“You are a leader. What difference will you make?” To me, even the meaning of this question has changed over the course of the semester, as I prepare to change my major into secondary education, with a focus in life sciences. As I move forward into this field, it brings with it a whole new scope of challenges that differ from nursing. The biggest problems I see with education begin with the lack of funding for education. Many schools are growing older and older, in great need of repairs throughout, and of updated books, technology, and other supplies. To fix these repairs and improve supplies is to create an optimal environment for learning and to be able to provide students with the materials they need to succeed. Today, there is so much focus on funding for our military, the war on drugs, and in trying to fix the economy that education seems to be left out, or underfunded. Don’t get me wrong, these are all great causes, and I’m not saying directly that funding should be cut in these areas. I just used these as examples to juxtapose the funding these areas get with the funding for education. To work to fix this problem, I believe that I, along with other groups of educators at the local, state, and national levels, will first have to continue to work to figure out how to best improve test scores while still promoting learning for our students, not simply teaching to the test, which I believe does students no good in the long run. If, as educators, we can improve testing scores while teaching our students valuable lessons, not just in our subjects, but in life as well, that will benefit them long after they leave our class, then the importance of education will grow in the public eye and be seen as something that both needs and deserve funding. At the same time, educators like myself will need to continue using our professional groups at all levels to present education in the best light possible, and to advocate for more funding for education at a political level. However, it seems as if the argument that test scores would improve if education had more funding is not enough to increase funding. I have to believe that it test scores, and student learning improved without a significant increase in funding initially, then education will be viewed as something that deserves more funding so that we can provide the best possible environment for our students. After all, education is the foundation for our own future leaders. Increasing funding for education would not only improve the educational environment and provide the materials our students need to succeed, but it could also solve other problems by increasing salaries for educators, who are cultivating future leaders, which could in turn draw more people to the field of the education as a career.
The situation that I experienced conflict between my own values and the values or beliefs of another group I belong to involved my church, St. Ignatius of Loyola in Cincinnati. I knew about this difference in beliefs previously, it just wasn’t talked about or focused on as much in the past. I discovered this difference at a Sunday mass during the priest’s homily. I had always known that the Catholic Church has been against homosexuality and criticized its practice. Personally, I believe that anyone, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, etc., has the right to feel however they want to feel and has the right to express themselves. On this particular occasion, our priest was not shy to talk about, as the church views it, “the evils of homosexuality,” and to talk about it quite vividly. Even to me and my family and friends around me, that do not identify as homosexual, it was uncomfortable to listen to. What disturbs me the most about this is the fact that, the way I see it, to use a colloquial phrase, love is love. It bothers me that the church seems to have so much hate towards two people, of any variety, that love each other, especially since the church has such strong, positive teachings on love. I understand part of the church’s stance on homosexuality, that being that homosexuality is not by itself procreative. However, in some states at least, they have the option of adoption to help build and support a human life. Also, Jesus’ only teachings related to the subject are all positively-centered around love. The irony to me is humorous, that a church that preaches so much on love, loving thy neighbor, and being accepting to others can have so much hate towards two people that love each other. I have tried to delve into this conflict by listening and presenting discussions to people within the church, specifically a very religious teacher of mine in high school. I discovered quickly that, for whatever reason, having this discussion is pointless, as church members and officials do not budge even a little bit on this issue. While this conflict bothers me a little bit, I try to simply hold to my personal belief, and not have it impact my faith or my involvement with the church.
When the leadership reputation assignment was first introduced, I was intrigued. As someone who can tend to be skeptical about what people think of me behind my back, I was interested to see what others said about me under (hopefully) complete honesty. The three people I asked to complete this evaluation included my mom, and two of my friends, one male and one female I was a little surprised, and pleased, to see that most of the positive qualities, along with some of the negative qualities that I thought of myself were agreed upon with the other people I asked to evaluate me. In return for their honesty, I had to be willing to see their point of view and understand why they selected the qualities that they did. At first when I came across a quality that, whether I thought I had or didn’t have, that another person thought differently, I wanted to present an argument for my opinion. However, once I thought about it and was honest with myself, most of those cases ended in me thinking, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Generally, the qualities listed that had to do with being hardworking and caring were agreed upon for me by all four people completing this assessment, including myself. It was interesting to see the differences in qualities people selected about me, and how they might’ve have been influenced by my relationships with the different people evaluating me. For example, my male friend agreed that I was happy, approachable, charismatic, typical qualities for two guy friends who were former athletes. Qualities that were not selected by him, though, were qualities more directed in the sensitive and caring realm, probably because we don’t go to each other to talk about our feelings, as most guys wouldn’t. Those kind of qualities were among the bulk of those selected by my female friend, who comes to me whenever she is upset or is dealing with a problem in her life, and with whom I can share when I am upset or struggling. I was interested to see that the person with whom I matched almost all of the qualities selected was my mom, which shows me that she really does know me best, even though sometimes I want to think she doesn’t. Even though there were some differences in my qualities among the three people I asked to evaluate me, they were pretty similar across the board, which I’d like to attribute to the fact that I do my best to be like an open book, in that I don’t pretend to be something I’m not just because of the people I might be around, so I was glad to see for the most part that others were able to agree on a lot of qualities they thought I possessed and that I also thought I possessed.
