Daley Scott |
At the beginning of this class, I told you the following: “You are a leader. What difference will you make?” As our semester comes to an end, I want you to revisit this question. Consider what you are passionate about and what change you want to see in the world (a student organization, on campus, in the community, in your professional field). Describe what difference you want to make as a leader and the initial steps you will take to get started. What challenges and obstacles do you anticipate in your quest to make the impact you desire?
During the remainder of my college experience, I have so many opportunities to change things and be a leader; however, what I am truly passionate about is my future career, nursing. I am not exactly sure what kind of nurse I want to be right now because it changes about every week when I learn something new and exciting, but any type of nursing I decide to get into will require me to advocate for my patient. Advocating is definitely a type of leadership that I can show in my professional field. Advocating requires you to really listen to your patient’s wants and needs, be included in their care plan decision making, and fight for your patient when needed. As a leader, I am a very good listener and can advocate for my patient when talking to other healthcare professionals. Oftentimes patients feel like they are not heard, but that is something that I can change as a nurse and as a leader. I know advocating for my patient will be hard at first because I will be a new nurse will little experience to fall back on, but I will need to just keep listening to my patient and expressing to other healthcare professionals about what they want. I know from experience that the doctors do not spend as much time with their patients as the nurses do, so they do not know exactly what the patient needs. When my dad was in the hospital, his nurse advocated for him to come off the ventilator a day earlier than the doctors wanted because she told them that he was ready. She was correct because my dad ended up coming of the ventilator that day because of her and was fine. I know that this will not always be easy, but this is important for me to do as a leader in the nursing profession.
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During class on November 2, you completed the Leadership Reputation worksheet. As a next step, ask 3 friends/family members to complete the "others think I am" column of the worksheet. Then, have a discussion with the person providing you with feedback. Only one of the 3 people may be a family member. Once you receive feedback from 3 people, compare the “I think I am” with the “others think I am” columns you completed in class to the feedback you received from others. Reflect on the process of evaluating yourself and receiving feedback from others. How did this process make you feel? How did you make sense of the feedback you received? What feedback was consistent from all three people? What feedback was inconsistent? What did you learn about yourself as a result of this activity?
I really enjoyed answering this worksheet because it really made me reflect on myself as a person and a leader. I decided that the three people I should ask to also fill out the workout about my leadership reputation are my mom, one of my friends that I have known for a long time, and a girl that I have worked with in my sorority. I figured this was a good variety of people that I know would give me honest feedback. After analyzing the worksheet, I found that I was a lot tougher on myself than my friends and my mother. They all agreed on some very kind aspects that they saw in me that I did not see in myself. I would say that this is fairly consistent with my actual life; I am always my toughest critic when it comes to everything I do because I know that I can always do better. However, my mom, two friends, and I all agreed on 38 adjectives to describe my leadership reputation. Some of these adjectives were goal oriented, disciplined, trustworthy, appreciative, responsible, and giving. All of these 38 adjectives were positive leadership reputation adjectives. My mom and two friends all agreed on 10 adjectives to describe me that I did not think described my leadership reputation. Some of these adjectives were sensitive to others needs, admits when wrong, and always willing to learn. All of these adjectives were positive as well. The only adjectives that were slightly negative not all of us agreed upon. Sometimes I was harsher on myself than others saw me, and occasionally my friends and my mom saw sides of me that did not necessarily notice the first time I filled out the worksheet. After completing this activity, I noticed that other people agreed with most of the things that I found about myself. I also realized that I am too tough on myself sometimes and need to realize the positive things about my leadership reputation. I also liked getting some constructive feedback on the negative aspects of my leadership reputation because I can always work to improve. In our October 19 class we discussed dimensions of identity and the concept of privilege. Which of your identities are you most aware of on a daily basis? Which of your identities provide you with privilege? Which of your identities deny you of privilege? What role do you think privilege plays in your daily interactions with others?
