Leadership Post

My computer has been acting up lately. Here is my post about leadership:

Taking this class has definitely brought new character traits and skills to light. Being a leader is more than having an outgoing personality. It’s also more than being the one in charge of everything or the one doing all the work. I’ve learned in this class the importance of having a strong personality, but also that it is not the only necessary trait of a leader. A good leader needs to be able to delegate when necessary, rather than doing everything on her own. A leader should know the strengths and weaknesses of other people on her team and work towards those. I think if I had to pick one form of leadership that I identify with the most as we go through the readings in class, I would say that I am a situational leader. I let the different situations I am in determine the kind of leader I am. Every situation is a little different, so why shouldn’t the leader be as well?

A little bit stressed.

Lately nothing technological of mine has been working. It has made turning in assignments and other activities for school very difficult and has put me behind. Also, every single FYE event is during one of my classes, so I don't understand how I am supposed to make it to one. I'm just going a little crazy right now and do not even know what to write for this blog tonight.

Back on Track

Today, the girls in the One Girl Program finally got to go to our first trip to Walnut Springs Middle School! It will truly be a time management lesson as we only get to spend half an hour with the girls. The girls are all in 8th grade, and today we all participated in an ice breaker over TimBits and chocolate milk. Each of the girls (ourselves included) wrote down an interesting fact about ourselves and then turned them in. The facts were then read aloud and the girls had to try and guess which girl went with each fact. As tired as everyone at Otterbein is of ice breakers, it was a good way to get to know a little about the girls in the program, and also a good way for us to asses what kind of girls we were working with. We have already had some small bullying issues, and there are some clear cliques in the group already, but we hope to break through that and get these girls to be a good group of friends. I think this will be a good program.

Following the Leader

This week, I have spent a lot of time researching Dr. Bobbie Beth Scoggins for the Follow the Leader project. Dr. Scoggins is the president of the National Association of the Deaf, and it has been very interesting following her. Most of the information I get is from her blog and YouTube, and it has been a challenge. People do not always entirely realize that the Deaf community is an entirely different culture, and that we are outsiders. Even if we study ASL and become fluent, we are still hearing and we don't understand that culture as well. When working on my speech, I had to go to a Deaf friend for help figuring out Dr. Scoggins' leadership qualities, as I couldn't tell the difference between a "normal" Deaf person and a Deaf leader., and I learned a lot. It's been fascinating studying all of this and I look forward to knowing more.

A Blah Title Day...

Today may be a blah day for my blog's title, but it was not a blah day in class. We had a panel of speakers come in to talk to us about networking, which is very important in any career, not just a career in the business or corporate world. It was good to hear advice that will help me better my career and find a good job through networking in education.
I have also been watching a lot of my woman leader lately through YouTube and her own blog. She is a very inspirational woman with great ideas and goals, and I am excited to learn more about her and the NAD throughout the semester.

WELD Conference & Last Class

For someone who is not going into any sort of business in the future, this was a very interesting experience for me. On Saturday, I volunteered with a few others to help out at the WELD leadership conference held at Otterbein. This was a very interesting afternoon (I was only there for one session) and I was given the chance to meet some very powerful and influential women in Central Ohio.

The session I attended/volunteered with was lead by Eleanor Bloxham, founder and CEO of the Value Alliance. She spoke about getting on corporate and nonprofit boards, how a good board should be run, and the best ways to get yourself noticed should you be looking to gain a board seat. At the end of the session, she gave all of the women who attended, including myself, a business card holder - a nice coincidence, as one of my other classes "highly recommended" that we get business cards!

I was also very inspired by our speakers in our last class meeting. Each of them gave us very important information that is often overlooked - taking care of ourselves. How can we expect to lead others and take care of others if we can't take care of ourselves? However, it wasn't necessarily the message that these speakers gave us that interested me. I've heard the same speech numerous times. When these women spoke to us about eating healthy, staying active, and knowing our strengths and weaknesses, they were not lecturing us. They talked to us like we were real people rather than a group of students sitting in a classroom. It really helped absorb more of what they were trying to teach us than if they had been simply preaching at us. They forced us to pay attention to them by being interesting, which made them somebody that I could really look up to.

Insert Interesting Title Here

       As some of you may or may not notice, I am nowhere near a writing or English major, and words don't always like to flow together well for me. However, everyone must experience something new at some point, be it drinking KoolAid, eating a marshmallow, or writing a blog.

       With all the speakers we had during the last class, we had a lot of information thrown at us at once, but each had something valuable to tell us.  I went post-secondary during my junior and senior years of high school, so when I graduated high school, I also graduated from Washington State Community College with my Associates Degree in History. Needless to say, I was fascinated with all the history of the college/university and the history of women in our university. It was so interesting to hear about and see pictures of all the influences that women have made on Otterbein throughout the years.

       I was also extremely inspired by the "social theater" with Melissa Gilbert. That little exercise showed that no matter who you are, there will be barriers in your life, and that these barriers are not impossible to break down. It also let us see that we often share the same barriers and go through the same struggles as another girl, no matter how different she may be from yourself. No one is on their own, and every girl, leader or follower, needs great friends and a great attitude to get where she wants to go.