During class last Monday, I was able to reflect upon my own identities and privileges. The identity that I am most aware of on a daily basis is my identity as an Elder High School alum. I am reminded of this identity in many ways. I see it every time I’m with family as my father, both grandpas, the majority of my uncles, and all of my brothers have or will have graduated from Elder. I see it in the number of different friends I have, both from UC and other colleges that I either graduated with or that graduated soon before or after me. I see it with in the large amount of purple and white clothes that I have, which I proudly don whenever I choose, but especially on Purple Friday. Linked with this identity, I also am most aware of my identity of a Catholic. My faith and my relationship with God drives me to do what I do every day, and gives me the strength to get through even the toughest times. If I ever forget this, however, all II need to do is look down and see the cross necklace that hangs on my neck nearly all the time to remind me that my relationship God is at the center of my life. I believe my faith gives me a special kind of privilege, one that is not exclusive, but can be shared with others, in the strength and belief in myself I am provided through my relationship with God. I also believe my identity as an Elder alum gives me privilege in that it gives me another family to belong to, one that will support me in what my future holds for me. Also, my time at Elder taught me what it meant to be a true Man of Elder, and to follow the motto of Altiora, or striving for the higher things. The privilege provided by my Catholic faith has a role in my daily interactions with others in that I do my best to respect everyone that I come into contact with, and to share with them my faith through my actions. Also, my privilege of being a part of the elder family plays a role in my daily interactions when people see me wearing purple on Fridays, and see that I am proud of where I came from. Also, wearing the color purple makes it easy for friends to identify each other, for fellow alums of panthers past to strike up a conversation, and for strangers even far outside the city to ask if you’re from “Cincinnati Elder?”
My top five strengths from the StrengthsFinder assessment report were, in order, Belief, Empathy, Relator, Developer, and Achiever. When I first copied down my five strengths for class, I wrote down refractor, instead of relator. I assumed refractor meant I’m one who gives credit to others around me first, not always taking credit for myself. Because this also describes me, I was surprised and humored when I couldn’t find refractor on the list of themes, but found relator instead. After reading the descriptions of each of the terms, I was not surprised at all that those were my five strengths. I was even less surprised to find that three of my five strengths came from the same theme matrix, that of the relationship matrix. I am a very relationship-oriented person, so I assumed that would be where most of my leadership strengths would lie.
How do I think I can apply these five strengths to my leadership? In order to understand that, first I needed to understand the description of each of these terms. Starting at the top with belief, this means that I have certain core values that I keep at the forefront of everything I do. For me, the two most important values I hold are that my family and my faith come before anything else. I saw the value of my family to me come into play when instead of planning on staying home and going out to a party next Friday night and working Saturday night, I planned to get off work Saturday and go with my family to see my brother play baseball in Alabama next weekend. My brother and I have grown really close these past couple of years, and it was important to me to spend time with the rest of my family supporting him playing college baseball. Sometimes it might be more difficult than others, but I can use this strength of belief in my values to be an honest, ethical leader and to never compromise my principles. Empathy means that I am able to understand easily what other people might be going through. This is a particular strength of mine, and I saw it best in action when a friend of mine had a family member fighting through bone cancer. Once having cancer myself, it was difficult to see what her uncle and the rest of her family was going through, long surpassing the time he was given upon diagnosis, only to ride a rollercoaster ride of getting better and worse, until he finally passed recently. I was able to use empathy to understand what my friend was going through, at least on some level, and understand that in order to help her, I did whatever I could to help her and her family in this time, even if that meant simply being there for her when she needed me. I can use this strength of empathy in future leadership to always seek out and understand what members of my group might be going through, so that I can help lead them more effectively towards completion of a task. Being a relator means I seek out deep, meaningful relationships. I see this in that I’d rather have a deep relationship that means something with my family members or a few close friends from high school or college than a large number of shallow relationships with people I don’t really know at a big party. Seeking out deep relationships, really getting to know the people I work with, will help me be an effective leader by being open and supportive of the people I am leading. Being a developer means that I like to help people, and that people seek me out when they need help. I see this in a relationship I developed with a friend that started out with me helping her understand and pass chemistry in high school. I wanted to major in nursing in college because I saw it as a profession where I could really help people, and being a developer as one of my strengths will certainly help me as a nurse. Being an achiever means that I like to get things done, that I am driven by my need to achieve. I see this in my life when I worked really hard in high school in order to graduate in the top ten of my class. Being an achiever will help me accomplish goals in my leadership career and motivate others to accomplish