Month: October 2013

Keep on Truckin

We finished week four with a great deal more insight on our subject and on project developement. I believe that I have made strong  strides towards improving myself on my Development Plan. My main goal in accordance with the 5 Leadership Practices is to stay open to ideas without getting attached to them. When we were initially drafting ideas, I had become very attached to a solution which put international and native students into a more social situations. At the time we seemed certain that we were going in the direction of international integration but our needs statement has developed much further since then. Under the context of our new statement my old solution is no longer viable. If I had been as stubbornly supportive of my ideas before, we may have taken the project in an unhealthy direction and created contention between members. Instead I was able to let go and I believe we have taken the project in a much better direction.

 

Starting the Engine

Well, we finished our second week of class and it is starting to dawn on me what a true undertaking this term will end up being. Already our group has had to act quickly and work as a cohesive unit in order to complete tasks according to the time line. We are blessed though that everyone in our group is creative and motivated, which makes the entire process much easier.

We our group is currently somewhere between the Forming and Storming categories at the moment, with lots of work still to go. The initial challenges we have had have been primarily communication related. Since everyone has such diverse schedules, it can be difficult to get everyone at the same place at the same time. I was selected to be team leader as well and have spent a reasonable amount of time figuring out what I should be focusing my efforts on most given the diverse and broad nature of my position.

I have made the leadership practice of “Modeling the Way” my mantra in this position, by keeping a close record of team roles and by ensuring I act in a professional manner during our meetings. Once we properly move into the brainstorming phase, I plan to take a much larger role in challenging our team to be creative and innovative.

Action Plan “Emotional Intelligence”

Building strong relationships with both your team and your audience are crucial when both achieving your objectives and making your message convincing. While I have always done a good job of keeping in touch with others emotions, I have had challenges with expressing my own. While this would normally be a good shield against expressing negative emotions, it also restricts me in my ability to express the positive emotions as well. Happiness, excitement and passion must be shown if you want your team to trust you. You you are only picking up on others and never putting down, it is almost impossible to build strong emotional attachments to your team. The more you care about your fellow members, the more likely you will be motivated to see the entire project succeed.

I intend to develop strong relationships with my fellow team members by taking time out outside our initial meetings in order to get to know them and develop  a lasting bond. At the same time I will be as open as possible about my own life and experiences, so as to increase the trust between us.

Action Plan “Challenging the Process”

In my previous post, I described the need to develope my critical thinking abilities and the importance of taking a step back and asking “Does this really work”. In my current work, I tend to get tunnel vision and as soon as I have set myself to an idea, it often becomes the center of my focus. I would benefit greatly from taking a look at the big picture and asking serious questions about if we are going down the correct path. I tend to be a very safe person, and taking risks is a challenge for me at times. But if no one ever takes them, the group will stagnate and the end product will be sub-par.

In the future I was to me a member who will focus on the big picture and remain open minded towards the direction of the group. I would also like to act a motivator for my team so we can brainstorm and discuss our ideas effectively.

Strategies I can adopt to achieve this include:

  • Making sure I have a solid understanding of the task at hand, and different methods of achieving it
  • Listen
  • Do not get married to any ideas, especially early in the game
  • Focus on what is best suited towards achieving our goal, not just on making the set idea a reality

As we move into the future, I intend to use all of these in order to keep our group fresh and motivated, especially as we begin initial planning for our projects

Leadership Development Plan

After completing the Student Leadership Practices Inventory, I developed a good understanding in the areas in which I excel, as well as some things that I could improve on. I scored very well in the “Model the Way” category, as well as “Enable others to Act”. I found these to be acturate as the concept of leading by example, or leading from the front has always been a core value of mine. I like to be in the thick of things and directly involved in the projects I work on. At the same time I understand that delegation is key and that if you try to accomplish everything by yourself, both you and your work will suffer.

I scored particularly low in the category of “Challenge the Process”. My military background I believe plays a strong role in this. As enlisted soldiers we were always encouraged to think less and act more. Someone else has always been responsible for the thinking and if we tried to do too much of it ourselves, we tended to run into problems. Forcing myself to thing outside of the box has always been a challenge, but it something I hope to improve on. The other category that was lacking was “Inspire a Shared Vision”. The key concept here is to dream big in whatever project you undertake. While being involved in the present is practical, it is still important to stay progressive and forward thinking. Once you have a solid picture of what you believe you can make the future, share it with your team and inspire them to believe as well. These all play a crucial role in working successfully as a team.

Emotional intelligence was also stressed very strongly, and I feel as though it is another skill I am blessed with. One area that I could improve on is to express my own emotions a little bit more. I generally keep my own feelings reserved and focus on those of my peers. But in reality, a balanced exchange is crucial to building a strong working relationship with others. This has kept me in a good place in the past though, as being able to make objective decisions even while under pressure is a crucial skill.

The best example for this is the role I played in the Give Back Classic, a golf tournament hosted by my fraternity to benefit wounded veterans. My initial role was small, but as I became more involved with the project my responsibilities grew as well. My entire time with it I was focused on how we could make what we had worked. I was relatively short sighted in my initial planning, which lead to complications down the road. I was far to focused on making bad ideas work, rather than creating new ideas. It was an excellent learning opportunity and left me with the desire to start over.

One Week Down!

So with the first week of Fall term finished, I’ve felt nothing but anticipation towards the weeks to come. We received our teams for the term’s group project and I have a lot of confidence in our ability to work together. It is a really diverse group, so we should be able to learn a lot from working together.

As for the class itself, it has been extremely refreshing to actually learn to lead. So many times in our educational careers we are just handed positions of leadership and basically expected to wing it. Having a class devoted to developing strong leadership strategies is exhilarating and I look forward to seeing how I can fine tune my own style throughout the term!