Section I: (Ropes Course, Intramurals, Retreat)
This is going to be one of the toughest sections to decide what I want to talk about!! There are hundreds of experiences that I have had and learned from in the Freshman Leadership Program. Unfortunately I had to choose only three, and the three that I have chosen are: the ropes course, intramural football, and the retreat on Halloween.
To begin with, one of my first experiences with FLP earlier in the year was the ropes course. I’m not going to explain what the ropes course is because we all were there, so I’m going to focus on what I learned from it. I’m not going to lie, but when we were driving to the ropes course I began getting butterflies because I’m afraid of heights, but at the same time I get a thrill at facing some of my biggest fears because I believe that one day I can overcome them the more I place myself face to face with my fears. When I got to the ropes course I acted like I wasn’t afraid at all, but in reality I was about to pee my pants! I learned that we all have fears of different things if its heights or meeting new people. I learned that we need each others support, rather it be helping someone who is afraid of something that you aren’t afraid of or rely on each other to overcome the same fear together. In addition I learned that we need to push each other past our comfort zones because everyone settles for what would be considered standard or attainable. Instead of trying to achieve what people would consider the norm, we need to push each other to exceed. I think it takes a true leader, which I think all the other 58 FLP members are, to recognize ones potential and push someone past to what the person believes that they can accomplish. Looking back another learning moment that I had while on the ropes course was how experiencing a fear with someone else can build everlasting relationships. A moment where we all experienced fear with each other was during the trust fall. On top of the block and having to rely on people to catch you, without breaking your skull open is a moment where I was able to build relationships with different individuals in my group because we related to and discussed the fear we had on top of the block.
The second experience that I would like to discuss was the K9-Unit Flag Football Team. What is there to say other than that we were a bunch of studs who looked flawless while losing almost every game, but the one game the other team forfeited and the catholic team that we beat? My college experience would be different had I not played flag football on Wednesday nights at 9 or 10 o’clock at night. I remember the very first game and I didn’t quite know Matt or Dom very well, but by the end, I felt as if we were brothers because of the bonding we had over almost all of our loses. Some of my favorite moments while playing on the K9 Unit was having cheerleaders, twisting my ankle, and beating the catholic team. To begin with, when we won two games in a row, we started getting cheerleaders who wanted me to give them kisses, but I respectfully declined ;). Secondly, in the very first game I twisted my ankle on the very last play when we were down by like 30 points. That’s what I like to call dedication!!! I was so proud of my team because right after that game, they had to play an entire game against Gallagher 5 without their star player, just kidding….more like their water boy. I learned a lot about the guys on the team that they were fighters who weren’t willing to give up, even how tired they got. They fought extremely hard through the entire game, just losing by a small margin. Lastly, I loved beating the catholic team! They were a bunch of hose jobs who would stick out their leg and trip me while I was trying to sack their quarterback for like the 10th time. I remember towards the end of the game I got physical with the 250 pound hose bag. I don’t know what got over me. I was an animal! I remember Dom, who played defensive line dropped his should on the kid! Things got dicey as funk! That night I honestly lost sleep because of how bad I felt about going after the larger man. The following day I was able to redeem myself by apologizing to him at lunch. I learned that I shouldn’t let anger get to my head and use violence, even when I’m in the zone for a flag football game, but rather avoid having to apologize to a kid at lunch.
