Class article activity

Article 1 - "What makes a great employee?" from Jan. 19, 2011 on Blake Mycoskie's blog

The article that I brought into class the other day was a blog post from the man who created TOMS shoes, Blake Mycoskie. He has gone on to write his own book as well as his own optical program one-for-one in other countries as well. However, in this employee, he gave a little anecdote of what he did when he started the company.

Rather than hiring employees with experience for his new business, Mycoskie looked for people interested who had the least amount of experience. His reasoning was that people with lesser experience would not have preconceived notions of what the right way to do certain tasks are. Therefore, he takes the risk of giving the inexperienced a change. What he expects out of these workers -unpaid interns actually - is passion and creativity.

It's as simple as that. I think that in society today, people have finally realized how different people are. More importantly though, society is not static, so we cannot assume that a certain model is going to be applicable for all people at all times. In order to be successful, a leader would have to recognize how society is always changing. They don't necessarily have to be the ones to know what to do, but rather be the one to recognize the change and find people to stay ahead of the curve.

Personally, I don't think that I am always good at thinking about what the next big thing is. However, I can think of the questions to push people outside of the box and look at the big picture. I guess in this context, I do better at being on the balcony and looking towards the future.

Article 2 - "5 Leadership and Life Lessons from John Wooden" by Kevin Eikenberry

This article was Eddie's that he shared with me in our "speed dating" activity. The article takes some of John Wooden's famous quotes and puts them into the context of leadership. The quotes are the following:

"Move, Move, Move!"/"Earn the right to be proud and confident."/"Ability may get you to the top. But character will keep you there."/"You can do more by being good than any other way."/"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

Being an athlete (and after playing basketball for eight years), these quotes are very relatable. I can see them in the context of sports. For me, sometimes it's easier to see my relationships in terms of a team. My friends and family are my teammates and ideally, I want to work well with all of them in order to "win" or have peace. Therefore, I have to remember how to work hard and be a good person. These lessons do not have to apply just to sports or to being a leader, but just being human. I think it's a good way to keep perspective and remain humble.

Reflective Class Activity - 2/19

By the beginning of class today, we have all read the Leadership on the Line book by Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. We have learned the ups and the downs of leadership as well as some skills in order to improve our leadership. Dr. Kittle really helped us reflect just a little further about our leadership, and I'm going to go ahead and share some of the more important questions (to me personally) with you.

Who helps you be honest with yourself?

At this point in my life, being part of "teams" are very important. I put teams in quotations because it doesn't have to include a sport. For me, yes, some people who help me be myself are my co-captains and teammates on the Ultimate Frisbee team. The other day I had a conversation with my co-captain, Kyle, about a rut that I've been in. He reminded me of why I was voted captain in the first place - because I play hard and I show up every day. I give everything I have to give to the team. My dedication helped me earn my position. I don't need to boss people around in order to be a captain. I need to remember to be myself.

Other people in some of my "teams" are my family members, people I work with, and my academic advisors. They remind me of what my goals are in life and to not be distracted by the little things. They remind me to keep on going and not be discouraged by small failures, because those are just life lessons waiting to happen. Without some of these people on my "teams," I might have lost sight of who I am and who I want to be.

What are some of your leadership weaknesses?

I don't really like to think about this topic very much. I am a person who in the big picture has had a lot of success (not to toot my own horn). I try to avoid these weaknesses while trying to succeed. However, I have learned in other leadership courses, like LS 115, that sometimes it can be beneficial to try and work on those weaknesses to be a more well-rounded leader. Being aware of these weaknesses is probably one of the more important topics those.

Some of my weaknesses:
- Constructive criticism: I hate having people tell me I am wrong when I am not ready to accept the criticism. Unfortunately, sometimes I think that people don't listen to the way that I am thinking about an issue, when the real story is that I close my mind to their ideas.
- Trust: It can seem easier to get something done on my own because I know how I want it to get down and which way it should be. However, I have to trust that other people are trying to achieve the same goal as I am and they, too, are capable of getting something done.
- Clear communication: I like it when there is clear communication. Unfortunately, I believe that I am terrible at expressive myself in a clear and concise manner. I get too wordy or forget something or explain a task in an absolutely confusing way. I have learned that sometimes by writing down directions/idea first and then saying them out loud helps me make sure to more effectively communicate some of my thoughts better. Of course, I can't do this all the time, so this will be a work in progress.

There are a few more that I could address, but it would take up too much time to list everything. I'm a hard critic of myself, so it could go on for a while!

