3 Semester Review:
Reflect on your understanding of leadership. How has it changed over your time in PL? What do you think of leadership now/What does leadership mean to you now?
As I entered college and the Public Leadership program, I always focused my leadership surrounding leadership of the everyday. This meant using my energy toward focusing on the little moments. I did not think that a leader had to be at the front of the room or hold a position in order to have an impact. Throughout my time in Public Leadership and as I continued throughout my career at UMD, all these beliefs still stand, but with a bit more perspective. I have learned that there are times a leader must lead from within, and there are times when a leader should take more initiative toward achieving a group’s goal. Leaders are people who can craft a team of effective and innovative people to support their weaknesses and needs. Leaders can create a vision for their group and know how to make that vision the goal of the collective. Overall, leadership is still not about a title or position, but rather it is a focus on building and maintaining intentional relationships.
Describe your leadership style referencing Strengths, leadership theories/styles, etc from class
My personal leadership style is focused on community building. Last year I used the Clifton Strengths Finder with PL and my top few strengths were: includer, positivity, and developer. These first three strengths all fall under the category of relationship building, something that I hold of utmost importance. The greatest compliment I ever received was that I can take two strangers, and after an hour they will be best friends. I believe that this translates to my leadership style as well. I know that having a strong team is my most effective tool to create change. Without leadership focused on relationship building, a team is just a group of people all working on their own. As a leader, I focus on bringing these individuals together with compassion, care, and respect for each other.
I also would consider myself a servant leader. Having grown up in a military family, service to our country was an important family value. This value of servitude toward whatever change I am trying to make continues to stand. I am a goal-oriented person, and so the mission of the community must come first. I do not believe in having a title as a motivator to lead, but rather a “call to action” where I see fit.
What facilitated the change in your understanding of leadership? Upload at least 1 additional artifact as evidence and discuss WHY you chose it/them. Describing WHY you uploaded something is more important than the item itself.
One of the key factors in my shift in understanding leadership was taking PLCY213, Foundations of Nonprofit Leadership and Social Innovation. Attached is a copy of an essay I wrote toward the beginning of the couse describing my role in creating social change. This course taught me a great deal about the nonprofit sector, but most significantly it gave me a sliver of insight into how to go about changing the world. According to this class, the organization of people is what feeds change. In order to organize people, one must step up to the plate and take action. While my previous understanding of leadership from within is still crucial to accomplishing this goal, a change-maker must moreso make their presence and ideas known to the public. For me, personally, being a changemaker with my leadership is what I strive to achieve, and this shift in thought was an important step.
How have you used an element of leadership learned through PL in your life?
This year I took on a leadership role as a Committee Head for Images Campus Tourguide organization under the Office of Enrollment Management. This has been a tough role to come into, but PL’s emphasis on authentic leadership has helped guide me in leading this organization. Images manages over 200 tour guides in both giving powerful tours to campus visitors and social aspects of the club. One key aspect I tried to focus on this year was professional transparency between the leadership team and the tour guides. We wanted the tour guides to have full knowledge about the status of the organization, while still being able to stay motivated as tour guides. I encouraged my leadership team to “get their hands dirty” in the organization by interacting with all the organization members they meet, going on tours, giving tours of their own, and overall keeping in touch with the essence of the organization’s happenings. Incorporating authentic leadership in such a way with Images proved highly effective and the morale of the organization is slowly becoming more positive as it once was. I was proud to lead the organization through this experience using the knowledge gained in PL.
Practicum Review:
What did you do for your practicum? Please include a detailed description
For my practicum, I served as an executive intern at the Jewish Welfare Board, a nonprofit organization that supports the needs of Jewish service members in the U.S. armed forces. My internship focused on building a strategic relationship between two organizations, the JWB and the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities. I conducted SWAT analysis of both organizations and interviewed key figures in both organizations to understand how they can best work together.
What did you learn from your practicum?
I learned a great deal from my practicum about the ins and outs of nonprofit work. It gave me perspective into what work I liked most about being at a nonprofit, and what work does not interest me so much. I also gained confidence in interacting with professionals and my own abilities as an intern. I also learned how to build professional relationships that feel personal, while maintaining the professionalism of a workplace.
How have you grown as a leader, student, and professional? Upload at least 1 artifact as evidence of that growth and discuss WHY you chose it.
Attached is my final report completed for my internship this past summer as a review and summary of the work and observations I completed. I chose to upload this report as a culmination of my growth throughout the summer. As a leader, I strengthened my abilities to have difficult conversations with executives of large nonprofits, as outlined in the report. As a student and a future professional, this report was the first time I had written such a professional document outlining my experiences and findings throughout the summer. I was able to use these tangible writing skills I had gained at school and apply them practically to my work environment.
How can you apply your practicum experience to your life/career moving forward?
What are your plans for: The rest of your time at UMD? Post-graduation and your prospective career/field of interest?
My practicum experience proved very important toward my career moving forward. First, it encouraged me to pursue a minor in nonprofit leadership here at UMD and involve myself with more nonprofit organizations working on campus. It gave me excellent interview material for some of my campus involvement opportunities, and overall boosted my confidence in my abilities to intern with orgnizations in the future. After graduation, my experience at JWB encouraged me to pursue a career in a different aspect of the nonprofit field. It helped me narrow down exactly what jobs I would enjoy in the nonprofit sector, and which ones would be a struggle for me. Moving forward, my practicum gave me experience and mentors that I know I can return to for guidance in the future of my career.
How will you incorporate what you learned in PL (this could include your practicum) into your job search? Include an elevator pitch about what you learned in PL and why its relevant for a job/position you’re interested in (this could be in cover letter format)
My time in College Park Scholars: Public Leadership taught me both tangible and intangible leadership skills. Not only did we learn leadership styles and skills in a classroom environment, but we had opportunities to practice those strategies in real-world situations as we crafted our own personal leadership methods, strengths, and challenges.
Resume:
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