The third experience that I wanted to reflect on was the retreat on Halloween at the Creighton Retreat Center. To begin with, it was my dog’s birthday!! He turned 8, and or 56 in dog years! Aside from being my dog’s birthday, the retreat was an inspirational experience full of surprises. I remember sitting with JT going to the retreat center when he attempted to read his book, which lets be honest didn’t happen. JT reading? hahaha jk! Once we arrived at Griswold, our mentors via a recorded video greeted us. It made me miss them! Shortly thereafter, we did an activity where we all circled up and Benjamin and Katie would ask deep questions and people would step forward if it applied to their life. I was able to learn a lot about others and how relatable we are in many different ways, even when you felt as if you were the only one. Following this activity, we received letters from our parents! I started to cry when I read their letters about how proud they are of me. I’m a little #soft. I also started to laugh and cry when I read my dad’s letter on how I cheated in Golf while we were in South Carolina and that I still owe him $8. Next on the list was an opportunity to walk around and have a one-on-one with another member of FLP, more specifically a member of the opposite gender. I was paired up with Caitlin, whom I wouldn’t trade for anyone else! She was in crutches so we walked/crutched slowly and talked about how fascinated we were with politics and the green effort, along with the universe and the stars. Ever since, I keep asking myself similar questions that we asked each other about the environment and what we can do as leaders to be an agent of change. When we got inside from the bitter cold, we all circled up again to share our personal stories, which ended up taking roughly 7 hours. I was able to learn so much about other people that helped spark conversation and allowed me to recognize as humans we all are different, but we share experiences with each other and we are never alone. I felt as if I could ask for help from any one of the 70 people in the room.
Section II: (Leadership Theories)
Heroic Leadership:
Whenever people think of heroes, they think of a man who run extremely fast or someone who can fly, but some of the people I think of are the day-to-day heroes, such as: teachers, soldiers, parents, fire fighters, policemen, nurses, etc. The reason why I introduced this section this way was because there are so many heroes who inspire me every day and I feel as if I never fully express my gratitude for what these individuals do everyday to improve the lives of others. When I think of a true hero, I see a mother juggling 2 jobs and raising a family, or a firefighter risking his life to save the lives of others, these…these men and women are the types of heroes that I think need to be portrayed in the movies more often. A man who I think exceeded what it looks like to be a heroic leader was my grandpa. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my grandpa went to the draft board everyday trying to enlist, only to get declined because of his flat feet. Eventually after pestering the draft board, and the war breaking out, he was allowed to serve his nation during WWII by working logistics in France. In addition to his dedication to serve his country, he and my grandma raised a family of 5 children. They were by no means a wealthy family, but my grandpa worked his butt of while working for Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. Another example of how my Grandpa exemplified what it means to be a hero was by never giving up, even while facing death in the face. As my grandpa was passing away, due to kidney failure, he always kept claiming that he was going to make it to the age of 100. Although he never made it, he kept on kicking all the way to age 92. That’s one heck of a ride if you ask me. As I reflect, I am going to try my very best to express gratitude for every day heroes who put the interest of others in front of their own.
Followership:
To be completely honest, I wasn’t exactly sure how followership refers to the process of being a leader, but after a few Google searches, I believe I was able to get a general idea of what I want to talk about. I believe followership is a step in becoming the head leader, but also being a leader within its position itself. To begin with, I believe that followership is a stepping-stone towards becoming the head leader of an organization. I am a strong believer in the concept that we don’t just become head leaders, but rather start at the bottom and work our way up to the top of organizations. I think being a follower is important in this definition because you are able to learn different aspects at the lower tier of an organization, so that when you become the head of an organization, you can be more relatable and understanding towards issues that people may be facing. As you work your way up in an organization, you are able to learn and analyze the decisions and motions that the current leader is taking and take note of the positive and negative leadership styles that specific leader has and ways that you personally believe you can apply that will help change the organization for the better. Lastly, I believe by being at the lower tier of an organization, you can be a leader by putting yourself into uncomfortable situations, such as seeking a mentor. Being new to an organization can be nerve racking because you don’t want to look like the doorknob who doesn’t know anything, but it is better to not know anything than it is to act as if you know everything.
Servant Leadership:
Earlier in the semester, Rachael, Trevor, and I performed an experiment by applying servant leadership to the Freshman Leadership Program. The writing following this statement is a conclusion to our project.