a task, in my case that would be to provide the best possible care for my patients. In my major, which is nursing, professionals share the view of patient-centered care. This places the patient at the forefront of every decision made about that patient’s care, and puts the final say on decisions with the patient. This also entails working together as one cohesive health care team, what we would call the interprofessional or interdisciplinary team. This means that different professions must work together in order to provide care for the patient, which differs from the past, where the doctors might work separate from the nurse, who works separate from the dietician, and so on and so forth. The expectation of leaders in this field is that each leader among the different disciplines do their best to provide the highest possible standard of care with the patient’s desires in mind. Also, in patient-centered-care, the patients themselves can be viewed as leaders, driving the direction of their own care. It is the understanding that each of the disciplines in a team working with a patient is a “leader” in their own field of health care, with the common goal of providing the best possible care for a patient, which shortens hospital stays for that patient and reduces the chance for errors, which can result in longer stays and hospital acquired conditions. Sometimes, however, ethical dilemmas can come about through the paradigm of patient centered care. For example, the patients have the right to refuse any medication or treatment they want to, even if it means improving their condition or saving their life. Also, another ethical dilemma exists after the diagnosis of a patient, in disclosing information about that patient’s condition. The patient has the right to inform or withhold information about their condition from anyone, including family members and other loved ones, even if that knowledge could lead to loved ones being tested for their likelihood to contract the same condition. Ultimately, in order to show ethical leadership in the field of nursing, or in any health care-related field today, means to put patient’s desires and requests first when at all possible, no matter what medical knowledge or training might tell you. This is the current paradigm shared by health care professionals, the world of patient-centered care.
To me, the definition of leadership is not only an individual or group taking charge of a tasks among others, but that the individual elevates the standard, work ethic, and finished product of work of others in the group. In the world of sports, athletes like LeBron James and Tom Brady, and coaches like Urban Meyer, set the example of how to play or coach their respective sports, and through their example elevate their fellow teammates and players’ performance, making them better players themselves. This definition also fits into the everyday working world, where a good boss elevates the work of his employees by setting a standard of work quality. Also, the more employees and players enjoy working with a good boss or team leader, the more they will be driven to improve performance towards a common goal. The second part of leadership that I think is crucial is that a leader must be willing to adapt to changing times. Our world is a rapidly developing one, due to in most part the development of technology. If a leader is not willing to change with the times, he or she could be missing out on chances to boost workforce morale, increase efficiency, and improve the overall quality of work. A third piece of leadership that I believe is important is that a leader must be open to continuous learning, and to the ideas and concerns of his employees, or any other type of follower. Once a leader is willing to accept that he may not always have the best option for every answer, and that his employees can contribute more than following through with what the leader says, he facilitates critical thinking on ideas to come up with the best possible solution to get the job done. All of these important pieces lead to the real purpose of leadership, not solely to be in charge of a project, but to work towards accomplishing a common goal. If there is no common goal to work towards, a leader’s situation can result in the leader making orders for the sake of his followers’ obedience of the orders. With no drive towards a common goal, this situation becomes much like the saying, “the blind leading the blind.”
My favorite leadership experience that I have comes from my experience as one of the senior leaders of my high school’s spirit committee. After my freshman year, there was a noticeable drop off in the number and quality of pep rallies and other spirit committee-led activities. Entering my senior year, my fellow senior leaders and I decided that this needed to change. Every meeting we had, we came together from different social groups to talk about what hadn’t worked in the past, and what we could do to make our senior year our best one yet. I would liken this experience to the symphony metaphor given in the book in that it was our responsibility as leaders, much like the maestro, to effectively lead and make use of the talents of everybody in the spirit committee, like the different musicians with differing talents and instruments, to come up with the best sounding songs possible, in our case the best pep rallies and school activities. What made this leadership experience great for me was being able to appreciate the different groups people in the committee came from, that it wasn’t just athletes or people from one social group. It was awesome for me to see the different ideas people came up with, and the passion our group had in carrying out ideas towards a final product, even if that idea wasn’t a certain person’s own idea. We finished with several fun pep rallies and activities, a great black-out t-shirt for a rivalry game, and a cheer that is still one of the most popular cheers at the school three years later. That is what makes me most proud of this leadership experience on the spirit committee, feeling like we left our own impact of a continuing tradition of passionate school spirit. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2015
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