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. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2015
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