The project that we preformed to represent servant leadership would be seen as a simple day to day act of kindness, but proved to have the ability to carry a powerful message. We designed our project to revolve around what we believe makes up a servant leader, which is putting others needs in front of your own, but rather the communities. A servant leader performs actions without carrying the titles and recognition. We attempted to anonymously uplift the spirits of the FLP community by taking time out of our study hours to create and post inspirational pieces of literature on the residents’ doors. As we carried out our project, we were able to learn not only about ourselves, but how we define servant leadership as well, such as how you can make an impact in someone’s day through kind gestures, even if you aren’t given full recognition of the actions that you preformed. A way that we were able to learn about ourselves was through the reactions and responses from the recipients of the inspirational literature. We were able to learn that while others are trying to provide us with some source of service, we constantly seek more. In addition, we were able to learn that both parties associated, both receiving and giving, mutually benefit from acts of service.
Ethical Leadership/Integrity Leadership:
I hope this isn’t quite breaking the rules, but I combined ethical and integrity leadership together. I believe that as a leader, in order to hold integrity, you must make ethical decisions. It can be extremely hard to always do what is right when facing tempting rewards or outcomes. As a leader I strive to live by the quote that Dean Hendrickson once said, “Integrity before profits”. As a business student, I want to live by this quote because living in a nation centered on capitalism and making, as much profit as you can, can be tough when you need to differentiate what’s moral and immoral. I need to hold my integrity and say no to immoral decisions, even if there is a large profit sitting on the other side of the table that is easy to grasp. An example in my own life where I believe I displayed ethical/integrity leadership was when I took the initiative to make a moral decision to sell my shares in Nike (NKE) for a small loss, due to the fact that Nike treats their workers extremely poorly. I believe in the concept that the dollar votes, and by withdrawing my shares, I was voting against Nike and their unethical decisions. Nike displayed poor ethical leadership by treating their workers poorly and severely underpaying them. In addition, Nike breaks integrity leadership as they do not discloser this information to shareholders or consumers, but they try to cover it all up.
Visionary and Transformational Leadership:
David Gergen once said, “A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” This quote is a fantastic representation of what qualities a visionary leader would hold. A visionary leader can sense the true potential that someone holds, even if the person doesn’t believe in himself or herself or set their goals high enough. A visionary leader will recognize this and push these individuals to their true potential. In order to push these individuals, the visionary leader will dedicate his or her time/effort, in order to see these individuals succeed. Aside from visionary leadership, there is transformational leadership. I may be completely wrong with what transformational leadership is, but what comes to mind when I think of it is someone who is in the process of becoming a leader. If this is the case, I strive in all ways to be a transformational leader, for I want to become a true leader someday. I’m seeking a mentor who may serve as a visionary leader for me to help me transform to a visionary leader myself one day. I will never give up seeking to become a leader, whether its heroic, visionary, ethical, etc.
Section III: (The Future)
I don’t think I have enough room in this portfolio to explain my aspirations in the future! In summary, my ultimate goal is to become a financial advisor, coffee shop owner, Buffalo Wild Wings owner, and a vineyard owner. I know these are extremely hefty goals, that are very pricey, but I’m going to work as hard as I can to achieve these goals. In order to make these dreams possible, I am going to apply what I have learned from my FLP experience to be a leader in the business world. Some of the things that I have learned from FLP that I would like to apply to my everyday life experiences, as well as in the business world, is to always ask questions. I need to learn that I don’t know everything and the way to expand my knowledge and test myself is to ask for help from others. In addition, I was able to learn that no matter what position you are in a company, you have had similar experiences to others and that we are relatable in so many different ways, even if we know it or not. This can be crucial in the business world because by supporting each other and learning off of each other allows you to grow into a stronger business leader, even at your weakest point. An idea that has stood out to me during the seminar with Dr. Dornsith was, “if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life”. This has become one of the quotes that I live my life by. As I am deciding which major I am going into, I am testing the waters by taking a BIA class and doing an internship with a local real estate company in Minnesota. I’m searching for something that I am deeply passionate about because if I love what I do, working will feel like I’m just participating in an activity that I love to do, and I would be getting paid!!! (LOOK AT MISSION STATEMENT)
This is going to be one of the toughest sections to decide what I want to talk about!! There are hundreds of experiences that I have had and learned from in the Freshman Leadership Program. Unfortunately I had to choose only three, and the three that I have chosen are: the ropes course, intramural football, and the retreat on Halloween.
