What is LeaderShape?
LeaderShape is a week-long intensive leadership workshop. It is not a traditional leadership seminar, because it focuses on developing skills, ideas, and action plans essential for a leader. Students are broken out into "family clusters" where students can share and discuss openly their life experiences and plans for the future. More than anything, LeaderShape is about recognizing one's own passion and developing an action plan to change the world for the better.
http://www.leadershape.org/Institute.aspx
http://www.leadershape.org/Institute.aspx
My LeaderShape
I never viewed myself as a leader before. In my mind, leaders were the few, brave, energetic individuals who enacted something big. In my mind, I was not it. But I had heard so many good things about LeaderShape from older Honors students, so I signed up. I went into the experience with an open mind.
After the week, I not only made strong connections with other students and staff, but I realized something special about myself. I realized that I have the potential and drive to lead. It was the first part of many in an astounding transformation from a shy, quiet individual into a robust and active leader.
The week's activities had culminated into an action plan to enact, how to enact it, and the type of leader we were to be while enacting it. Each of us had to come up with our own plan within our "family clusters"
I had a really hard time establishing what national issues were most important to me. I felt well educated, at least on a surface level, about many of the world's problems, but I never really took the time to think about what problems were most important to me. After much thinking, I realized that community service had been an aspect that has covered almost all of my life.
Working with the people of a community, whether they be children trying to learn, lonely prisoners, or anything in between is satisfying to me. Their stories are fascinating. Additionally through personal friends' issues I found I have a knack for supporting individuals through dark or tough times in their life. I enjoy listening to different opinions and comparing them and proceeding to ponder the circumstances or why an individual thinks a certain way. This is where I came to my epiphany.
I realized that diversity of both physical people and ideas is something that I value and respect. It is diversity that enables us to celebrate our humanity. Without it, we would all be one, uniform mindless mass. Fortunately diversity in all aspects is an innate part of the human experience, but should be protected highly as well.
Unfortunately diversity can and does cause clashed everyday, whether spoken or unspoken, seen or unseen. We don't all have to agree, but we have to try to understand where we are coming from. We can read or be preached to all we want but real understanding comes from living with, talking with, and sharing time with those who are different than us. I believe this is the only way to eliminate hate crimes, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious misunderstandings, and vast political divides. We can have all the technological advances in the world, but until we take time to respect and listen to each other the world will never know peace.
I have thought about what matters most to me before, but never before have I written it down on paper or stated it succinctly To me, this was a monumental step in saying, "this is something that matters to me."
After the week, I not only made strong connections with other students and staff, but I realized something special about myself. I realized that I have the potential and drive to lead. It was the first part of many in an astounding transformation from a shy, quiet individual into a robust and active leader.
The week's activities had culminated into an action plan to enact, how to enact it, and the type of leader we were to be while enacting it. Each of us had to come up with our own plan within our "family clusters"
I had a really hard time establishing what national issues were most important to me. I felt well educated, at least on a surface level, about many of the world's problems, but I never really took the time to think about what problems were most important to me. After much thinking, I realized that community service had been an aspect that has covered almost all of my life.
Working with the people of a community, whether they be children trying to learn, lonely prisoners, or anything in between is satisfying to me. Their stories are fascinating. Additionally through personal friends' issues I found I have a knack for supporting individuals through dark or tough times in their life. I enjoy listening to different opinions and comparing them and proceeding to ponder the circumstances or why an individual thinks a certain way. This is where I came to my epiphany.
I realized that diversity of both physical people and ideas is something that I value and respect. It is diversity that enables us to celebrate our humanity. Without it, we would all be one, uniform mindless mass. Fortunately diversity in all aspects is an innate part of the human experience, but should be protected highly as well.
Unfortunately diversity can and does cause clashed everyday, whether spoken or unspoken, seen or unseen. We don't all have to agree, but we have to try to understand where we are coming from. We can read or be preached to all we want but real understanding comes from living with, talking with, and sharing time with those who are different than us. I believe this is the only way to eliminate hate crimes, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious misunderstandings, and vast political divides. We can have all the technological advances in the world, but until we take time to respect and listen to each other the world will never know peace.
I have thought about what matters most to me before, but never before have I written it down on paper or stated it succinctly To me, this was a monumental step in saying, "this is something that matters to me."
