MY LEADERSHIP GOALS
My Leadership Goal Earlier in the year, I had set out to fulfill the following SMARTe leadership goal. - To engage each team member I have in my Self-Initiated Leadership Project by calling for a general meeting once every month. My action steps were to gather more information from my team about their availability, schedule the meeting in the month, and create an agenda for the meeting. During that month, I was able to set up some time and listed some topics of discussion for the meeting, such as our year plan and the aim of our project. During the meeting, we tested the idea of the DIY Aircraft Workshop, which was the driving activity for me to form the organization now named the Talents & Interests Network as our leadership project. I have been able to meet this goal by organizing general meetings in each month, although it was not in a regular schedule as intended, instead it was on a need-basis upon planning and updating our progress and tasks for preparing the events.
Although to some of our team members, some of our roles were not clear in the beginning, I believe we were able to work together well in the early part of the project. We initially divided the task of paperwork in applying for sponsorship through the SAO, so initially we did not strictly follow the roles we had signed up for. After a consultation with Rufina, we were able to point out the weaknesses and room for improvement in our team, and clarifying roles and responsibilities was one key aspect we improved on. After the consultation, we divided work much more efficiently by allowing specific tasks to be done by those who chose to specialize in that area, such as marketing from our Marketing Director, finances from our Financial Secretary, and other paperwork done by our General Secretaries. Through these changes and also my efforts in organizing meetings and keeping each of my team members updated, I believe I have achieved my SMARTe leadership goal.
As a fairly work-oriented person, taking on the leadership role was intimidating for me, but with passion and determination, I decided to take on the challenge of starting up a new organization with my team. I am also very grateful that I was able to find other passionate members to support me in this project, especially when there was very much uncertainty to how well the events would go, whether our events would be approved, and a lot of weight on me as the chairperson to guarantee a successful project.
More on my Leadership Experiences My aim in the Talents & Interests Network was to share my knowledge and insights in organizing workshops as I did in my experience as an Organizing Committee member of the Cambodia Service Learning Trip in Winter 2017. By being most in charge of the first event we held, I believe I was able to set a standard in preparing activity rundowns and contingency plans for our following events. Some of the practices I implemented from my experience was to plan well for contingencies, and also to prioritize rehearsals with the team and taking action to demonstrate our activities to give everyone a good understanding of their role in the events, rather than just reciting our plans.
Furthermore, from my experience as a REDbird coach, I believe being a role model is an important aspect in leadership. I believe many are inspired in my work in developing my e-portfolio as I am passionate about trying out new things and reflecting on my experiences. Generally, as a coach, although sometimes difficult, I am able to support the first year REDbird members in their endevours and give them my insights and at time coach them to develop their own project ideas. Extending my Leadership Goals To extend my leadership goals, I plan to begin to participate in Civil Engineering competitions, business case competitions, and possibly computer programming competitions to find opportunities to involve my team in projects. From my Student Leadership Practices Inventory, I perform well in enabling others to act, and perform least in inspiring a shared vision. Through future experiences, I hope to become better at inspiring and motivating others, and I plan to do so by also utilizing the facilitation skills I have learnt from my second year in REDbird. ​
