Integrity, Insight, Ignite: Getting to Know I

I mentioned before that my university is on the cutting edge of leadership development. As a result of their commitment to leadership they have created a wonderful resource on campus called the Illinois Leadership Center. This center is designed to offer students all over campus the resources for leadership. The center covers everything from working with student organizations to personal development. One of the resources that the center offers are i-programs. I-programs are one, two or three day workshops that allow students to focus on certain areas of leadership. I-programs are free to all students. Throughout my college career I have completed three of these programs—Integrity, Insight and Ignite.

Leading with Integrity

The first i-program attended was Integrity. As you may have guessed from the name, Integrity focuses on personal values and morals. This program was a day long and turned out to be the perfect first step through my leadership journey. Going into the program I felt rather confident that I had values and personal standards that I lived by. Little did I know how much more I could develop this essential foundation of leadership. Morals that I have always lived by include honesty and loyalty. Through the Integrity program I was able to focus on these values and see how they could be put to work in my experience as a student.

Over the course of the day long program I worked in a small group to talk through different difficult situations and to evaluate how congruent my actions were to my morals. I quickly realized how hard it can be to “walk your talk” in some situations. For example, honesty is one of my core values, but in some cases I found myself evaluating how much honesty was required. I also was able to clearly identify what things in my life I valued most and would stick by. Education and family came to the forefront of my values. From the discussions I participated in that day I became more aware of what I really believed in and determined to stick with the path of honesty I had chosen, no matter the consequences. In the end it is better to have lived up to the long term personal standards and morals one has set for themselves instead of betraying those values for short term gain.

Gaining some Insight

The second i-program I attended was Insight. This two-day program helped me form a clearer picture of myself. Through my Leadership In Action experiences I had dealt with self-awareness and self-management. However, this program gave me a refresher course and brought to light issues I had not thought about. Working in small groups and experiencing a discussion on diversity in a larger group helped me to address issues such as privilege.

One particular activity during this weekend program that really made me think was a discussion on privilege. This activity asked all participants to respond to questions about their privilege by standing in categories such as race, age, gender, religion, and economic status. Discussions about topics such as these are often hard and bring up deep feelings on certain sides of an issue. However, because of the atmosphere of the program and the willingness of everyone involved in the program to learn, this activity was very constructive. For me personally I was able to hear perspectives and thoughts about these issues that I never before experienced. I was also able to take a deeper look at myself and my feelings to become more self-aware.

Ready, Set, Ignite!

The third and final i-program that I was able to take part in was Ignite. This program was three day long and focused on leading change, systems thinking and community building. The program broke participants into groups of eight or ten and paired each group with an organization from the community that was looking for help solving a problem. I enjoyed the chance to work with an organization and believe that this i-program was the most meaningful that I have attended.

As a communications major I enjoyed the challenge of helping my group’s organization, Lead4Life—a group dedicated to equipping grade school children with the tools they need to succeed in life, address the opportunity to motivate college students to become involved in their program. Lead4Life’s goal was inspiring to me! As a student who had been motivated by personal participating in groups such as 4-H and the National FFA Organization, during my youth I had numerous chances to develop skills such as hard-work, dedication, organization and leadership that have helped me and will continue to help me reach my goals in life. The chance to help other students have the same opportunities that I experienced was exciting!

Throughout the three day experience my group worked closely with Lead4Life to learn about how they had brought their message to the community and started groups of parents and teachers that supported their cause. We also addressed the issue that Lead4Life was having with motivating college students from a systems thinking perspective where we evaluated all sides of the obstacle and finally made recommendations to Lead4Life about what we determined would be their first steps to building community on our college campus.

Ignite truly helped me to see what it is like to lead change within a community and I was inspired by the goal of Lead4Life. By looking at the issue from a different perspective my group was able to help further Lead4Life’s ultimate goal and help them build a stronger community for their task. I was also very excited that the opportunity to see all these things in action was being given to students on my campus. I am thankful that I took part in this unique opportunity.

Summing it Up

Some students on my campus have not taken advantage of i-programs and have no intention of doing so. When I speak with these students I share with them my opinion that they are truly missing out on a great resource that our campus offers. The most important thing that I have learned from participating in i-programs, and the reason I highly recommend them to other students, is the fact that leadership is about always growing. Despite the fact that before participating in i-programs I had undergone various other leadership trainings, I was able to learn and grow from all three of the programs I attended. One can never be a fully developed leader. When it comes to leadership the greatest opportunity is the one to grow and learn along the journey.

