Will discussed many important leadership qualities learned through the events at the Thunder game on 3/11/20. They are listed below. Upon reflecting, which one resonates with you the most? Give at least one example of how you can implement your selected point into your leadership efforts at UCO, in your life, career, relationships, etc.
- Communicate with firm & direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities
- Have open communication lines with your team, both up and down the chain
- Ask for help and solicit advice from experts as you build your task force
- Control your emotions, remember to breathe
- Lead with empathy and understand how your message affects all levels of the organization and the larger market
- Understand what your peers are doing, or plan to do
- Be patient. Find ways to buy time
- Levity or some level of humor, at the right time, can be very effective
- People want to be lead, be prepared to lean forward in the face of adversity
- Be the person people trust in moments of crisis
- Ultimately, do what’s right, even if it can negatively affect the near-term bottom line
- Challenges only present an opportunity to improve. The obstacle is the way!
I think one of Will’s point that resonated with me the most is the importance of leading with empathy and understanding how your message affects all levels of the organization and the larger market. Empathy is a very important quality of a leader. Knowing and understanding those you are leading is crucial when attempting to gain trust and respect. Some ways I can integrate empathy into my leadership style are speaking regularly with those around me about their thoughts and feelings, and making it known that I am here for those in need. The best way to connect with others is by providing a safe space, displaying empathy makes this possible.
While all of the leadership qualities listed that Mr. Syring presented are very important and ones I aspire to implement in my leadership style, I would say the one that connects with me the most is the following: “Ultimately, do what’s right, even if it can negatively affect the near-term bottom line.” As a leader having and living with integrity is crucial. Integrity builds trust, and without trust, you cannot be an effective leader. With that said, integrity comes with doing what’s right. It is often hard to do the right thing, whether it be from a financial perspective, convenience perspective, or moral perspective, but by doing the right thing despite the difficulty and repercussions that come from it, as a leader and as a person, you maintain a sense of integrity and fellow leaders and followers will ultimately respect you for doing what is right. In my opinion, a true leader does what is right despite whatever difficulties may arise from a situation. For instance, as a leader, like all other leaders, there are times when I make mistakes and handle situations in not the best way. However, when this happens, I do the right thing; I own up to my mistakes despite the potential embarrassment, repercussions, and/or consequences I may face. This is just one example of doing the right thing, even though it may negatively affect my feelings, specifically my pride. However, this ties to another critical aspect of being a leader, which is being unselfish. As leaders, many of us are heavily involved in numerous organizations on campus, and there are times when we are passionate about everything we are doing and take on as my roles as we can (I tend to do this quite often). While this ambition many of us possess is excellent, we are all human, and there is a point at which the weight of responsibilities we are carrying can become too heavy, and as a result, all of the things we are trying to balance suffer. When this scenario happens to me, which I’m sure it will again and again in my future, I am going to not be afraid to say “No” to taking on some additional responsibilities. In my opinion, although it is unfortunate, particularly in the beginning, this is doing the right thing – simply not taking on too much to prevent my performance as a student and leader from suffering and to prevent the organizations/groups I am a part of from suffering as a result of me taking on too many things. Ultimately, as I have previously stated, doing the right thing is often challenging but is well worth it in the long run, both from our perspective and credibility as leaders and for the overall greater good.
Of Mr. Syring’s points, the one that resonates the most with me is “Control your Emotions, remember to breathe”. This point has two subpoints, the first of which is control to breathe and the second is remember to breathe, I’ll start with the latter. “Remember to breathe”, brings to mind the memory of sophomore year summer cross country workouts, and specifically the times our coach would remind us “control your breathing or else it will control you”. Even in the remarkable discomfort of running on those July days, things were always better when you remembered to breathe. Remembering the little things in that moment like that I needed to sink my shoulders back, keep my head up, and focus on making sure that my forefoot and not the ball of my foot was striking the ground with every step, all of it helped me keep my world small, and my goals more manageable. If I were think in that moment about how I was only 1 mile into an 8 mile long run, how my ankle was starting to hurt, and how it was 100 degrees even in the shade, I never would have made it . Yet when I thought about just the next step, and then the step after, all I had to do was keep stringing good steps together. People often quit or fail, not because the task at hand is too difficult, but rather because they get overwhelmed with the distance they have to travel instead of becoming obsessed with the process of getting there. Now the other point, “control your emotions”, is merely the mechanism by which you control your breathing, they go together sequentially. Start with organizing your mind and controlling your emotions, then this will allow you to organize your actions, and eventually your life as a whole.
