"Challenging the Process"

I am designating my theme for this post, "Challenging the Process;" a chapter out of The Student Leadership Challenge written by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. I think that in a classroom setting, this is the part of leadership that most students have a hard time with. Many of us are eager to lead, but the idea of change can be a little scary. One of the more obvious situations in this past week has been deciding what groups are which for the final group project presentation. Dr. Kittle said that we could make groups of people within our major or something along those lines, but when it comes down to it, people are going to stay with their friends and not venture to find anyone who may have similar academic interests.

Ii do not know that many people in our class. Additionally, most of the people I do know have already presented early. Therefore, when Dr. Kittle announced that we should be thinking about who we are going to be in a group with, I got a little nervous. I didn't know who it was going to be! After we finished a class activity one day, instead of sticking around to find a group, I left the class amongst other students who also finished early. I was too nervous to ask anyone if I could be in their group or if they even had one or not. I am introverted, so reaching out to someone makes me very uncomfortable. Also, when I was in high school, people never asked me to be in their group. I always had to be asked to be in a group and I usually felt left out because everyone else knew one another really well and they weren't interested in my input. Plus, by working with different people, it gives an opportunity to have a unique experience and learn about other perspectives. However, without taking the challenge to do that, it limits the world of possibilities.

I was pleasantly surprised when one day, I opened my email to see a message from Matt (a different one than the one I work with for community builders) in my inbox. He said that he couldn't find a partner and he was wondering if he could join my group. Relieved, I said that the two of us could form our own group. In terms of  our group, I think that he took a challenge by having to ask to join a group and it ended up being for the better. Instead of feeling embarrassed and ashamed, I should have remembered the assignment as hand and that it was necessary that I find a group. Just putting it off until later would only make it harder to join a group. Matt reminded me that I do just have to put away my pride and get the job done when it needs to be done. A leader may not worry what other people think as long as the task at hand gets done and gets done well.