I thought the October 19th class was very interesting because I have always gone to school with people who are almost exactly like me. My grade school was mostly white and middle to upper class people, and my high school was exactly the same way. However, I do not identify myself as one identity all the time; I’m much more than white, girl, etc. I never identify myself as just one of those identities because when people do that, it is very polarizing and causes conflicts to be escalated more than they should be. People are much more than just one identity (race, gender, etc.), and just because people have one identity in common does mean that they have the exact same life. For example, just because I am a girl does not mean that I feel the oppression and discrimination that girls in the Middle East feel. On a smaller scale, my roommate and I are both white females that come from middle-class families, and we live completely different lives because we are different people. Just because we both identify with those three identities, does not mean that we have the same needs and services. I do not feel like any of my identities have denied me privilege. I know that maybe being a white, middle-class female should give me some privileges and some hardships, but I do not feel that any of these things are unfair. I do not think that I have ever been denied something because I am a female and the person I was competing against was a male. This is the 21st century, and people are much more worried about people’s qualifications for certain jobs than whether they are white, black, male, female, etc. There is more and more diversity in jobs that are predominately one identity, and over time this will continue to grow and change. When I talk to others, I see some of their superficial identities, but I have to get to know them better to judge them as a whole person. I do not think that I have ever experienced a situation where privilege plays a role in my daily interactions with others. I will be more aware of it now, and I will look for situations where privilege plays a role. Tell me about a community in which you are a member, excluding your family, and describe the obligations of being in that a community and how those obligations are explained to and reinforced in new community members.
I am in Greek Life at the University of Cincinnati as a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, commonly known as Theta. Every year, during the fall, we go through formal recruitment to gain new members into our sorority. The way Theta recruits is based on our values (intellectual curiosity, leadership potential, commitment to service, and personal excellence), so we look for each of these values in our potential new members. We expect each of our members to exhibit these four qualities while being a member of the sorority. We require everybody in the chapter to maintain at least a 2.8 GPA, so we uphold the value of intellectual curiosity. UC’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta had the highest grades in all of Greek Life last semester, and the chapter average made the Dean’s List. Theta upholds the value of leadership potential by being involved in leadership in our chapter as well as on the rest of UC’s campus. Many of our members are involved in ROAR Tour Guides, Student Alumni Council, Student Government, and much more. The commitment to service value is upheld by requiring all members to do at least 5 hours of community service each semester. Lastly, our personal excellence value is upheld by requiring everyone to act appropriately at all times and carry themselves in a good manner. Our new members have a couple of meetings before initiation so they know all the rules and regulations of being a member in Kappa Alpha Theta. Most of the time, it is not hard for new members to uphold our values since we recruit girls based on how they fit our values in the first place. Also, it is not hard to uphold these values because many girls prioritize these values in their everyday lives. School, leadership, service, and personal excellence are all important to me, and my Theta sisters help me to keep these values every day. List your top 5 strengths from the StrengthsFinder assessment report and comment on your reaction to this assessment tool. Then, describe how you can apply your strengths in your pursuit of leadership. Identify an example of how you applied each of your five strengths within the past month.
My top five strengths on StrengthsFinder were 1. Competition 2. Achiever 3. Consistency 4. Restorative 5. Harmony. I thought my top five strengths were fairly accurate; however, sometimes I have other strengths depending on certain situations. Competition and achiever definitely belong in the top two of my strengths because I almost identify with the entire theme for both of them. Overall, these are definitely some of my top strengths on a day to day basis. As far as the actual StrengthsFinder test goes, I did not enjoy most of the questions. I could see myself doing both activities that I was supposed to choose between, so most of the time I was forced to pick neutral. I believe that competition and achiever go hand in hand because as I leader I would size up the competition and set goals based on what we needed to do to win. This encompasses both my competition and achiever strengths. Consistency also makes me a good leader because this means I can give everybody a fair shot; I always want people to be compared by their abilities and how hard their work instead of their backgrounds. The restorative strength is another good strength in a leader because a leader needs to be able to have situations thrown at them and be able to respond in a quick way that fixes the problem. Lastly, harmony is the strength that applies to me the least because I am not afraid on conflict, but I would rather have everything in agreement. This can be both a good and bad quality in a leader because sometimes a leader needs to embrace conflict in order to get over a problem, but other times a leader needs to bring a group of people to harmony. I think I have applied all of these strengths in the last month in one situation. Before school started we had “Sisterhood Week” where my entire sorority spent almost all day at our house practicing for recruitment and doing sister bonding activities. One of the activities was to make a human pyramid with people that we do not normally talk to. I somehow became the leader of my group and had to size up our competition and decided who needs to be where on the pyramid so we could beat them (competition and achiever). After we won the first round, I decided to switch up the positions on the pyramid to make it fair for everybody because it really hurt to be the bottom row (restorative and consistency). Not many girls liked this idea, but we ended up coming to a resolution that everybody enjoyed and thought was fair (harmony). Although this is a trivial example of leadership, all of my strengths were applied in this situation and shows how my strengths can be applied in another leadership position latter on in life. During class on August 31, we reviewed the evolution of leadership theories. In your own words, what is the value of understanding leadership theories? Which 2-3 leadership theories resonated most with you and why? How will your understanding of leadership theories influence the way in which you lead?