Honestly the point that resonates with me the most is probably having open communication lines. I tend to get overwhelmed easily and when trying to think of solutions and forget to keep everyone else informed and updated. What I forget to think about is the fact that if I was down the chain of command during a crisis I would be worried and feeling listless and want to be able to do something to help. If I was further up the food chain I would be more invested in a positive outcome of the crisis. I would also want to be informed so that I can help brain-storm and be able to take action. When you keep everyone informed and give them a chance to help take action and find a solution. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to do everything alone.
The point that stuck with me is “communicate with firm and direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities.” I’m not the type of person that allows others to run all over them but at times I probably let too many things slide. I am a people pleaser by nature and I love to always help anyone at anytime. This can be a hard thing because it feels like nobody cares about your feelings or that they’re taking advantage of you. Within my life and especially relationships with others I’ve been working on speaking my mind when something bothers me or putting my opinion out there. Everyone has a voice and deserves the right to use it.
“Be the person people trust in moments of crisis.” This point fits my life in all aspects of it, past, present, and future, very well. As a nursing major, one of the key roles of a nurse is the be the calm for the patient. If you are frazzled the patient will be 10 times the amount that you are. Gaining the patient’s trust by knowing what you are doing and that you are doing it calmly is the number one way to get them to relax and allow you to do what you need to do. Also being on a college campus you are away from your parents and family so being a friend’s safe spot is also vital. Them knowing that they can trust you to keep them safe and healthy is a major part of friendship. I plan and hope to make sure everyone knows I am readily available to take care of them in any way. Most of my friends already know this but I do plan one verbally telling them over and over.
The point that Will Syring introduced that resonates with me the most is to control your emotions and remember to breathe. It is hard to effectively communicate with others when you are under a lot of stress, angry at a situation, or dealing with other emotions. This can cause you to be short or unjustly angry with others, which in turn can damage your relationship with that person and cause them to not see you as a leader. It is important for us as leaders to be able to separate our emotions from the project that we are working on so that we are able to give our full efforts toward the project. I believe that the best way for us to do so is to take time for self-care and time to relax. Throughout my leadership journey at UCO, I am going to make sure to remind myself to take time for self-care and that it is okay to not overwork myself. It can be difficult to pick and choose what to put our efforts towards, but it is important that we understand our capabilities so that we can better control our stress and emotions.
I think that all the topics he touched on were important and can all cooperate to make a bad situation run as smooth as possible. I like the parts about controlling your emotions and staying calm as those around you can sense your energy as a leader and will start to panic as you do, it can also impair your decision making to panic in moments of crisis. It is also important to know what your peers are doing. You cant move forward unless everyone is working together effectively so you need to understand and appreciate everyone’s role in the group. These elements together will have you become the one people come to when they are in need and they will see you as a leader. I can use these in my leadership journey to remind myself to stay calm and collected to function properly and steer through a situation.
Being the person people trust in moments of crisis is huge for me. I keep a calm head and make sure everyone around me is okay. I think it comes from when I was younger. I used to be in ballet and there was always something going wrong backstage and I always enjoyed helping fix it. At my core, I want people to be able to rely on me in any situation.
Will Syring discussed many crucial points of what led him and his team through a time when there were no right answers. One point that resonated with me was “Control your emotions, remember to breathe”. This is a lesson my dad taught me when I was starting to play tennis competitively and to “not let your opponent see what you are feeling”. I feel that this can be applied to many things in life and including working with others in the community. In my opinion, it is highly valued to work with others and it is not easy working with everyone. Having patience and listening to others’ opinions with whom you may not agree can pay off in the future.
