The Sarah R. Opperman Leadership Institute has a staff of ten people including the Director, (2) Associate Directors, (1) Assistant Director, (1) Office Manager, and (5) Graduate Assistants. The Associate and Assistant Directors oversee certain aspects of the Leadership Institute like the Leader Advancement Scholarship, Programs, and Leadership Safari while the Director oversees all departments within the Leadership Institute. Under the Assistant and Associate Directors, the Graduate Assistants work and the Office Manager does the administrative duties of all the departments.
The values held by the Leadership Institute are what guide their learning goals and outcomes: Leadership Knowledge and Application, Identity Development, Healthy Relationships, and Social Responsibility (2019). Leadership Knowledge and Application is met through coursework in the Leadership minor and programs like Level Up that teach students about the Social Change Model of leadership and how to apply it to make a difference in the world. The leaders within the leadership institute show how much they value this through simple conversations with staff members like Dan Gaken who will relate everyday occurrences back to leadership theories and always encourage students to learn more and go deeper when it comes to leadership knowledge and application. In fact, I have personally received three books from Dan Gaken to further expand my own leadership knowledge.
Identity Development is a value that is explored in numerous programs like Spark, Purpose, and Leadershape with the common goals of helping students determine who they are and what their values are, what their leadership style is, and how they can leverage those things to make a difference in the world. The recent expansion of programming under the leadership of the Associate Directors and Graduate Assistants are a testament to how much the staff at the Leadership Institute values student development when it comes to understanding their identity.
Healthy Relationships is a value the institute lives out through aspects of the LAS program like Mentor-Mentee pairings. By paring an incoming freshman with a mentor, the idea is that it will help the mentee adjust to college life and be able to form relationships with people and organizations that set them up for success in college and beyond. The staff at the Leadership Institute are committed to this value through their open door policy with any student to help them adjust to college life and their willingness to listen to students that are struggling as well as their openness to helping problem solve with people on challenges relating to having healthy relationships.
Social Responsibility is exemplified in programs like the LAS Learning Service experience that cover every aspect of this learning outcome–built up by several in-class hours that deal with discussions on service, equity, and privilege. The way that Dan Gaken made time for these conversations revolving around social responsibility during regularly scheduled class periods was a testament to his commitment to this value of the Leadership Institute.
Throughout the Institute, I witnessed several leadership theories utilized like the Situational Leadership Approach. The Situational Leadership Approach teaches us that behaviors of a leader are situational and should depend on the motivation and competence level of followers. There are times when a leader may need to lean more heavily on directive behavior and other times when leaders will need to utilize more supportive behaviors–similarly, there are times when a leader can use both types of behaviors at a very low or very high rate. The key to the Situational Approach is it is situational, hence the name. To describe the approaches that may need to be taken by leaders at different times, there is a continuum that includes four types of behavior levels that leaders may exhibit based on where followers fall on a follower continuum that categorizes followers into four types of followers. The first leadership style described in the Situational Approach is the “Directing” style which calls leaders to exhibit highly directive behaviors and low supportive behaviors in situations when there are followers that are highly motivated but not competent at the task at hand (Northouse, 2019). Within the Leadership Institute, this was exhibited in class when I needed students to sign up for Meals2Go through CMU Campus Dining so that they would have a lunch on the first day of the LAS Learning Service Trip. The class was highly motivated by a desire to not go hungry on the trip but since the vast majority of the class hadn’t registered for a Meals2Go before, I needed to put my monitor on the screen at the front of class and walk them through the process step by step. I never tried to excite them about the prospect of eating because they were already very committed to the idea, but I needed to be highly directive.
The second leadership style described is “Coaching” which is characterized by leadership behavior that is both highly directive and highly supportive in situations when followers are low in competence and low in motivation (Northouse, 2019). Within the Leadership Institute I saw this exhibited by Jessi Repko, a Graduate Assistant that focuses on LAS, when she was trying to get LAS students to RSVP for our annual LAS Grad Ball to celebrate graduating seniors. Jessi was faced with students that, for one reason or another, were not motivated to RSVP which required Jessi to be highly supportive and encouraging on why an RSVP was important but it also included behaviors like sending the RSVP link via email and putting it in the Blackboard shell for our LDR 200 class to show members of the cohort exactly what they needed to do to RSVP.
The third leadership style described is “Supporting” where a leader demonstrates highly supportive behaviors but low directive behaviors in response to followers that are highly competent at the task at hand but lack motivation and commitment to the cause (Northouse, 2019). As we prepared students for the test, we were met with responses from students that were less than enthusiastic about studying and taking the exam. The teaching team met that attitude by encouraging them and being available to help them work through anything they were confused by. Since we spent an entire semester teaching them everything that was going to be on the exam, we didn’t need to be highly directive but because they weren’t enthusiastic about being tasked with taking an exam, we needed to be supportive.
