Theory Application

Being the feminist that I am the “Gender and Leadership” workshop was really important to me. Women leaders are still, in 2016, not as common as they should be. The idea that women aren’t strong enough or don’t know enough is a bunch of crap! According to research, women earn 57% of bachelor degrees, 60% of masters degrees, and more than 50% of doctoral degrees. I don’t want to hear women aren’t smart because you can’t argue with years of statistics. It has been proven that women lead in a more democratic style compared to men who usually go with a more direct style. This usually leads to better results because people feel more welcomed and open to share ideas. Being the next generation of ethical leaders, we can help to change this. I don’t blame men, I blame societies standards.  I think it is important to also acknowledge agender people as well. Someone’s gender or lack of gender doesn’t affect how effective of a leader they are. I am committed to getting female leaders recognized in society’s eyes. I hope to one day hold a high leadership position in the National Athletic Trainers Association(NATA) or the American Kinesiology Association(AKA). I will not let others suppress me simply because I am a female.

(L)ets Learn Some Lea(D)ership Theo(R)ies (200)!

To say LDR 200 was different than LDR 100 would be an understatement. In LDR 100, we just had fun and joked around most of the time. Not that I didn’t enjoy it but we didn’t really learn much about leadership. I was excited when I found out LDR 200 was all about learning what leadership really was. Over the course of the semester we were challenged in our ability to explain, show, and demonstrate. We had to facilitate a 15 minute initiative(not a game!) and a 40 minute workshop.

For my initiative, I had goal setting! I got to work with three other people and we created a fun, education initiative to teach the class. We worked really hard and created a really fun deserted island scenario. From what I saw, the class had a fun time and they had a good time competing with the other teams.

For my workshop, I had the path-goal theory. This theory talks about how leaders should motivate their followers through setting goals. According to the theory there are four different types of leaders. We wanted to base our activity on this aspect. I am so proud to say that I created the entire activity we did. We had a list of qualities from the book describing the four types. I came up with “Pin the Trait on the Leader!” The class was split up into groups and tried to figure out which traits corresponded with which type of leader. I was nervous to present but I think we did a great job and I am proud of the entire group.

HST 110L WI

This class was very interesting! I have always had a liking for history. I really enjoyed it in high school and passed all my classes with A’s. This class brought on struggles that I wasn’t use to facing. I also enjoyed it at the same time. My professor, Dr.Tobin, was odd but passionate. Everyday it was very prevalent that she knew what she was talking about. She was so knowledgable in the topics and I think that is great. Her little jokes always brought laughter and smiles in the room. She was vocal when talking about things she cares about and her door is covered with political stickers. She is a pretty hip lady!

We learned about many great historical leaders while in American Experience. Some being Martin Luther King, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln. We had to write a 10-page long research paper about a historical leader for our final project. I was dreading. However, once I started researching I learned to much! I researched Clara Barton, who created the American Red Cross. I really have grown to admire her. She did an insane amount of humanitarian work in the fields of education, medicine, and women’s rights. These are all things I really care about so it was cool to see how she overcame so many struggles in her life.

Yes or No?

I believe leadership comes from “YES.” I believe this because saying yes encourages others. Sometimes it is not easy to say yes to others. However, when leaders say yes to their followers, it includes them in the decision making process. Telling someone yes gives them power. They can use this power to change the world in a positive way or throw the opportunity away. By saying yes, we can only hope they take that yes and run with it to create positive change. Saying no doesn’t inspire others. No crushes dreams and aspirations. No shuts people down instead of encouraging them. Yes is motivating and inspiration. We have all been excited to do something or say an idea and got shot down with a no. It hurts and is very discouraging. Being told yes after expressing an idea is such a great feeling. You feel like you have achieve something.