The message that resonated with me the most was “Ultimately, do what’s right, even if it can negatively affect the near-term bottom line” because it is complicated to make a decision that you know will affect negatively in the short-term. It is hard for me to make decisions effectively because I tend to prioritize what will impact me sooner; throughout time I was faced with harder decisions, I realized I needed to look into the long term in order to achieve growth. Syiring’s lecture helped me see how many great benefits came from a decision taken in what was an unimaginable situation.
As time progresses, we will be faced with tougher decisions. I plan to reflect more on why it is important to take the extended future into consideration, because it is important to notice that sometimes it can get worse before it gets better; most importantly to keep a positive mind on what could happen tomorrow.
An important quality of leadership that resonates with me the most is challenges only present an opportunity to improve. Throughout my life I have been faced with obstacles that have gotten in the way of my path. There are only 2 options you can make when you are faced with an obstacle, overcome the obstacle or let the obstacle overcome you. It can be easy to not want to face the challenge; however, as a leader it is my job to overcome the difficulties that I face. By overcoming such things, I am able to grow and use this growth to be a better leader.
The most important quality I think Will discussed was have an open line of communication up and down the chain. This means basically from the owner down to the bottom level everyone is allowed to communicate with one another for ideas and for the success of what’s happening. I think this was a vital piece for what happened on that day in March. I would use communication with everything I do. I find that it’s very important to make sure everyone is on the same page towards the same goal. If someone is out of sync and not doing their part it can throw off the whole plan. It’s also very important in all types of relationships. I know that I’ve lacked in communication in the past but it’s something I work on every day to be better.
Out of all of the points Will discussed I believe the one that resonated with me the most is the fact that people want to be led and be able to lean forward in the face of adversity. I picked this one because I see it being the most important in my life currently at this time. At UCO I had to use this skill when having to organize a haunted house my fraternity and I were putting on. The group working on it together were willing to put in the work but did not have a direction to go towards and when I realized this I knew I had to take over the situation. I organized and created a list of who was doing what and what we needed to supply but I had to step out of that role because I had too much going on and passed on to someone else and gave him all the directions and plans I had written down. Now that situation has happened I have reflected back on situations where that would have been a very useful skill to have. I also see similar situations appearing in the future and know this skill of knowing when to take charge and stand up and lead will be a very important one to master.
Something that I resonate the most with is leading with empathy. I was class president and there were many times that I had to listen to both students and teachers. For an example, I was responsible for the senior banquet. I was aware with all of my peers of what theme they wanted and food choices. Being class president taught me that I can’t make everyone 100% happy. Personally, having empathy is important to leadership. As I plan to go into healthcare, I’m going to have to display care.
Will Syring made an inspiring lecture about handling a situation when there is no evidence available to find the best solution. In such situations, the true abilities of a good leader are revealed. You must maintain your communication and be able to ask for help when you get stuck. You must control your emotions and be empathetic. If necessary, use humor to change a stressful atmosphere into a calm one. Be patient and try to buy time if necessary. Always be the person people can trust, that could be the key to the best possible solution.
The point that resonates with me the most is the 6th one: “Understand what your peers are doing, or plan to do.” I chose this one because it requires many different leadership skills, specifically communication and trust. A mutual understanding between a leader and their followers about each other’s needs, wants, and goals is incredibly important to get things done. In the group project recently, in order for my group to get things done efficiently, communication was essential. To understand what each person wished for the project, what each person’s schedule was like, and who was doing what task, I made sure to text our group chat regularly to check up on those types of things. Additionally, I had to trust that my partners would put an equal amount of effort into the project as the others and would get their parts done on time. Because of these two qualities, our group was able to understand what the plan was and how it would be executed at all times. Being direct and clear about these types of things allows your peers to trust that you know what you’re doing and that you care just as much as they do.