The fourth leadership style is “Delegating” which is characterized by low directive and low supportive behavior in response to followers that both highly competent and highly committed (Northouse, 2019). This semester I saw this in Dan Gaken and Jesi Ekonen when it came to planning the LAS Learning Service Trip. Since I was passionate about the trip, they knew that I was highly motivated to ensure it turned out well and they knew that I was accustomed to planning large scale events so they were mostly hands off as I planned the Learning Service Experience. Additionally, I saw this in the effective staff structure where Dan Gaken delegates large aspects of the Leadership Institute to Associate and Assistant Directors. The full time staff, graduate assistants, and students that serve in leadership roles within the Leadership Institute utilize the Situational Approach everyday their work depending on the situations that they find themselves in.
As I began to delve into my project, I faced several successes and challenges especially when it came to communication. The first success was using communication techniques I learned in COM 461L, Communication in Leadership, when preparing for meetings. There were meetings with small group facilitators, meetings with staff at the Leadership Institute, and meetings with other people both on and off campus. To ensure every meeting was meaningful, I prepared written agendas with labels next to each agenda item like, “ANNOUNCEMENT”, “DISCUSSION”, and “DECISION” so that participants in the meeting were aware of the nature of each agenda item and could prepare appropriately. The second success was in communicating what we were doing during the LAS Learning Service Experience to students. I spent nearly an entire class period with a presentation I made called, “LAS Learning Service Experience 101” that went over everything students needed to know, every aspect of the trip including information on the “why” behind every aspect of the trip, and lessons and discussions embedded into the presentation to make sure that I wasn’t simply talking at them for two hours. The most enjoyable part of the presentation for most students was the “full contact trivia game” where they stood up, divided into teams, choose a team captain, and stood in the back of the room. As I read off a trivia question based on the presentation, the team captains would run to me and the first person to touch my shoulder would get the opportunity to answer the question. These activities really seemed to solidify the information I was giving over into their memory.
A communication challenge was making sure that all students were aware of how to access important preparation materials like our pre-trip reflection questions. Since we’re in the 21st century there is a prevailing belief that we should go paperless as much as possible, and while I generally agree, I noticed that I received a lot of questions from students about the information that was only posted online as opposed to being given a hard copy in class. Additionally, there were several students who claimed that we never heard that some of these materials were in the Blackboard shell. If I could have done something differently, it would be printing off more physical copies of materials instead of going along with the prevailing belief that if we just post everything online, people will be able to access the information easier. By handing out a physical copy, even those that aren’t paying attention will receive the information needed because it is physically handed to them. The most significant challenge I faced was dealing with people and organizations with different deadlines than I faced. My solution to these problems were making follow up plans if it took longer than two weeks to get a reply where I would follow up using an alternative contact method, wait a couple more days, and then try another method.
My leadership experience came in handy throughout this project, especially skills that I learned while serving as a campaign manager in 2018. During my time as a campaign manager I trained and managed more than 60 volunteers at a time which was similar to gave me confidence standing in front of a class of 40 people to teach them about concepts like power, situational leadership, and social responsibility. This also helped when I was managing the cohort in Detroit to ensure that people were knew where they needed to go, what they needed to do ,and when we needed to leave to stay on schedule.
The complications when working out the logistics of the trip were challenging, however, I felt confident in handling them because of a situation I was put in last year on the campaign when we realized that our mail pieces to voters weren’t hitting mailboxes even though Absentee ballots were about to arrive for many voters. After contacting our mail consultants, I learned about a backup that was delaying the mail. It was 9am and if our information wasn’t going out in the mail by the end of the day, it wouldn’t hit mailboxes prior to the start of people voting. I decided to write up a “letter to voters” which introduced my candidate to voters, printed out thousands of copies from our office printer, bought stamps, and marshalled a team of our volunteers to come in on a moment’s notice to start stuffing and stamping envelopes. Our team of envelope stuffers finished the job thirty minutes before I needed to take them to the post office. While this may be different a situation, it prepared me well for the challenges I faced while planning the LAS Learning Service Trip because I realized that I needed to develop a plan as opposed to panicking and focus on what I could control.
