Ldr402 reflection paper

Final Reflection - Length, at least 5-8 pages: This section should summarize, evaluate, and reflect on the following questions: Did you meet your goals - why or why not?

What leadership “lessons� did you learn?

What could you have done differently?

How did your experience truly connect with your chosen leadership model?

Has the perception of your own leadership skills changed as a result of this experience?

Will this experience impact your future (explain)?

Please be sure to fully reflect on the connection between your experience and your chosen theory or mode it is a vital piece.

All of my goals were not reached for my LDR402 unfortunately. I had to sacrifice my own personal goals for the sake of Homecoming as a whole. My first overall goal was to improve my communication skill by reaching out to students/faculty. I did reach most of my subgoals underneath this goal. I promoted voting for Homecoming Ambassadors as much as I could.

I posted in on Facebook multiple times as well as told people about it. When I went to different Hall Councils to promote Homecoming Week itself I explained what Homecoming Ambassadors were and how to vote for them. I feel like this can never be done enough, even after this Homecoming Week there are people who probably don’t know what a Homecoming Ambassador is. I believe I met this goal because I was passionate about people knowing what a Homecoming Ambassador is because it is such a big deal to me. The male and female represent Central Michigan University.

The second part of this goal was to increase the voting for Homecoming Ambassador by 15%. Considering that last year there were 524 votes for the women and 480 votes for the men, I figured 15% was a reasonable goal.

Lastly, I wanted to increase the number of groups that participated in the Homecoming events. This goal was met and there was even another category added to the competition. Instead of just the Maroon Cup and Golden Goblet there is now a Greek Cup. This goal was met because signing up for the Homecoming competition was advertised more and I believe that there was a more word of mouth factor with the Registered Student Organizations. Another reason for reaching this goal was that towers spilt up instead of just being one massive group.

My second goal dealt with the ability to delegate. I wanted to be able to prepare/train chairs on their responsibilities. I believe that this goal was reached because the committee members wanted to make their event their own and take on as much responsibilities as they

could. Each member had their own event and was able to get their event put together (for the most part) and run it smoothly. Being able to oversee what was being done instead of directly planning each event was a great skill to learn as a leader.

The next part of this goal was to create a timeline/list of events for the week of Homecoming. I did this as well as created one for the Homecoming Ambassadors. It was a good reference for the committee members/Homecoming Ambassadors, but for myself as well. I believe this goal was achieved because I think organization is an important part of being a leader and this helped create organization in a somewhat chaotic week.

The last part of my delegation goal was to check in with the chairs at least once a week.

This was so that I could assist with whatever the committee members needed help with and make sure that the tasks they were assigned was getting done. This did happen because we had weekly meetings that the committee attended and my office hours with align with some of the other committee members. Unfortunately some committee members did lie about what tasks they had completed. As I mentioned previously everything did end up working out but it is hard to let others do certain tasks if they lie about getting it done. I believe this happened because the members didn’t want to own up to not doing anything because they were too busy for the position they received. Checking in with the members was easy because we had meetings and talked about where everyone stood on their event.

My third goal dealt with inspiration. The first part of this goal was to rewrite the legacy note to help out the Co-Chair for Homecoming Ambassadors next year. This goal did get met.

There was a survey that my Co-Chair and I made and sent out to the committee members. This helped with creating my legacy note because I could include what worked and didn’t work with

the Homecoming committee and how to improve it for the next year. This goal was met because I thought it would be helpful for years to come and I was able to give good feedback about it.

The next part of this goal was to keep a positive attitude throughout the entire planning process and Homecoming week. This would keep me with professionalism as well. I believe that this goal was met. At some points I was not the most positive person because I was concerned with everything turning out the way I had expected. I tried my best to keep my cool in front of the committee members and participants in Homecoming week. I was able to see if I reached this goal by asking certain questions on the survey that was sent out to the committee. Positivity was something that came up often for describing me. I was able to stay positive in front of everyone because I believe positivity is contagious.