I chose leading with empathy and understanding the volume of your words for many reasons. My father was in the military for 27 years, usually deployed overseas. It was difficult for my mother, brother, and I to say goodbye to him many times as he left to go defend our country and others in need. I had a lot of emotions growing up due to seeing other people’s fathers show up for birthdays, family days at school, dance recitals, etc., but really no one knew how I felt because I was not going to start crying or cause a big scene in front of others. Years later, in high school, I immersed myself in extracurriculars and leadership organizations to learn to become a leader who understands people. At a summer camp, I learned how to become an empathetic leader while understanding that what you say to others has a lot of volume. You never know what other people may be going through, experiencing, or feeling and it never hurts to get to know someone and be a companion. I guess my point in this story is to help others realize that putting yourself in other people’s shoes and understanding from their point of view helps to connect and relate to people on a more personal level. My goal is to continue being an empathetic leader here at UCO with LOT, Alpha Gamma Delta, etc.
The qualities that resonate with me the most are the two that relate to communication. One is about communicating with both confidence and vulnerability. The other talks about having open communication. Communication is something that has always been important to me. My parents have taught me the importance of communicating with people throughout my entire life. That usually involves being honest with people about my feelings and concerns, being respectful to others and letting them know when I can’t make it to something, and simply texting people back. As I have gotten older and am going through this leadership journey I am able to implement that in different ways. There are so many examples of how communication is important in leadership. I believe that teamwork is very important in leadership. Whether it is working with other leaders to accomplish something or working with the people you are leading it is always important that you are communicating efficiently in order to work well together and accomplish goals.
Having patience was the point that resonated with me most. When things are stressful, it’s hard to remain patient. It is easy to become irritated when leading others. It is essential to be able to communicate clearly without becoming angry. Respect and trust are created when we help others with kindness. Having patience is beneficial not only to others but to yourself as well. Taking a deep breath and centering yourself are easy ways to maintain your patience.
The one that resonates with me the most would be the first one, “Communicate with firm & direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities.” Being a leader one of the most important qualities to have good communication. A leader who is present and responds well to others makes them more likable and responsible. Bad communication leads to unclarity and useless arguments. Along with communication, being vulnerable is important as well. During my time at UCO, although I want to communicate effectively, I also want to show traits and emotions that I don’t show a lot. Vulnerability is not seen often because it shows an area of weakness. But yet, vulnerability is something that connects you with others, especially when you’re a leader. When there are a lot of people in a group not everyone is true and shows themselves because vulnerability becomes quality very fragile. But once you open up and admit your flaws and weakness you become more connected with people as they know they are not the only ones. As a leader, I want to build that connection with whoever I lead and meet in my life because establishing that type of relationship allows you to be freer as well as build something more meaningful.
Asking for help and soliciting advice from experts as you build your task force was the lesson that really resided with me. In leadership you want your followers to believe you know and have everything together when in reality you don’t. In order to be a great leader, you have to follow. Asking for help is never weak but shows vulnerability and courage. Putting your feelings to the side for the greater good. The University of Central Oklahoma has done a great job of supplying its students with the resources and mentors to succeed. Here I have been able to grow my leadership skills by simply asking upperclassmen how they handled certain situations. There is no need to struggle when the struggle has already happened and has been learned from.
The basis of leadership is a successful combination of formal (manager) and informal (leader) ways of managing a team to achieve goals. Let’s take three modern models of leadership (in fact, there are much more concepts and models of leadership):
Attributive leadership: the leader monitors the actions of subordinates and, based on his observations, decides how best to build relationships with each of them. The attitude of subordinates also influences the leader.
Charismatic leadership: influence is based on the personal qualities (charisma) of the leader and his management style.
Transformative leadership: a leader is able to combine the personal goals of subordinates with the goals of the company. In this model, the manager encourages employees to develop, increases their consciousness, and convinces them of the importance of common tasks.
Charismatic and transformative leadership concepts are more interesting: they have a place for a “classic” leader — a charming person with abilities and high motivation. It is such a person who is able to attract subordinates
Leadership Qualities
Emotional Intelligence
The leader must see and correctly interpret the emotions, motivation, intentions of colleagues and subordinates. Developed emotional intelligence, as one of the flexible skills, helps to manage your own and others’ emotions.
High level of motivation
The leader does not need external incentives, he is proactive, does his job better than others, and his energy is enough to motivate others. High self—motivation is a sign of leadership.