During the retreat, we were to plan and design a brief headline of a future paper. This project, entitled Tomorrow's Headline, expressed the ideal world. In Cincinnati, the neighborhoods are often split up into the wealthier white neighborhoods and the poorer inner city and latino populations. If people could simply live in more diverse neighborhoods over time racism and prejudice would begin to disappear.
However in LeaderShape hope for change is only a small part of leading. An action plan is necessary. Thus in our small groups we formed a "Breakthrough Blueprint" in order to acheive our Tomorrow's Headline goal. At first achieving the goals seem impossible. One small group of people versus society. However we became more educated about how to go about such a plan. We learned that we need to look for "connectors" or simply "people who know people." We planned small steps that we know we can achieve, and then from there plan larger and larger steps, each with a barely possible goal.
We push ourselves out of our comfort zones. One of the most influential quotes I heard while on this retreat explains this: "In the heating and air conditioning trade, the point on the thermostat at which neither heating nor cooling must operate-around 72 degrees- is called the 'Comfort Zone'. It's also known as the 'Dead Zone.'''
If as a leader I want to accomplish anything, I must be willing to explore the uncomfortable and unknown. This became a mantra.
My Breakthrough Blueprint included my stretch goal, manageable goals, and action planning. The stretch goal is having little to no prejudice and extreme tolerance for different people and ideas due to the fact that housing is of mixed ethnicity, religions, sexuality, and incomes. With the overall goal of raising intercultural awareness, my manageable goal is to provide a fun and informative dance at the university that would sample music from different cultures but also give information about the culture and dispel popular myths.
On the trip I met the leader of RAPP ( a racial awareness group) and I also met with the president of the on campus minority funds group, both people that could help me achieve this goal.
As the week sped by, I began to form an updated definition of leadership. Before this experience, I figured leadership was simply the action attributed to someone who leads through a group of people. But now I realize that leaders do not even have to "lead" in the traditional sense. My definition changed. At the end of LeaderShape, I perceived leadership as being "the continuous state of building relationships and working with respect and integrity to fulfill a goal or vision." This new definition of leadership allows everyone in a group to be a leader, not simply one person or a select few. Leadership relies so much on teamwork and the incorporation of every work style. This definition also excludes dictators or "leader figures" who do not work with integrity (defined as keeping respect and upholding values friendly to human welfare).
LeaderShape awakened the leader in me. Directly, it inspired me to sign up for an honors seminar on leadership and also inspired me to apply to a position as resident adviser in UC's Residential Education Department.
We push ourselves out of our comfort zones. One of the most influential quotes I heard while on this retreat explains this: "In the heating and air conditioning trade, the point on the thermostat at which neither heating nor cooling must operate-around 72 degrees- is called the 'Comfort Zone'. It's also known as the 'Dead Zone.'''
If as a leader I want to accomplish anything, I must be willing to explore the uncomfortable and unknown. This became a mantra.
My Breakthrough Blueprint included my stretch goal, manageable goals, and action planning. The stretch goal is having little to no prejudice and extreme tolerance for different people and ideas due to the fact that housing is of mixed ethnicity, religions, sexuality, and incomes. With the overall goal of raising intercultural awareness, my manageable goal is to provide a fun and informative dance at the university that would sample music from different cultures but also give information about the culture and dispel popular myths.
On the trip I met the leader of RAPP ( a racial awareness group) and I also met with the president of the on campus minority funds group, both people that could help me achieve this goal.
As the week sped by, I began to form an updated definition of leadership. Before this experience, I figured leadership was simply the action attributed to someone who leads through a group of people. But now I realize that leaders do not even have to "lead" in the traditional sense. My definition changed. At the end of LeaderShape, I perceived leadership as being "the continuous state of building relationships and working with respect and integrity to fulfill a goal or vision." This new definition of leadership allows everyone in a group to be a leader, not simply one person or a select few. Leadership relies so much on teamwork and the incorporation of every work style. This definition also excludes dictators or "leader figures" who do not work with integrity (defined as keeping respect and upholding values friendly to human welfare).
LeaderShape awakened the leader in me. Directly, it inspired me to sign up for an honors seminar on leadership and also inspired me to apply to a position as resident adviser in UC's Residential Education Department.