Throughout my time as an honors student, my growth in the leadership competency has not been entirely linear. For example, I had already started to implement leadership practices in an applied experience before I had taken HONR 401 Developing your Mentor Philosophy. I had to find a way to integrate these two things together and reflect on how they could help inform and provide each other with feedback. It took time and trial and error to develop my skills, and this can be seen in my various leadership experiences, both developed and applied.

 

One of the very first steps in fostering leadership growth is discovery. Discovering one's own strengths, weaknesses, and goals is one example. “Discovery” can be a generic term, referring to something more hypothetical and reflective rather than a physical, tangible discovery of something. Due to this, it would be easy for me to categorize discovery as a stage within my leadership growth, but this would be inaccurate. Truthfully, discovery occurred throughout my development, and it will continue to in the future as well. One example of discovery early on in my time in honors is when I took the StrengthsFinder assessment in HONR 201. I had a basic idea of what my possible strengths could be beforehand, but this assessment provided a more detailed picture. Although this was my first initial discovery within the honors program, I continued to have many more throughout my college career, and I still experience them in the present. As I mentioned earlier, I had already started to become a leader before taking HONR 401 Developing your Mentor Philosophy. I was becoming more comfortable leading shifts, talking to clients, and dealing with the unpredictable at my job as a Building Manager at the Centennial Student Union. However, that honors course aided me in further reflecting and establishing a mentor philosophy, helping me to test out new leadership techniques at work. Some methods were effective, and some weren't, but I wouldn't have discovered this if I hadn't taken the time to reassess and open myself up to additional revisions. I like to think of this as running multiple trials for different conditions in a scientific experiment. Running tests on each variable multiple times can allow for more accurate results. Through that class, I was able to establish a leadership philosophy that emphasizes growth for all participants.

 

Alongside discovery, practice is also undoubtedly critical. Rather than practice coming sequentially after discovery, they often elicit reactions from each other. Practice was the most challenging aspect of the leadership competency for me. The StrengthsFinder test told me that one of my strengths is restorative, but how do I use that in my job as a building manager, or in Mavs in Action as the secretary? The simple answer is to practice, but that’s easier said than done. Although this advice is extremely common, the thing I benefited the most from was forcing myself out of my comfort zone. For example, I only intended to join Mavs in Action, a campus volunteering club, as a member. After being in the organization for a while, new members started to look for me to information and guidance, and I had to help them even if I wasn’t a formal leader. When I learned that the secretary position was vacant, I knew it was an opportunity to work on my leadership abilities. At first, I didn’t want to go to extra meetings or socialize in large groups of people, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to develop my hypothetical strengths and weaknesses otherwise. The same went for my job at the CSU. I was reluctant to take on the extra responsibilities that came with being promoted, but how else was I going to manage my fear of talking on the phone? In cases like these, I had to step outside of my comfort zone in order to test out various methods.

 

Once I practiced the abilities that were previously only hypothetical, it led to discovering what I needed to improve, what wasn’t suited for my leadership style, and what my future goals should be. Although it makes sense to go from taking leadership inventories and reading leadership style literature to being an active team member that initiates discussions and guides others, my experience is that both are necessary in a nonlinear fashion. They have assisted in my cumulative leadership only by working together. Going forward, I would like to continue utilizing other strategies, such as seeking out feedback from those who are less similar to me. Although I’m still deciding on my future after graduation, I’m certain that my experiences with leadership will aid me in both the work force and academia.