To begin with, one of my first experiences with FLP earlier in the year was the ropes course. I’m not going to explain what the ropes course is because we all were there, so I’m going to focus on what I learned from it. I’m not going to lie, but when we were driving to the ropes course I began getting butterflies because I’m afraid of heights, but at the same time I get a thrill at facing some of my biggest fears because I believe that one day I can overcome them the more I place myself face to face with my fears. When I got to the ropes course I acted like I wasn’t afraid at all, but in reality I was about to pee my pants! I learned that we all have fears of different things if its heights or meeting new people. I learned that we need each others support, rather it be helping someone who is afraid of something that you aren’t afraid of or rely on each other to overcome the same fear together. In addition I learned that we need to push each other past our comfort zones because everyone settles for what would be considered standard or attainable. Instead of trying to achieve what people would consider the norm, we need to push each other to exceed. I think it takes a true leader, which I think all the other 58 FLP members are, to recognize ones potential and push someone past to what the person believes that they can accomplish. Looking back another learning moment that I had while on the ropes course was how experiencing a fear with someone else can build everlasting relationships. A moment where we all experienced fear with each other was during the trust fall. On top of the block and having to rely on people to catch you, without breaking your skull open is a moment where I was able to build relationships with different individuals in my group because we related to and discussed the fear we had on top of the block.
The second experience that I would like to discuss was the K9-Unit Flag Football Team. What is there to say other than that we were a bunch of studs who looked flawless while losing almost every game, but the one game the other team forfeited and the catholic team that we beat? My college experience would be different had I not played flag football on Wednesday nights at 9 or 10 o’clock at night. I remember the very first game and I didn’t quite know Matt or Dom very well, but by the end, I felt as if we were brothers because of the bonding we had over almost all of our loses. Some of my favorite moments while playing on the K9 Unit was having cheerleaders, twisting my ankle, and beating the catholic team. To begin with, when we won two games in a row, we started getting cheerleaders who wanted me to give them kisses, but I respectfully declined ;). Secondly, in the very first game I twisted my ankle on the very last play when we were down by like 30 points. That’s what I like to call dedication!!! I was so proud of my team because right after that game, they had to play an entire game against Gallagher 5 without their star player, just kidding….more like their water boy. I learned a lot about the guys on the team that they were fighters who weren’t willing to give up, even how tired they got. They fought extremely hard through the entire game, just losing by a small margin. Lastly, I loved beating the catholic team! They were a bunch of hose jobs who would stick out their leg and trip me while I was trying to sack their quarterback for like the 10th time. I remember towards the end of the game I got physical with the 250 pound hose bag. I don’t know what got over me. I was an animal! I remember Dom, who played defensive line dropped his should on the kid! Things got dicey as funk! That night I honestly lost sleep because of how bad I felt about going after the larger man. The following day I was able to redeem myself by apologizing to him at lunch. I learned that I shouldn’t let anger get to my head and use violence, even when I’m in the zone for a flag football game, but rather avoid having to apologize to a kid at lunch.
