to include individuals in my team that usually speak less, and get their input. I feel it is important to take every persons thoughts and use them to benefit in the conversations we have about our proposal. Another week to form our project, and I am sure next week it will be changed even further.

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Well, this week has been interesting. Our group has changed course quite a bit in regards to our direction. After interviews with many students and a few faculty, we will be focused on international students and their needs in the business school. Something that kind of hits home, because 21 percent of students in the LCB are not from here. I think this week has broadened my idea of team work. We have met a few times and are coming closer to finding out the ideal project for our group, it really is more organic than I thought. Everyone is a leader in their own capacity, but each is different in some respect. I have found myself more optimistic this week because of this discovery. That being one of the things I set out to work on, I feel as though there have been some steps taken in the right direction. I think observing my team members and really turning that information into useful feedback has been a key element. As we continue the process I am looking forward to what we will further develop.

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This week was cut one class short due to observing Martin Luther King Jr. day. My team has been working to refine our plan for our proposal all week. I feel as though it will never be fully developed, because there is always something else to consider or add. We just need to reach a point that is mutually agreeable, in order to carry out the assignment once we get farther through this 10 weeks. During our interview process with our stakeholders, I found that there are a great amount of other problems pertaining to our topic of applied or practical experience. I guess it has made me reconsider the direction of our proposal. I know for certain that my teammate that I interviewed others with feels the same as I do. With much to think about in the coming week, our proposal will probably take a different course than when we started. I am not totally sure how I feel about it yet, but I get the sense it will be beneficial to the whole group.

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This week I learned how to make a mobile backpack prototype out of paper, pipe cleaners, and paperclips for my classmate Brandon. The exercise of creating something based on short interviews with Brandon was great. It was nice because I was able to just observe him as an individual, and infer what he would like in a product that he would be using every single day. I would say my communication skills were tested a bit with the exercise. We got to the point at certain stages of our interviews that we no longer had more to ask, or say. Within the time frames’ provided to us, we were able to cover everything, but then dig deeper and really think about our needs. I found myself asking questions that had nothing to do with the product, but more about him in general. This inference of taking what information I could gain from him, to then use towards the production of a backpack, was something I had never done before. I hope to use this deeper inference when collaborating with my team members on our project over the course of this term.

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