With all that being said, there are areas in my leadership that need improving–one of which is being conscious of time. The first time I led a lesson in class, I was really getting into the activities and the discussion that I wasn’t paying attention to the clock and went way over. This forced other aspects of the class period to be more rushed. I believe that throughout the semester I learned strategies to help me keep track of time and estimate how long various activities will take but it’s an area I constantly want to improve upon. Additionally, I struggle with delegating tasks. As a person who has spent a considerable amount of time recruiting and confirming volunteers, I’ve grown accustomed to there always being people who are going to back out of their commitments. While this is an expected part of spearheading any project, I realized that I unintentionally developed a lack of trust in other people to handle important tasks. This tendency to micromanage resulted in taking on more tasks than I could handle at times. To combat this, I’ve begun a process of reflecting on my own strengths and limitations alongside those of others, and forcing myself to identify tasks that others may be best suited for. I realized that delegating ensures we are leveraging each others strengths, allows folks to focus more fully on the task at hand, and makes members of a team feel more invested in the goal because they’ve taken more ownership over the project or organization.
At the start of the semester I set out to accomplish three SMART goals that have all been met. First, I sought to increase education surrounding privilege, dominant narratives, and intersectionality. All in all, there was about 10 hours of education and discussion surrounding these ideas including a presentation from Dr. Joyce Baugh about housing and school segregation; a workshop on identity, privilege, intersectionality, and bias; students discussing how these issues have impacted their lives; and a class period surrounded around how we can utilize this knowledge to make the Leadership Institute more equitable. Additionally, we added a 3 hour history tour of the City of Detroit called “Detroit Divided” to our itinerary for the LAS Learning Service trip where students were able to hear about the history and lasting effects of institutional and systemic racism by visiting historical sites and considering how changes in Detroit impact certain people differently based on race and socioeconomic status. On the trip we started the day with a tour of Quicken Loans where we heard about the development that Dan Gilbert is funding across the city and later went on this history tour that highlighted how the decisions of others sometimes negatively impacts people in the name of “urban renewal.” The side by side perspectives on Detroit, its past, and its future were stark and compelled all of our students to consider how the ideas we learned about in class apply to real life situations in Detroit.
This goal would have been met as a result of the sheer amount of education and discussion that students engaged in over the course of the semester but the additional experiences on the LAS Learning Service trip and the powerful ways that some students have been relating these ideas back to their own lives and empowered others to address these issues within the context of the Leadership Institute has been nothing short of inspiring.
Second, I sought to reframe the LAS in the D Service Learning Trip to better fit Leadership Learning Outcome #4: Social Responsibility. I set this goal to ensure that while we were planning the itinerary and preparing for class that we always focused on making sure students had a through understanding of the impact our social systems can have on others, challenging them to take responsibility for helping alleviate social ills, and think critically about decisions made by people in power. Creating a program that focused on these ideas wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be–it only required that we be intentional about the existing activities and experiences that were built into the program. This increased intentionality was key to being able to meet this SMART goal.
Third, I sought to ensure that students had an accurate understanding of all of the leadership models and theories prior to facilitating activities regarding them. This SMART goal was met in the sense that the result we hoped it would yield was met, however, the scope of us working toward that result was limited due to the large number of class cancellations this semester. This goal existed because we wanted to be the first ones to introduce a concept so when students have the chance to lead an activity, they are presenting correct information and there isn’t confusion when we try to make corrections. Due to the need to revise the syllabus, there was some of this proactive teaching that needed to be cut but we replaced what was lost in that sense by always being available to help students understand the concepts on a more individualized basis. While the implementation of this SMART goal didn’t turn out exactly as planned, the end result was met because we were impressed by the quality of work that students were producing when they were tasked with presenting or facilitating an activity on a leadership theory or principle.
All things considered, I believe that my LDR 302 project was a success because we met my SMART goals, followed my project plan, and completed the tasks at hand this semester. Throughout the semester I was able to utilize my leadership skills and knowledge to build opportunities for other leaders to grow. Additionally, I was able to leverage my experience both on and off campus to take initiative on leading lessons and activities in class, helping students when needed, working collaboratively with the LDR 200 Teaching Team, and taking on the responsibility of executing the two-day LAS Learning Service Experience.
I’m tremendously thankful for the opportunity to serve under the Director of the Leadership Institute, Dan Gaken, who continues to teach me more and more about what it means to be a leader every day. And lastly I’m thankful for the entire staff at the Leadership Institute for entrusting me with the responsibility of planning and executing the LAS Learning Service Experience. While they were always available for help when I needed it, they utilized the “Delegating” style of leadership with me as described in the Situational Leadership Approach which allowed me to capitalize on my commitment and knowledge of the trip to make it into something that was impactful for every LAS freshman.
Ethan Petzold 