I think it is important to understand and really know leadership theories because great leaders can study the pros and cons of all the different theories. Leaders would be able to shape their style of leadership based on which ideas and theories they liked and which ones have worked in the past. This means they could also stay away from the parts of the leadership theories that have not worked in the past or parts that they do not like. Studying great past leaders and leadership theories would only make a current leader better at their job. Although there are so many great leadership theories, three that really resonate with me the most are trait leadership, situational contingency leadership, and authentic leadership approach. The book explains that trait leadership is categorized as, “certain individuals possess a natural ability to lead.” I believe this to be true because some people are born with certain traits that make them better leaders than others. I also believe in situational contingency leadership because certain situations call for different types of leaders or leadership. Sometimes the situation needs a very harsh and strict leader who will take change and make things happen, but other times a group of people might need a caring leader who is more of a friend than authoritative figure. Leaders can accomplish this by changing their style of leadership for a certain time or there is a new leader that emerges that possess the certain characteristics. Most of all, I believe in authentic leadership. I believe that a leader has to do what they believe is the best and be authentically themselves in order to let their “followers” to want to follow them. It is way easier to want to follow somebody that is genuinely authentic rather than closed, guarded, and superficial. I think that by combining all these theories would make somebody a great leader. I hope that all of these theories will come together when I lead something and influence the way in which I lead. In your blog post, explain your unique definition of leadership and describe the purpose of leadership. Then, describe your best personal leadership experience – an experience in which you were effective and authentic. What do you attribute to your effectiveness and authenticity?
My unique definition of leadership is leading either silently or out loud and being a role model for a certain group of people. There are many different types of leadership styles among all leaders around the world, but one common theme that I find in most successful leaders is that they always keep the best interest of the people they are leading in mind. When leaders become too egocentric, that is when the people being led become angry and feel like they are not being heard and their needs are not being met. I feel like I kept the people I was leading my first priority when I was on student council for two years in high school. I was a homeroom representative for my junior and senior year of high school, and during my time as a homeroom representative I was in charge of relaying concerns from my class during the student council meetings to the student council board and the faculty advisors. We actually were able to change a lot of things at school because I was able to relay the ideas of my class to the student council board. For example, some of my classmates were upset because we could not drink water in the hallways of school unless we had a “water pass.” The only way to get a water pass from the office was to get a note from your doctor saying that you needed to drink water throughout the school day. At a student council meeting I was able to bring this issue up, and then the rule ended up being changed. The rule was changed so we could drink water all day in class and in the halls as long as it was clearly water in a clear water bottle. However, sometimes rules were not able to be changed, but I could relay the information about why a rule could not be changed to my classmates. This was a great communication system as well because the administration and students were able to communicate questions, concerns, and explanations without their being any miscommunication, misconceptions, etc. |
AuthorThis is my working blog that has posts being submitted for the Exploring Leadership Honors Seminar I am taking during the Fall 2015 Semester at the University of Cincinnati. Archives
November 2015
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