Spark Leadership Series

The Spark Leadership Series is a program at the Leadership institute at CMU. It is a program designed to help students develop their leadership. It is a four week program and each week you dive deeper into what leadership involves and why it is important to be positive, accepting leaders. I think it is so great that this program is offered to anyone on campus. I have gone to many different leadership programs but I am very fortunate. Not everyone gets to experience something like this. With Spark being open and free for everyone it gives everyone the chance to gain leadership skills. One of the greatest things I gained from Spark was connections throughout campus. I often interact with people in leader and the people I have in my classes. This program gave me the oppurtunity to interact and learn from people I would’ve have gotten to otherwise.

“How Great Leaders Inspire Action”

We have all heard something similar to leaders inspiring action. However, I had never heard a speech quite like this. The Ted Talk we watched was not like anything I had really heard before. The speaker, Simon Sinek, talked about how great leaders inspire people by channeling why they do something. We have a part of the brain that controls why we do what we do. He explained that if leaders can channel that then they can persuade you to do certain things. One of the examples he used was Apple. They are highly well known and extremely successful. They are successful because they channel the “why?” in people. Mot companies can channel what we do and how we do it but not many take the time to know why people do certain things. Heck, some of them don’t even know why they do certain things. Apple is great because they can do both of these. That is why they sell more than just computers. Other companies are just as well equipped to make the products, so why aren’t they as successful? Because they don’t channel the “why?” in us. When channeling the why a leader is directly channeling the decision making part of the brain. If they inspire us, they can convince us. Personally I really enjoyed this Ted Talk. I thought Sinek had some really great points. Some of which I am fairly unfamiliar with. I think as great leaders some of us “speak” to the “why?” without evening realizing. This is what makes me inspiring.

PSY 100L Reflection

This class wasn’t what I expected sadly. I loved psychology in high school. I think the human brain is an amazing thing. This class didn’t engage me as much as I wanted it to. It was great content because I am fascinated by this subject. However, the way it was presented was subpar. We just went through the powerpoint that came with the book. I find real world, interesting examples the best way to learn psychology. I am happy we had to take this class because I tried to learn a few things but I think I could’ve learned more.

Master Debaters

On Halloween, we all dressed up as Dr.Kai.

Wow was this class interesting. I had never taken a speech class so I didn’t really know what to expect. Dr. Kai was brand new to CMU so we went into this class with no judgement about him. The first day we read review from previous students on Dr.Kai. They all said very different things. Everyone had different opinions on his teaching and the way he ran a classroom. We learned had been on many successful debate teams in college and had a lot of knowledge on the topic.

At the beginning of the semester I wasn’t fond of Dr.Kai. He was not very polite and was often rude to us. However, I think he did this simply so we wouldn’t step all over him so I understand. It was very interesting to see how everyone changed over the semester including him. At the beginning, we knew nothing about to debating. Not even the basics. By the end, we were presenting professional, well researched arguments. As the seamster progressed, Dr.Kai started to warm up to us. Recently he even told me he wished he could have all of us in a class again.

Connections Conference

Connections is a networking conference for student leaders from CMU. November 7th we all headed up to Traverse City to meet new people, create new friendships, get new ideas, and grow as leaders. We attended speakers, had some great food, and bonded in the waterpark.

We started out with a delicious lunch then headed to meet our home group for the conference. We discussed all the resources we have on campus and how we can utilize them to better our organizations. From there we listened to campus leaders on different topics.

My first session was time management. We discussed time wasters. I realized I am better at managing my time than I thought. I rarely waste my time doing things that are not important. I also attended a speaker that talked about having efficient meetings. This isn’t useful to me yet but in the future I hope I get the chance to lead an RSO on campus. My next speaker was about having fierce conversations. I really needed to attend this. I often find it hard to deal with confrontation. This session offered a way to deal with confrontation in an appropriate, respectful way. My last session was dancing through social change. We talked about how important art is to society. The great thing about art, either physically or fine arts, is everyone interrupts it differently.

After we attended all our choices sessions, we met back up with our home groups. We talked about how we can put what we had learned during the weekend to use on campus. We also got the chance to compliment people in our group on all the great things about them. Giving and receiving kind words really brought us together as a group.