Leadership In Action

21-month Leadership Learning

I mentioned in my opening statement the outstanding leadership opportunities that my university and college have available to students. One of these opportunities came to my attention during the spring semester of my freshmen year. The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) was creating their second installment of a program known as Leadership In Action (LIA). This program was the creation of a College of ACES dean and the provost on campus. The program was a funded through a United States Department of Agriculture grant and worked to equip a handful of students on the U of I campus with the tools and knowledge needed to enable them to teach other students leadership. The program was unique and attractive to me because of the fact that it brought together ten students from each of three Big Ten schools and let these students learn leadership together and then perpetuate leadership on their individual campuses. This program was brought to my attention by a fellow student leader, Miss Carly Rakes, and by the end of the 21-month program I had obtained two wonderful mentors, became more self-aware, and worked to foster leadership in other students and in the community.

Leadership In Action incorporated 14 modules that the 30 students participating in the program experienced and then were trained to teach each modules to other students. The experience of going through the modules was really life changing. The first LIA meeting took place in May 2007. At this three day meeting we first covered topics concerning self-awareness. I had never before been exposed to such an in-depth look at how I lead and what mattered to me. Previously, I had always prided myself on knowing what I valued, however this experience brought my values to the forefront. Through exercises such as the Kiersey Temperament sorter and privilege activities, I came to realize what my strengths were, what my weaknesses were and most importantly that no “best” leadership style exists. Each of the 30 participants in LIA had their own distinctive style and set of values. Knowing this I became respectful of and happy with mine, I also quickly realized by working with others, great things could be accomplished. While I am an extraverted, organized leader, others around me are the complete opposite. By forming a cooperative working relationship with those who are different from me I can form a team that is aptly equipped to address any problem or any crowd. By getting to know my own set of values, ethics and abilities, I quickly identified what qualities I brought to a team and what values would go with me always.

ACES 101: What is Leadership

After I had experience leadership learnings from “What is Leadership?” to conflict and change management, I was also given the chance to inform students on my campus about leadership and the great opportunities they are given. The group of 10 LIA students on my campus took on the responsibility of teaching the module we learned titled “What is Leadership?” to the 25 sections of the course ACES 101. The students in this course were freshmen within our college and just the type of students we wanted to target with leadership education and information. As a group we modified our module information to create a 45 minute workshop for students. The workshop highlighted why leadership was important, allowed the students to experience teamwork, and offered them information about how to become involved in student organizations and leadership development on campus.

The experience of working with students was very interesting. Facilitating the workshop was almost as enlightening for me as it was for the students. I was extremely impressed with the students’ responses to our activities and through out all of the sections conversations were started that I never dreamed about. The chance to facilitate a workshop helped me hone my presentation and communication skills. From this experience I got a quick glimpse of what it is like to put on public presentations and workshops everyday. I was also very happy to see several of these students participating in groups and organizations around campus after they learned about them during the workshop. Overall the experience was a time of learning and leadership for everyone involved.

Community Service

The component of LIA that I personally enjoyed the most (aside from the opportunity to meet and learn with students from other campuses) was the chance to work with community service. Throughout the four large group meetings I participated in during the 21 month period, each meeting featured a chance to work with the community. During our initial meeting in Chicago we visited a school for under-privileged children in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. We worked with a literacy program when during our visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and heard from the Animal Welfare Coalition in Champaign-Urbana. These experiences were invaluable to my learning. I never before connected the idea of leadership to the community, but by observing the work of these groups, I quickly saw what focused leadership could for the better of a community.

The LIA students at my college chose to focus on the Animal Welfare Coalition as our capstone experience. Throughout the 2008 fall semester we worked with Coalition to bring their message to students on our campus. The Coalition was facing an opportunity to raise awareness about animal care among college students. The LIA students helped them identify outlets that students would use to learn about animals. After working with local media, the tenant union and looking into advertising options that would reach students, I know that I have helped the Coalition reach out to the college student audience. I also fully understand their position within the community and the meaningful work they are trying to do.

Summing it Up

When embarking on this 21-month leadership learning I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that I was going to learn about leadership, but never dreamed how much more self-aware I would become. I did not anticipate the wonderful relationships I would foster with the other students in the program and the advisors. Most of all, I never dreamed that I would be involved in leading change and community building within the Champaign-Urbana community. The Leadership In Action experience has been one of enlightenment and learning for me, and one I will never forget.

Team Work Anyone?

Throw in a little community service leadership, diversity experience, self-discovery and you have great leadership learning!