The third experience that I wanted to reflect on was the retreat on Halloween at the Creighton Retreat Center. To begin with, it was my dog’s birthday!! He turned 8, and or 56 in dog years! Aside from being my dog’s birthday, the retreat was an inspirational experience full of surprises. I remember sitting with JT going to the retreat center when he attempted to read his book, which lets be honest didn’t happen. JT reading? hahaha jk! Once we arrived at Griswold, our mentors via a recorded video greeted us. It made me miss them! Shortly thereafter, we did an activity where we all circled up and Benjamin and Katie would ask deep questions and people would step forward if it applied to their life. I was able to learn a lot about others and how relatable we are in many different ways, even when you felt as if you were the only one. Following this activity, we received letters from our parents! I started to cry when I read their letters about how proud they are of me. I’m a little #soft. I also started to laugh and cry when I read my dad’s letter on how I cheated in Golf while we were in South Carolina and that I still owe him $8. Next on the list was an opportunity to walk around and have a one-on-one with another member of FLP, more specifically a member of the opposite gender. I was paired up with Caitlin, whom I wouldn’t trade for anyone else! She was in crutches so we walked/crutched slowly and talked about how fascinated we were with politics and the green effort, along with the universe and the stars. Ever since, I keep asking myself similar questions that we asked each other about the environment and what we can do as leaders to be an agent of change. When we got inside from the bitter cold, we all circled up again to share our personal stories, which ended up taking roughly 7 hours. I was able to learn so much about other people that helped spark conversation and allowed me to recognize as humans we all are different, but we share experiences with each other and we are never alone. I felt as if I could ask for help from any one of the 70 people in the room.
Section II: (Leadership Theories)
Heroic Leadership:
Whenever people think of heroes, they think of a man who run extremely fast or someone who can fly, but some of the people I think of are the day-to-day heroes, such as: teachers, soldiers, parents, fire fighters, policemen, nurses, etc. The reason why I introduced this section this way was because there are so many heroes who inspire me every day and I feel as if I never fully express my gratitude for what these individuals do everyday to improve the lives of others. When I think of a true hero, I see a mother juggling 2 jobs and raising a family, or a firefighter risking his life to save the lives of others, these…these men and women are the types of heroes that I think need to be portrayed in the movies more often. A man who I think exceeded what it looks like to be a heroic leader was my grandpa. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my grandpa went to the draft board everyday trying to enlist, only to get declined because of his flat feet. Eventually after pestering the draft board, and the war breaking out, he was allowed to serve his nation during WWII by working logistics in France. In addition to his dedication to serve his country, he and my grandma raised a family of 5 children. They were by no means a wealthy family, but my grandpa worked his butt of while working for Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. Another example of how my Grandpa exemplified what it means to be a hero was by never giving up, even while facing death in the face. As my grandpa was passing away, due to kidney failure, he always kept claiming that he was going to make it to the age of 100. Although he never made it, he kept on kicking all the way to age 92. That’s one heck of a ride if you ask me. As I reflect, I am going to try my very best to express gratitude for every day heroes who put the interest of others in front of their own.
Followership:
To be completely honest, I wasn’t exactly sure how followership refers to the process of being a leader, but after a few Google searches, I believe I was able to get a general idea of what I want to talk about. I believe followership is a step in becoming the head leader, but also being a leader within its position itself. To begin with, I believe that followership is a stepping-stone towards becoming the head leader of an organization. I am a strong believer in the concept that we don’t just become head leaders, but rather start at the bottom and work our way up to the top of organizations. I think being a follower is important in this definition because you are able to learn different aspects at the lower tier of an organization, so that when you become the head of an organization, you can be more relatable and understanding towards issues that people may be facing. As you work your way up in an organization, you are able to learn and analyze the decisions and motions that the current leader is taking and take note of the positive and negative leadership styles that specific leader has and ways that you personally believe you can apply that will help change the organization for the better. Lastly, I believe by being at the lower tier of an organization, you can be a leader by putting yourself into uncomfortable situations, such as seeking a mentor. Being new to an organization can be nerve racking because you don’t want to look like the doorknob who doesn’t know anything, but it is better to not know anything than it is to act as if you know everything.
Servant Leadership:
Earlier in the semester, Rachael, Trevor, and I performed an experiment by applying servant leadership to the Freshman Leadership Program. The writing following this statement is a conclusion to our project.