The last part of this goal was to lead by example. I wanted to be accountable and responsible for everything I was supposed to as well as show up to everything early or on time. I was able to see if I met this goal by the survey that was sent out as well. I think I was able to reach this goal because Homecoming is something that is important to me so I want others to feel the same way. If you lead by example others will respect you and that is what I wanted since some of the committee members had more experience than I did and were older than me.

Leadership lessons that I learned was to be flexible. Not everything is going to go the way it was planned. Sacrifice is a necessity in certain positions. Just because I didn’t reach all of my goals does not mean I failed as a leader, it just shows that my priorities were to make Homecoming Week the most successful that it has been for people participating in the events.

Just because I didn’t reach my own personal goals does not mean that that didn’t happen.

Another lesson I learned through my experience was the importance of being reliable. I think it is important to be honest about the work that has been done and needs to be done.

Working with Alexa and Peter I was able to trust that they would get their work done that they thought would be done. It was difficult though to trust the committee and then have them to not do what they said they did.

The last lesson I learned what that everything works out. Even though things may have been stressful, for having committee members leave, but everything worked out in the end. This Homecoming was put together very well and people definitely stepped up to the occasion to take on extra responsibilities. Even though it may have seemed like the events weren’t going to be ran as expected, they were still great events and we were given great feedback.

If I could have done anything differently, the first thing would be how we selected the Homecoming Committee. I would have liked to interview them before we assigned them their positions, this may or may not have helped the fact that two people were let go or left the committee, but it would have helped things run more smoothly. In addition, I would have lied to sit down and discuss all the role of Homecoming Co-Chair with Alexa and Damon earlier on.

The legacy notes were good, but I felt like I always had questions about my role that I wasn’t able to assist the other members on the committee in their responsibilities as much as I wanted to. Being able to be more knowledgeable on my own responsibilities would have made me a lot less stressed than I was prior and during Homecoming week.

As I have expected, situational leadership did connect with my experience. Situational leadership was the perfect leadership theory to connect to my experience. With being a Homecoming Co-Chair it was definitely important to be flexible and able to change your leadership style at the drop of a hat. There were many unexpected events that happened before Homecoming week and during Homecoming week. An example of this would be when I met the committee for the first time and people were throwing out ideas for events. My style of

leadership at this point was mostly laissez-faire. I wanted everyone to put in their input and let them decide a lot of these details. I thought it was important for them and they should get a say in this.

My leadership style changed to the delegating style by Hershey and Blanchard once things for underway with everyone’s event. Committee members had to do certain tasks for their events and it was important to delegate their responsibilities to them because one person could not do the details for every event.

Once it was Homecoming week my style became more direct and spirited. I was very excited for Homecoming week and get the committee members/participations excited for homecoming. I was more direct because it was important that people knew where they needed to be and what they needed to do. During the week of Homecoming myself and my Co-Chair needed to step up and do this otherwise the Homecoming events may not have ran as smoothly.

This definitely shows that situational leadership directly linked to my experience as a Homecoming Co-Chair.

This experience will definitely impact my future because it was the most responsibility and biggest leadership position I have held. Being a coordinator for the Alpha Leadership Experience was definitely a help with learning how to delegate responsibilities, but I think that all my experiences combined helped me be a Homecoming Co-Chair. I learned a lot about myself through this experience and grew as a person.

From getting all the feedback from the surveys, especially the question that asked what I could improve on, I believe I am able to be a better leader. It showed that people really do respect me as a leader, I just need to be more confident in my decisions. I know the right answers I just like to double check before I do anything wrong. This can be translated to leadership

positions I will be holding in the future. I also learned how flexible I can be and that delegating responsibilities is a good thing. Being able to collaborate with other leaders about an event that is school/community wide was one of the neatest experience I have had in my college carer. I look forward to possibly having the opportunity to serve as a Homecoming Co-Chair next year and would not change my experience for anything.