Professionalism and responsibility
The leader takes responsibility for the result, does not shift it to the shoulders of subordinates, is always involved in the process himself and comes to the aid of employees if problems arise. He views the business as a system and influences the energy of the entire company.
Working authority
The leader has an indisputable working authority. Authority is based on moral and professional qualities, it has been earned for many years. An effective manager observes cleanliness in business, he is a good specialist, disciplined, fair to colleagues and balanced in communication.
Personal effectiveness
The leader is distinguished by efficiency. The personal effectiveness of a manager is the basis of the productivity of his subordinates. The components of success: time management, the ability to plan your work, knowledge of the subject area, the ability to set tasks and control the work of employees.
I really resonated with a few of the leadership qualities that Will talked about, however, the one that resonates with me the most is the effectiveness of humor as a leader. In my experience, humor can turn a bad situation into a fond memory and works to boost people’s morale to get a job done. I can implement it into my leadership efforts at UCO by making jokes to lighten the mood when the situation calls for it. I try to have fun when doing something, whether that be work or life or anything else, and that helps me to stay motivated to finish. It also can help a leader relate more to the people they are leading. A group that can joke around together is often times more cohesive and therefore more productive as a whole.
Of Mr. Syring’s leadership advice, I believe communication with confidence and acknowledgment of personal vulnerabilities are essential to effective leadership. All leaders should exhibit confidence in their abilities to ensure their followers trust their skills and enable them to lead. Likewise, acknowledging personal vulnerabilities can inform your followers when you need additional help with something. I think, as leaders, we can attempt to hide our vulnerabilities because they threaten our confidence when in reality they can make us more confident than before. Personally, I believe the best way for me to show my vulnerabilities is to stay honest with my team before anything happens to ensure they are aware of areas in which I may need help later. That said, I also need to retain confidence in my abilities to overcome my vulnerabilities should the need arise.
Many of the important leadership qualities learned through the events at the Thunder game on 3/11/20 resonated with me. The one that resonated with me the most is to ask for help and solicit advice from experts. I can implement this into my leadership efforts by showing that it’s okay to ask for help. I have had a hard time asking for help in the past. Now I know that asking for help can show that you really care about doing a good job.
“Communicate with firm & direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities”. Will Syring mentioned this on his powerpoint and I love the way he phrased it. There is a clear line between being cocky and being confident. Often times, people are afraid to stand up and “speak with their chest”. Now more than ever, it is imperative that people learn how to use their voices. Being a leader takes effort. You must pursue what you want, even if it’s minorly uncomfortable. To address the second part of what he said, “yet share your vulnerabilities”. Being a real leader is based on honesty. True leaders are honest with their communities and accurately communicate. Having the ability to clearly communicate and have empathy with your community are key parts to being a leader.
Mr. Syring discussed many important leadership qualities which are important in life.
I valued all the qualities mentioned ,but I think the one that resonate with me would be leading with empathy and understanding how my message affects all levels of the organization and the larger market .
I would make sure am being presnt and really listen to people, while leading with empathy as well as knowing how my message affects the different people in my life from uco groups , personal relationships, as well as the the larger market.
The leadership lesson that Will Syring spoke about from his experience at the 3/11/20 Thunder game was to lead with empathy and understand how your message affects all levels of the organization and the larger market. This is important to me because I feel like great leaders can understand those around them and try to consider every person’s point of view. I believe this has been one of my greatest strengths in the leadership roles I have held in the past. I also think it is an important quality to have in all relationships, not just as a leader. Empathy allows us to form a connection and trust with one another and as a result, creates mutual respect. I can use empathy in my future career by trying to understand how a coworker, employer, or employee might feel about any topic. Being able to see their point of view can help me better understand the issue or topic at hand and find an appropriate response that respects all parties.