The project that we preformed to represent servant leadership would be seen as a simple day to day act of kindness, but proved to have the ability to carry a powerful message. We designed our project to revolve around what we believe makes up a servant leader, which is putting others needs in front of your own, but rather the communities. A servant leader performs actions without carrying the titles and recognition. We attempted to anonymously uplift the spirits of the FLP community by taking time out of our study hours to create and post inspirational pieces of literature on the residents’ doors. As we carried out our project, we were able to learn not only about ourselves, but how we define servant leadership as well, such as how you can make an impact in someone’s day through kind gestures, even if you aren’t given full recognition of the actions that you preformed. A way that we were able to learn about ourselves was through the reactions and responses from the recipients of the inspirational literature. We were able to learn that while others are trying to provide us with some source of service, we constantly seek more. In addition, we were able to learn that both parties associated, both receiving and giving, mutually benefit from acts of service.
Ethical Leadership/Integrity Leadership:
I hope this isn’t quite breaking the rules, but I combined ethical and integrity leadership together. I believe that as a leader, in order to hold integrity, you must make ethical decisions. It can be extremely hard to always do what is right when facing tempting rewards or outcomes. As a leader I strive to live by the quote that Dean Hendrickson once said, “Integrity before profits”. As a business student, I want to live by this quote because living in a nation centered on capitalism and making, as much profit as you can, can be tough when you need to differentiate what’s moral and immoral. I need to hold my integrity and say no to immoral decisions, even if there is a large profit sitting on the other side of the table that is easy to grasp. An example in my own life where I believe I displayed ethical/integrity leadership was when I took the initiative to make a moral decision to sell my shares in Nike (NKE) for a small loss, due to the fact that Nike treats their workers extremely poorly. I believe in the concept that the dollar votes, and by withdrawing my shares, I was voting against Nike and their unethical decisions. Nike displayed poor ethical leadership by treating their workers poorly and severely underpaying them. In addition, Nike breaks integrity leadership as they do not discloser this information to shareholders or consumers, but they try to cover it all up.
Visionary and Transformational Leadership:
David Gergen once said, “A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” This quote is a fantastic representation of what qualities a visionary leader would hold. A visionary leader can sense the true potential that someone holds, even if the person doesn’t believe in himself or herself or set their goals high enough. A visionary leader will recognize this and push these individuals to their true potential. In order to push these individuals, the visionary leader will dedicate his or her time/effort, in order to see these individuals succeed. Aside from visionary leadership, there is transformational leadership. I may be completely wrong with what transformational leadership is, but what comes to mind when I think of it is someone who is in the process of becoming a leader. If this is the case, I strive in all ways to be a transformational leader, for I want to become a true leader someday. I’m seeking a mentor who may serve as a visionary leader for me to help me transform to a visionary leader myself one day. I will never give up seeking to become a leader, whether its heroic, visionary, ethical, etc.
Section III: (The Future)
I don’t think I have enough room in this portfolio to explain my aspirations in the future! In summary, my ultimate goal is to become a financial advisor, coffee shop owner, Buffalo Wild Wings owner, and a vineyard owner. I know these are extremely hefty goals, that are very pricey, but I’m going to work as hard as I can to achieve these goals. In order to make these dreams possible, I am going to apply what I have learned from my FLP experience to be a leader in the business world. Some of the things that I have learned from FLP that I would like to apply to my everyday life experiences, as well as in the business world, is to always ask questions. I need to learn that I don’t know everything and the way to expand my knowledge and test myself is to ask for help from others. In addition, I was able to learn that no matter what position you are in a company, you have had similar experiences to others and that we are relatable in so many different ways, even if we know it or not. This can be crucial in the business world because by supporting each other and learning off of each other allows you to grow into a stronger business leader, even at your weakest point. An idea that has stood out to me during the seminar with Dr. Dornsith was, “if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life”. This has become one of the quotes that I live my life by. As I am deciding which major I am going into, I am testing the waters by taking a BIA class and doing an internship with a local real estate company in Minnesota. I’m searching for something that I am deeply passionate about because if I love what I do, working will feel like I’m just participating in an activity that I love to do, and I would be getting paid!!! (LOOK AT MISSION STATEMENT)