For my professionalism grade this term I believe I deserve a 44/50.

Punctuality:  For punctuality I deserve a 10/10.  I never missed a class and only missed one meeting due to a midterm.  I didn’t show up late to any classes or meetings either, and was early to my meeting for my resume appointment.

Participation:  For this category I deserve a 6/10.  While I was not very vocal during lectures, I still contributed when we had class discussions and activities.  I was very active when we did the partner activity with the pictures and contributed when we had discussions among our group.

Respect for others:  For this category I deserve a 10/10.  I was always focused during class, and did not go on my phone or participate in side conversations.  I also respectful with my teammates and gave them positive feedback along the way.

Preparation:  For this category I deserve a 10/10.  In class I always had the readings complete and always had the proper printouts with me.  I also was very prepared for all of the team meetings we had as well.

Initiative and Motivation:  For this category I deserve an 8/10.  While I did not take advantage of every opportunity I had this term, I took advantage of the ones I felt I needed to.  I spent time in the advising office working on my schedule for the rest of my career here and used my Leadership Development Plan to help myself grow in this class.

When I first created my Leadership Development Plan, I wanted to improve in “Challenging the Process” and “Relationship Management.”  By challenging the process I wanted to contribute in every group meeting and not stay silent when I disagreed with an idea.  This was something I had struggled with in group projects in the past.  I measured this by reflecting on my contributions after each group meeting.  I asked myself, “How did I contribute today?  Was there any time I felt like speaking up and didn’t?”  My contributions to each meeting remained pretty steady, but as time went on there were less and less instances where I wanted to speak but did not.  The area of emotional intelligence I wanted to improve in was Relationship Management.  Initially I said that I wanted to build a good relationship with my teammates so that I could take a more active role in the project.  By being more vocal I was able to build relationships with my teammates instead of having them view me as the quiet kid who never speaks up in meetings.  By our team becoming closer over the course of the term, we were able to work together better and and be more productive.

One of the things that really helped me throughout the term was the reflection process I did after each meeting.  Looking back on each meeting helped me identify things I could have done better and also prepared me with things I could do going into the next meeting.  It also made me think about what I was doing while the meetings were going on.  I would notice when I hadn’t spoken in a while and be motivated to try and contribute.

There is still a lot I need to work on in order to be a better leader in the future.  The most common feedback I got on my evaluations was that I could’ve contributed more in meetings.  This was disappointing for me to see because I felt like I had made improvements in terms of how much I spoke during our meetings.  Sometimes I just didn’t have anything to say so it was difficult for me to force myself to speak up and add something.  In the future I can do better by doing brainstorming before meetings and think about points I want to make during meetings.

The one thing I learned about leadership is that the only way to build it is to gain experience.  It’s easy to read the articles and listen to the lectures and think that you’re completely prepared and know how to be a leader, but that’s only a small part of it.  The only way to really become a leader is to have experiences in the real world and like what we did in class in order to build yourself into the type of leader you want to be.

This week I had my resume workshop, and even though I wasn’t looking forward to it going into it I got a lot out of it.  I did a resume for my application to the business school but after what we learned today I realized that in hindsight my resume looks pretty bland.  We learned about the best way to highlight your experiences and how using action verbs looks better to employers than passive wordage.  Since I will  be entering the workforce soon this assignment provides an excellent opportunity to get my resume in order and get me off on the right foot.

This week has really made me think about how I work with others in a group setting.  For my LDP I talked about being a more outspoken group member because this week in our team meetings I feel like I didn’t contribute as much as I should have.  I think as time goes on and we get to know each other better I’ll do a better job of talking and sharing my ideas as well as challenging other group members.