Will Syring displays many qualities that a good leader should have but the quality that stook out to me the most is his resilience. When faced with the challenge that took place on March 11 2021 he had no choice but to take charge and lead. Syring postponed an NBA game for the first time in the associations history, and by doing this he could have helped save lives. While telling us the story of everything that happened that day he gave us a list of all the leadership qualities he utilized. The most useful quality to me in this point in my life is, “have open communication lines with your team, both up and down the chain.” Although I may be bias because I am on team communication for my project I believe that communication is everything. With rowing, it is especially important to communicate because you are in a boat with eight other people and all must be on the same page in order to be successful. In the leaders of tomorrow council without communication between the advisors, executive board, and members, we would be nothing. Without communication between everyone in your organization things would be much more chaotic.
The topic that resinated with me the most would be the topic open communication within your team. I believe that communication is one of the most important ways that a leader can lead. Communication is something that can very easily me implemented into anyone’s leadership journey. Staying honest with those above and below you creates a sense of trust and allows for the team to do better. Without communication, projects and businesses often times struggle to get things done.
Will made two points during his talk that resonated with me. One of the points that he mentioned was “Communicate with firm & direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities.” This was something that I needed to hear, because often times in my leadership roles I am not fully confident in myself which can cause trouble communicating. Whenever I am scared that someone may not like or appreciate my ideas in a leadership setting, it can be easy for me to lose confidence in myself and how to communicate that to people. I can work on implementing this point into my leadership roles within my relationships by being clear with the things I say, despite what those around me may say or the ways they react. I can also work on sharing my vulnerabilities more within my relationships by opening up when I need help and talking to people when I am struggling. The other point that Will made that resonated with me is “Be the person people trust in moments of crisis.” This is a powerful sentence that describes exactly the type of leadership qualities I want to possess. It is so important to have leaders in every aspect of life that you can trust when things aren’t going well, and I want to be that person to those that I am leading. Something I can do to implement this into my leadership roles on campus would be to always show genuine kindness and intentionality towards others. The more intentional someone is in their leadership roles and relationships, the more I trust them, which is what I want others to feel towards me. Overall, Will made great points about how to lead well and what qualities true leaders possess.
The one that resonates with me the most is being the person people trust in moments of crisis. I have always wanted to be a trusted person for people and to be that guy my friends and family knew they could go to if they needed something. This happened last year when a friend of mine was in a car wreck a few hours away. I went with their parents to pick them up at around ten at night. I was really happy that the person’s first thought was to contact me as well as their parents because they felt they could count on me. Making sure that in moments like this my friends know that I will be there for them is a must as a good leader can be counted on at all times, especially in times of need when they don’t know who to turn to.
Reading through Will’s points again, I found several points that I can relate to and resonate with. The one that sticks out most to me is having a sense of humor. I think this also plays into being light-hearted. Having an appropriate sense of humor during tough or uncomfortable times can lighten the mood. If situations are tense, having a light spirit and joking personality can ease the tension around. This comes easy because having some kind of humor in a serious situation usually comes naturally to me. Second, Will mentioning having patience stuck out to me. I am sometimes guilty of not being patient, but I think the more I practice it the more leadership I can possess.
Will’s point of “Challenges only present and opportunity to improve. The obstacle is the way!” is the one that resonates with me the most. Throughout my leadership journey I have allowed obstacles to get me down prohibit me from continuing on to be a good leader. In a recent group project for my Lessons in Leadership course, many challenges presented themselves. It almost felt like out project just wasn’t supposed to happen. Such obstacles like finding locations and dates for our event and getting everyone in my group together at once simply made me feel like giving up. However, while dealing with these obstacles, I discovered so much about myself as a leader. I saw areas where my leadership skills benefitted our project, and I also saw many other areas where my leadership skills need great improvement. Without those obstacles present in our project, I would not have found the opportunities to improve as a leader that I did happen to find. In the future of my leadership journey, I plan to remain more optimistic about that obstacles that I come across. By looking at challenges as more of an opportunity to improve and learn rather than a burden, I can make more of a difference in the world as a leader.
Will Syring’s point on being the person that people trust in a moment of crisis really resonated with me the most. For people to be able to lean on you in their darkest moments takes a ton of trust that is built up over time. For others to be able to have that kind of faith in someone, shows that that person truly is a leader. I hope that in my time at UCO, and especially in my career, I can build that type of rapport with the community around me and they can trust me in those moments of crisis. To be able to build this kind of rapport I think it will take a lot of relationship building and getting to know others on a deeper level. I also think that it will take a lot of vulnerability on my part. Oftentimes I am not the most vulnerable, so I do think I will need to start embracing the uncomfortable and be vulnerable with others.
