This week, while trying to discover insights to students needs after interviewing them, we finally came to the conclusion after hitting wall after wall when trying to think of ideas, that we needed to go back to the drawing board and come up with a need statement. We’ll be meeting all weekend to get back up to the point where we can participate in class activities, and I’m fairly confident we’ll be able to come up with something that will work. Chances are we’ll be switching to a topic pertaining to International student needs, considering so many students in the class brainstorm presented issues with that topic.

In terms of leadership this week, it was a big thing for me to have to admit something won’t work. I’ve never had to restart a project like this before so it was tough for me to admit that we didn’t have much to work on. I could tell that the rest of the group was feeling the same way as I was (I think I’m getting better at this whole empathy thing) : that our idea wasn’t going to work but we were apprehensive about restarting. I finally sucked in my pride and asked the group if they thought maybe restarting from scratch was a good idea. Everyone agreed pretty quickly.

On the subject of my Leadership Development Plan and how I’m progressing, I don’t think the way I set myself up to measure my progress works. It just doesn’t relate at all. I’ll have to confer with Professor Bramhall about finding a better way to record and measure progress. For now, I think I’m still getting better about enabling others to act as well as empathy. I have frequently made a mental effort to word my thoughts so that they don’t sound so dismissive, and I often find myself thinking about how others feel about certain ideas and topics. Hopefully that will continue and eventually it will just be second nature instead of a conscious effort.