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.