I resonated with Mr. Syring’s point of; Lead with empathy and understand how your message affects all levels of the organization and the larger market the most.
I currently work in, and plan on working in nonprofits for the rest of my career. When working in nonprofits, empathy is a huge factor into your everyday life. I can use this advice in many areas of my life. While working in nonprofits, being empathetic with the people you are serving is the only way to be successful. To lead with empathy in nonprofits is the way to change and benefit the most people. If you are not empathetic you lose the vision of your project. Making sure that I lead with empathy in and outside of nonprofits will help me better as many peoples lives as possible.
Most of the attributes listed seem to apply to me, however, communication stands out to me the most. Without communication, most things would not go as planned. Any leadership role or relationship requires the ability to effectively communicate your feelings, thoughts, and ideas. If you can’t communicate with someone, a relationship won’t function. My ability to communicate with others in disagreement was something I had to practice. I usually avoid conflict and would just let things go, but that changed once I began to talk to everyone I needed to. I have improved myself by realizing the value of effective communication
Will String has brilliant commentary on leadership, especially in high stress situations. He discussed what is was like having to decide what to do when Covid first struck and his key takeaways for stressful situations, including taking a step away to take a deep breath, evaluate what’s best for all even if it’s the difficult option, and improve in anyway possible. His idea of leadership struck right on the nose for me and I couldn’t agree more. I loved how he brought up humor in difficult times, because sometimes we do need a moment to laugh at ourselves to loosen any tension. I totally agree when he mentions asking for help and leading with empathy. You want people to be patient and to work with you, you have to to the same with others and ask them to help as well. Overall I learned a lot from Mr. Syring and hope to utilize his advice in my own life.
The leadership quality that resonated with me the most is “Challenges only present an opportunity to improve. The obstacle is the way!” When things don’t go the way I plan for them, it can be a super big stressor. I think especially going forward in college I need to embrace that things might be messy and challenging at times. I need to look at these challenges as an opportunity to grow and prove to myself that I can do more than I think. Going outside of my comfort zone can be really difficult for me but the more I do the more I can grow.
The thing that resonates with me most is “Communicate with firm & direct confidence, yet share your vulnerabilities.” I chose this one because communication is the most important skill for a leader to have. The big thing I had to learn about communication as a leader is that it must go both ways. You have to listen to your community as well as be vulnerable with them. It’s what builds open honest trust. I believe as a leader I can have the ability to be confident with my communication but also vulnerable when I need to be.
I like “Have open communication with your team, both up and down the chain.” Ive seen this in action since joining my fraternity. It seems the more communication there is with the exec board, the smoother things are ran. When people get left out us when things begin to fall apart on teams trying to build great things. Leaders with open communication seem to work well with their peers. I plan on implementing this by having an open communication about my plans being the newly appointed recruitment chair for my fraternity, so its vital to us so that we can grow.
During Wills presentation, I noted a few things, one of them being the fact that sometimes, humor can do good and to control your emotions. I personally feel like I can be humorous at times, with some of those times not being the right one. Knowing when to add a funny comment and when not to could make a huge difference in situations. Controlling emotions tends to be a common theme in my opinion. Some may release all of their emotions while others may choose to hold them back. Sometimes holding back emotions can be beneficial as well as choosing to express them at times. The main point I got from Will Syring, was that in order to do your best, you have to read the situation and act accordingly.
The leadership quality that resonates with me the most is the last one: challenges only present an opportunity to improve; the obstacle is the way. I can implement this quality into my journey at UCO by accepting challenges as they come and grow from them. I know that there will be challenges throughout my college life but I need to learn to not give up and persevere instead. In my life and even in my relationships, I can focus on the positive aspects and push myself amid the struggle. For my career, I hope to become a doctor. I know that medical school will be one of the biggest challenge I will face in my life but I can focus on the light at the end of the tunnel to keep me going.