Reflecting on team work is a funny thing sometimes. It is hard to step back and evaluate yourself as well as your team. Through a semester long team-work experience I cam face-to-face with team work, diversity and community service. To fulfill one of my requirements for the Leadership Certificate, and to further my education in leadership I enrolled in AGED 380: Leadership in Groups and Teams. In this small class, groups of students with similar interests were formed. My group consisted of five people. I was the youngest member of a group that included myself (a sophomore), three seniors and one junior. The experience started out harmless enough, but I learned a lot before it was over. I learned about myself—how I am very task oriented and what I have to offer a group. I also learned a lot about working in a team—how to deal with conflict and was able to observe the forming, storming, norming and adjorning phases of teamwork. I also got my first real experience with applying leadership to the community.

My group originally had a hodge-podge of ideas to focus on for our semester long group project. We all wanted to help benefit the community in some way, but also incorporate agriculture based education. The first three weeks of the class were difficult. We were faced with the task of determining our semester long project and trying to get to know each other. Also worth noting is the fact that I initially felt somewhat intimidated because I was the youngest member of the group. We quickly realized that all five of us had different backgrounds and interests. One was graduating in business. Another was heading to law school. A third had just accepted a job with Google, and I was looking to gain leadership experience and finish my Leadership Certificate.

We also quickly realized that we all had different interests—advertising, agriculture, families, and basketball. Finding a project that interested all of us was no easy task. We discussed projects each of us had worked with and were leaning toward the area food bank. These conversations helped us to get know each other (the forming phase of our group). Through a conversation with a dean in my college I found out about a program that fit all of our diverse criteria. The program was called Backpack Buddies. Originally started in a different state, a local philanthropist had recently initiated the program at the Eastern Illinois Foodbank—the foodbank that served the area surrounding our college. The backpack program provided under-privileged students from three area grade schools with a backpack full of food for the weekends. This backpack kept the child fed on the weekend and helped struggling families. The program fit our interest in families and children. We also devised a plan to insert handouts into the backpacks about agriculture. We immediately saw where there was a need to raise money for the program and set out to help.

Once we had decided on a project, our group quickly entered the storming phase—as most groups do. About a third of the semester had passed, and we were trying to nail down what exactly we could do help the foodbank. We had a lot of good ideas, but no concrete direction. Plus, it didn’t help that all members of the group had different priorities and reasons for taking the class. My first lesson in learning to work as a team came when I was becoming frustrated with the level of commitment of my group members. As a younger student, my level commitment—and the time resources I had available to give—to the project were considerably higher than a couple of the other group members. I quickly became frustrated with the situation. Fortunately, in class we were discussing the issues that groups have, and talking about ways to overcome them. From discussions in class, and with the members of my group, I was able to realize that each group member can contribute to the group in their own way. Each member has something unique to offer a group, and if given the chance, they can use that to help the group succeed. I just needed to let other members make they’re mark on their own terms.

After a long group discussion, each member of my group was able to identify what they could offer to the group. One student was able to spear head a fund-raising effort through the dorms, another wanted to organize a basketball tournament, and I was able to focus on mobilizing the Greek community on campus toward helping our cause. We all had our own strengths and connections, but we all also could help each other and be the man power and support behind a certain person’s strength. With one common goal in mind, we quickly moved forward with our plans.

A Word on Community Service

One result of this group experience that I did not foresee was the opportunity to serve the community. When I entered the course I did not think about having an impact in the community. However, when the opportunity to work with the foodbank presented itself, I quickly became excited. The chance to bring our resources to those in need was amazing! The program was designed to benefit children—children who did not have the same opportunities that I had been given, children who deserved a chance to focus on school and not on how hungry they were. My group was able to help package backpacks that went out to the students, along with communicating the importance of these children’s situation to the campus community. The amazing support that we encountered from the campus was very encouraging. Overall, working with the foodbank was very rewarding and taught me the importance of giving back what I have been given.

Summing It Up

In the end we were able to rise over $300 for the program and collect 180 backpacks for use in the program. We tapped into our resources on campus and worked together to use each of our strengths to its fullest potential. This particular team experience taught me about working with diverse people, working through all the stages of team development, and identifying what each member brings to the team. I also was touched by the chance to help a community group, and have fostered a sincere wish to continue serving my community in some way.

How I got started

As a young college student I quickly became interested in leadership. My university is on the cutting edge of leadership development and offers amazing opportunities to students such as myself. Thanks to the wonderful leadership of my individual college, I was urged to take advantage of these opportunities. Over the past three years it has been quite a journey!
Lucky for me I have had a wonderful mentor to help me along the way. Now it is time to step back and reflect on what I have learned, seen and think about what I will do with the information.
Join me on this new journey!