How do I "anchor" myself?

The term of "anchor" is still a little bit abstract for me. However, my understanding of the word is what helps me/encourages me to become a better leader (or be a leader in general).
1. Goals: I am a very goal-oriented person. I like knowing where I have to go, but have the freedom to explore approaches on how to get there. Goals help me remember what I need to do rather than focusing on my position in an organization (because that can intimidate me).
2. Being in an open community where ideas are shared: I do not think that my ideas are the best ideas out there. I don't believe that one person always has the right answer either. That's why I really feel comfortable in an environment where ideas can be shared with one another in order to find the best solution/idea. I really like brainstorming and it's potential. In order for me to best formulate an idea, I need to see how other people see the issue.
3. Trust: Yes, this is in my weakness area as well. I have been able to find places where I am really comfortable with people and trust what they do. I feel that my work is more efficient when I don't have to look over my shoulder or double-check everything. I also think that promotes efficiency as well.

Alright, I think this might be it for today. There is so much more that I could say or expand on, but I think that can be another challenge for another day. Until next time, everyone!

Progress

I think that community builders are going well so far. I really enjoy them and I still think that they are a bit of a challenge. Honestly, I am not sure how much more I need to say that I haven't said before in another post.

This week we are supposed figure out what our final group project is going to be. Matt and I have NO IDEA what we are going to do for that final project. It needs to be something that addresses service, community, or one of the various organizations that we learned about. The students really seem interested in helping the causes and they like games... but how can that translate into a final project that we share with other classrooms? From the position that Matt and I are in, we have to look at the big picture. In terms of the LoL readings we have done, we are kind of on the balcony in this situation. We have gotten to learn about what the students like and what they have gotten out of the activities that we have done as a group. Now Matt and I have to take all of our observations and opinions and put them together to see what type of project would better help the group as a whole. A problem would be making sure that all of the students enjoy, participate in, and get something out of the group project. This is a collective project where we all should work together in order to achieve a common goal. Our AV, Pat, let us know that they did a music video last semester that the students really enjoyed. Instead of making sure that the majority of students benefit from this, we need to try and address the needs of each student. HOW???

Thriving with Water

Today was the second day at the middle school with the sixth graders. Of course I was nervous this time, but not as much as before. I was actually really excited because last night when Matt and I were planning, I thought of a great idea to do comparisons of Nicaragua and Ethiopia without having to do a Venn diagram. I thought of making everything a game! It was called: NAME THAT COUNTRY. There would be a question or statement on the screen and then each team of students would need to decide which country it reflected. We would then keep track of how many points each time got for the number of right answers that they gave. It went wonderfully. The teams would debate over which country it could possibly be. For me though, I wanted to make sure that the students would want to know the material rather than just do something to humor us.

Photo from Water to Thrive

Today was the day that Ed (I forget his last name) came to Waverly-Shell Rock to speak about Water to Thrive. Water to Thrive is an organization that he helped create that builds wells mainly in Ethiopia in areas that don't have access to clean water. He showed a video that shared information about the organization and told stories about difficulties in obtaining water for the Ethiopians and how adding a well changed their lives. No longer do kids have to walk 6 miles round-trip twice a day in order to get water for them and their families. Even though we didn't get to do a service project, the kids were getting really excited about the  potential to do a penny drive at their school to raise money for Water to Thrive. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this, but I love getting people excited about service. Therefore, watching these students get excited about helping in a monetary way warmed my heart!

Our CB time went really fast this week because of the presentation, so there isn't as much to reflect on. We forgot to give out nametags and draw pictures on each of the nametags. Also, I remember I told Laura to make sure to include her group members when she wasn't, and reflecting on that, I think I should have reminded the students as a whole to work as a group, not just talk directly to her. She might have felt outed and insecure which I don't want! Overall though, I am pretty satisfied with everything that went on today!

Leadership and Ultimate Frisbee - The Real Test

This weekend was Wartburg College's Second Annual One Knight Stand hosted by the Wartburg B-52's (the Ultimate Frisbee team). One Knight Stand was an opportunity for 8 teams from Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota to come together to play a sport that we all love from 10 PM until 6 AM. I am one of the co-captains of the B-52s which meant that I had a part in getting the tournament put together and running. This involved a number of responsibilities over a number of weeks.

