Student Leadership

By: Rhys Andrews

Why a Focus on Student Leadership?

• Tomorrows leaders will be you • We can help prepare you for leadership challenges • We develop shared learning about leadership

Critical Elements of Student Leadership Development

• Partnerships between staff and students • Provide you with decision making power and responsibility for consequences • Provide a broader context for learning and service • Recognize your experiences, knowledge and skills

A Long Definition of Leadership

By: Kouze and Pozner (1995) • • • • • • • • • •

10 Things to Think About

Search out challenging opportunities Experiment, take risks, and learn Envision an uplifting future Enlist others in a common vision Foster collaboration Strengthen people by giving power away Set an example; develop shared values Achieve small wins; consistent progress Recognize individual contributions Celebrate team accomplishments

Leaders are at their best when they: “challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, model the way, and encourage the heart”

An Outline for Student Leadership

1. Leadership from Within 4. Leadership for the Future Leadership through Service 2. Leadership with Others 3. Leadership in the Community

Leadership from Within

Develop Skills, Knowledge and Attitudes in:

• Classical and contemporary leadership • Personal awareness • Communication skills • A personal definition of leadership

Leadership With Others

Develop knowledge, skills

and attitudes in: • Authentic leadership • Balancing “being” and “doing” • Working successfully in teams • Conflict resolution

Leadership in the Community

Develop knowledge, skills

and attitudes in: • Community values • A personal definition of community leadership • A community leader skill set • Appreciative inquiry

Leadership for the Future

Develop knowledge, skills and attitudes in:

• Local, regional and global issues • Personal interests and values around issues • Collaborating and building consensus

Self Awareness

• We have perceptions • We make sense of our perceptions • We see what we believe and what we want to believe • We make up negative stories more often • We attribute error to others • We project (what we see outside of us is what is inside of us) • We have mental models

How to Defeat Perceptions and Sense Making?

4 skills to defeat these two norms of human behavior: • Self awareness – know mental maps, etc.

• Descriptiveness – know own experience and how to describe it to others (be discerning) • Curiosity – ask questions and listen • Appreciation – be positive and appreciate others

Window on the world

What does your window on the world look like?

• your assumptions • your beliefs • your attitudes • your values

Ladder of Inference

Open Talking and Listening

we need to do both

• Talking openly – willing to expose to others what is inside us • Listening openly – willing to expose ourselves to something new from others • Doing both opens new realities

Open Talking

• Tell a personal experience about leadership to a friend.

• Listen intently to the story and paraphrase.

• When somebody speaks personally, passionately, and from the heart, the conversation deepens.

• Speak up and speak in the here and now – think, feel, sense, want, and do.

Open Listening

• Remember the root of not listening is knowing if I already “know” the truth, why do I need to listen?

• How do you feel when you are listened to?

• What do you learn when you listen to others?

• Your experience is not what happens to you, but what you do internally with what happens to you. You create your experience. Ron Short • The quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response

anonymous

Authentic Leadership

 Self  Behavior  Practices  Skills  Framing  Character  Alignment

Moving from Inauthentic to Authentic

• What feels right • Sharing my truth in the moment • Self fulfilling – we are authentic to authentic people • Be true to your values • My barriers do not have to be there

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Chinese proverb

• Trust as belief in someone versus obligation • The goal – an equal partnership • Why is trust important to you?

• How do you know when someone trusts you?

Trust

• If I believe you are capable we are in this together • If I expect you to take some action it requires dependency

Why Team?

• Team supports a set of values ( listening, community, feedback, dialogue) • Shared responsibility • Process and results • Support • Open communication • Collaboration • Team is recognized • Try out ideas • Conform to team standards • Preparation for future • Better problem solving

Disablers of Teamwork Triangle

Inattention to Results Avoid Accountability Lack of Commitment Fear of Conflict Absence of Trust

Appropriate Assertiveness

• Using “I” statements to be clear • State your case without arousing the defenses of the other person