Leadership Journey

By: Haley Slaboch

Land

Leadership

Model The Way

Inspire a Shared Vision

Introduction

Did you know that there are secrets around Disneyland? Among the water parks and golf courses they also have the Land of Leadership. These parks were designed to introduce you to the world of leaders and showcase how to be a good leader. This place will teach you a lot about yourself and you even might get to meet their mascot Businessman!

In this blog we will be giving you a locals guide to the Land Of Leadership. Where you should go. What you should see. And of course, what these parks have to offer. Follow me in my journey through Land of Leadership!

Model The Way

The first place to check out is the land of Model The Way. Among all the attractions is the theme of values. This park prides itself on discovering values and encourages patrons to share their own!

After looking around, an employee reminded me of what I was there for. I had so much fun that I almost forgot the most crucial step! My values. Thinking about it, I would say that my first value is “purpose.” I struggle with motivation, and having a purpose reminds me where I am and what I am doing something for. Another value is “strength.” It has always been essential to me to be strong and hold my ground. In my younger years, I was considered a push over, and I was timid. Talking in class was a nightmare for me, but slowly, I have grown. The final value would have to be “love.”

I love love, and it encompasses multiple values, such as respect and empathy. Using this value, I hope to continue loving everyone I meet and helping them in any way possible.

While you wander, you may find people with different values and wonder how you can get along with someone totally random. I highly recommend visiting the attraction called the “Branches of Life.” The picture to the left shows this attraction. Around this area, you can partake in activities that center on values. Patrons, including myself, explained our values and were placed into groups. Our team leader was the “tree”, and we were the “branches.” All our values combined were used to complete fun activities the employees had prepared. I found it interesting how someone with the values of loyalty, excellence, and wealth got along with someone like me. If you were the leader of this team how would you respond?

confidently say I am now an emotional intelligence expert on empathy and anger.

One attraction I highly recommend visiting here is called the “Path to Success.” As you can see above, it is just a simple street, but when the park is open, employees line the street with sayings that provoke you to think about your future. Examples of these sayings are “reflect on your past,” “attend to the present,” ”express your passion,” etc. In my case, this street was scary because I was terrified of my future. However, this attraction allowed me to take a step back and think about the skills I have been practicing that will make me successful in the future. It reminded me that as a leader, I need a purpose and the ability to look forward to times of change. Which aligns with my values!

Inspire a Shared Vision

The following land to check out is Inspire a Shared Vision. I spent a lot of time here because I want to work on the future and emotional intelligence topics. Inspire a Shared Vision focuses on growing one's emotional intelligence and inspires individuals to think about their future. They do this by having many buildings in their park with different resources. One building might focus on showing the emotional intelligence needed to show empathy as a leader. At the same time, another has information on anger and how to manage it, which are both emotions that I struggle with handling. They want you to grow while you are here and leave with an understanding of your emotional intelligence. I was able to work on both emotions and can

Challenge The Process

Next up on the list is Challenge The Process. Through their various attractions, they hope to teach you how to handle failures and grow from them.

In the picture to the right, you can barely see a round structure with texture. This building is a sight to behold, and I suggest you see it when you visit! The inside of this structure contains a slow-moving ride that guides you through times in history when leaders failed. Now you might be thinking, what in the world why should I care? But I found it very interesting! It makes you reflect on times you failed and how you handled it. It made me realize that I have been subconsciously working on this. When I used to fail, I would blame myself and would get upset. However, I have slowly been growing and taking these failures as a lesson. Every failure I experience can make me stronger. Even excellent leaders can make mistakes and choose to learn from them, so why can't I?

Enable Others To Act

The next destination is to Enable Others To Act. This land is slower-paced and calmer than the others. It's focused more on strengthening others and fostering collaboration. If you have children, I suggest going to this park first! Now, this park has fewer attractions than the others, but it is still a fun place to visit! My favorite part of the park is the bingo card.

After you enter the park, go to the information desk. There, they will give you a bingo card with destinations in the park you must visit. Each destination will ask you a question about teamwork. One example is, "What two tasks do leaders engage in to strengthen others in their team"? Of course, I had no clue how to answer this, but they will tell you the correct answer anyway and explain why. Each destination allows you to learn ways to strengthen others in a team and foster collaboration. With children being our future, it would be a good idea to bring your child along to learn how to work as a good team member or leader.

Upon completing the bingo card, you'll have the opportunity to trade it in for a prize. I chose a little book filled with powerful quotes, a reminder of the lessons I've learned here. This park has not only provided a fun experience but also a profound self-reflection on my leadership style. I've realized the importance of effective communication in my teams, and I'm inspired to focus on this aspect more!

Celebrating the small things gets us through life; being able to do that here was almost a breath of fresh air for me. It made me think of my victories and how I don’t celebrate enough. If I can party based on something as simple as dreams, why can't I celebrate the accomplishments in my life? So, this day, I went to Encourage The Heart. I celebrated my dreams and some recent accomplishments that I should be proud of, such as my new position at a company this summer. Although I don’t celebrate nearly enough as I should, I hope to grow on this. My advice is to celebrate the small things and learn to become a leader than can celebrate the small things.

Encourage The Heart

Finally, we have reached the biggest park out of them, Encourage The Heart. This park is all about fun; that's their main motto. It’s always a party here, and each day of the week is dedicated to a different purpose. We went on Monday, so the purpose was a celebration of dreams, but there are also other themes like hope, kindness, creativity, etc. The celebration of dreams was focused on simply acknowledging the dreams every individual has in their hearts.

I recommend staying in the park after dark for the party they put on. The park organizes performers and fireworks. They do this daily for each new purpose, so you don’t have to worry about missing out!

Development Plan

One thing I want to work on is being the first to talk in group settings. This could be answering a question or just simply introducing myself. This step is going to focus on building my communication skills while working in my internship this summer. In my position I will be in a marketing group and will be working with the same people the whole summer. I've realized over time that I tend to stay quiet in group settings and I never can share my own opinions. Due to this, I want to work on becoming a better communicator. To measure this, I plan on doing a tally system. If I reach a certain number of tallies in a day, then I can pick up a sweet treat after work. If I do not meet the tally requirements for the day, then I must go home. Hopefully after quite some time I will be able to see improvement in number of

Be mindful of feedback

When I communicate with professors and bosses, I tend to get very nervous. It is also very similar to the feelings I get when I present in front of a class. I get super anxious and end up speaking too fast or I mess up the words I am saying and forget what I was talking about. To combat this issue, I plan to work on this at my new position. The beginning of my internship will be focused primarily on speaking with my team but as we leave training it will change. I will need to speak with my boss and every time I do I plan to keep an attitude app. Like the Flo app that tracks my period; I will download a mood tracker that will show me the emotions I felt during meetings with my boss. Doing this will allow me to see how my emotions changed while getting further and further into my position there. I hope to record the sudden shift where I go from anxious to comfortable and how I can use that information for future positions.

As I start completing tasks in this job, I will also start receiving feedback. After I meet with my boss, I will take a couple minutes afterwards to reflect on what was discussed. I will only be doing this during times I receive feedback about my work. Doing this will allow me to work on my current mindset when it comes to receiving feedback. Currently, whenever I receive negative feedback in a serious tone I shut down and blame myself. To work on this, I feel it is important to have a meeting with myself on how to handle this information and where to take it next. To measure this, I will just be going off feelings and I hope to know how to handle these situations by the end of my internship.

May 20th – August 5th

* Online you can access this template to create your own personal growth plan. To better your experience at the parks, fill this out at the end of your visit to figure out what you need to work on based on what you learned.