For me, since I was in Argentina for the fall semester, I did not help out with very much of the planning for the tournament as much as my co-captains did. Once I returned earlier this month, there was definitely plenty to work on though. For starters, we needed to get in shape again so that we would be able to keep up in the tournament. This meant that we tried to run as much as we could. Since we are just a club, we can't actually force our players to run, but we got them excited for the tournament so they did their part. Additionally, the as captains we needed to make sure that we were working on areas of importance in practices such as defense, throwing, reading the disc, and plays.

What is different about Ultimate Frisbee than any other sport is that the captains act as coaches but play with the team. Therefore, we were the ones to teach people how the better their game and what to do in order to improve as a player. This is challenging sometimes because I have only played Ultimate for two and a half years and I don't always know the answer to people's questions. However, a benefit to having three captains instead of one is that we all can support one another and bring our own strengths to the team. When one person may not be as strong teaching one area, another can pick up the slack. The most important way to get the players to listen to us though is just leading by example. Through leading by example, players can see that we know about what we're talking about by how well we follow what we say and how well it reflects how we play. If we can get the players to see that we know how to play and know what we are doing, we can more effectively lead them. This type of learning by captains teaching the younger players reflects peer learning from the Triangulated Learning article. The younger players learn how to play by seeing the more experienced teammates play. However, we still need to take the traditional approach of learning and teach the players what to do or how to play more effectively.

This weekend through the games, not only did I have to tell my teammates what to do and lead by example, I had to be encouraging and make sure that nobody got too down on themselves. This can be hard for me to do because I easily get down on myself when I don't play well because I am so competitive. It also didn't help that we were easily beat in our first two games. My approach to keeping the spirits high was focusing more one the positive of what we were doing rather than being negative about what we were doing. By qualifying the good and the bad, we were able to work on certain areas and play better even though we ended up losing. I had to let go of my initial anger and frustration and realize that that wasn't helping the team. I needed to swallow my pride and focus on the team rather than myself. Additionally, my leadership styles had to be adaptive. Some players need my recognition and feedback in order to know how they are doing while others can comfortably assess how their doing but just need a little encouragement every once in a while. As a leader, I needed to recognize which players responded which way and act accordingly.

Now that the tournament is over, I think we only have room to grow. We saw what some of our weaknesses were and gained some tournament experience. In terms of being a leader of the team, I have finally had my first test of challenges of being captain and acknowledge that before the next tournament there needs to be some changes.

Leadership in the Classroom

It's just that time again to start planning for another week at the middle school to work with our kiddos. Of course, Mandie gave feedback on how we did the other day. The main comment of feedback she gave us was to better involve our adult volunteer, Pattie. I had noticed that we had not involved her so much in our activities the other day. She spoke with us afterward about how we did a good job and gave her suggestions for next time. However, my goal for next time is to get her more direct interaction with the kids.

Probably one of the meaningful parts of ID 315 that we have done outside of actually working in the classroom was reading the journal entries of the 6th graders and responding to them.  Personally, I love writing letters because I find personal expression so much easier on pen and paper. I liked how the students could write about the theme we gave them and how they drew a picture of something they liked or remembered. The drawings were adorable! Additionally, it was interesting to see the various perspectives of the students and which specific activities they really enjoyed. Then, we can keep in mind what they liked and try and incorporate it into future activities. Across the board we received positive reviews which really excites me. The students were also very interested in what we are going to be doing for the rest of the semester or what we are going to do with the organizations that we talked about the other day. I really enjoyed reading about their enthusiasm though. I am looking forward to spending more time with them this week.

The triangulated learning article did reflect what we are trying to do in Community Builders. For example, when we defined the words "community," "service," and "learning" in class last week, that took a more traditional approach. We were their teachers, reminding them of what those words mean by definition and in context. We take the peer learning approach by being role models for the 6th graders. They are going to learn from our actions and how we behave. They will learn lessons of leadership by how we as Wartburg students conduct ourselves. Finally, the students are going to learn through service-learning activities that we will do with Self Help International. Even though we won't get to see how the hygiene kits we use directly affect the area, we will be able to see the conditions the people live in through the presentation that Self Help will be giving at the school. By actually creating the kits, the feeling of service is more tangible because we can see and count how many hygiene kits we made. I am hoping that we can make sure to emphasize how small steps such as making a box can help someone.

I am aware that there are going to be challenges when working with the students or with being a leader in general. What I am most nervous about is having the 6th graders doubt who I am or what I am trying to share. Sometimes they are not going to be as excited about some of the issues or activities as I am - it's inevitable. I don't want to lose control of them or lose the importance of the issue with a lack of control or interest. Now how I do that - that will be the challenge and the experience!