What's the Point?

As I was going to write my final blog, I was looking through the notes I took in class, my blogs, and things that happened in class to try and figure out what the point of the class for me was. I have a lot of information for what seems to be a pretty easy question, so it is hard to pick out just a few things that shaped what I thought the point of the class was. The following are a few of the main points I am taking away from my semester long journey in 309.

Be GREAT! Be the best person I can be! This will help me be a better leader and inspire my followers to be the best they can be too! - (Funeral/Pain Exercises)
I don't think I will ever forget doing these two exercises in class; they changed my life. I had never done anything like them before in any of my classes. These two exercises really got me thinking. With the funeral exercise, it made me think about am I being the best person I can be NOW (not tomorrow or next week, but right this second and every second!) I never thought about how I wanted to be remembered or what I would want someone to say about me after I was gone. It's a pretty morbid thought, but one that puts things in perspective. I took what I wrote down in class and really have tried to make a conscience effort of changing my actions and behavior. Just since that exercise I have been put in a few situations that I reacted differently in after thinking about what I had written down. When I was put in these situations, I was not only thinking about how it was going to make me look, but also how it would affect the others around me. The pain exercise really made me think twice about what I say in front of someone. You never know what someone has gone through or is going through, unless they tell you or you ask. But even then you will never fully understand because you are not in their shoes. I have always grown up with the golden rule, "treat others how you would want to be treated", and I have tried to stick by that. But sometimes you need a wake up call and the pain exercise was just that. From these two exercises I have become more cautious about how I act and how I want to be remembered, which will help me to grow to be a GREAT leader.

How could I make a difference? - (Stephen Covey Clip)
All semester I have used the leadership position I am in now to relate topics from class to the real world. Thinking back, I wish I would have had the opportunity to take this class earlier because I feel it would have given me the tools I need to succeed even more in my position. When I first started in my leadership position I thought I needed to make huge changes to be noticed that I was making a difference. Now I know that is not true and looking back it probably just hindered me more than helped me. After this semester I have tried to make smaller changes and I think it has made a bigger impact than I ever thought it would have. Just like the Stephen Covey clip said, "Small changes can make a huge impact." I have made small changes by thanking or congratulating someone in person as well as writing them a little note. Having something down on paper means so much more than just the words. Along the same lines, I made an icebreaker game for one of our meetings that I think really gave the instructors that little boost of confidence they needed. I printed out half sheets of paper with every instructors name at the top, so everyone would have their own piece of paper to take home. We passed the paper around the room and everyone wrote something positive on their paper. At the end they had a paper full of compliments that they could take home and look at everyday. Hopefully, at the end of the day they will know they are appreciated and this will inspire them to be the best instructor (and person) they can be. I know this lesson changed my life, and hopefully it will change the lives of others I come in contact with!

"You have two ears and one mouth for a reason!"-(Listening & Communicating)
This is probably one of the most important lessons that I took away from 309. Great leadership can only come from great listening and great communicating. Listen to your followers and they will continue to follow you. By listening to them, they will know you have a concern for their well being and a respectable relationship will begin to form. Great relationships are also key in great leadership, so by actively listening to your followers you will succeed as a leader. I have tried to improve my listening skills, not only in my leadership position, but in my personal life as well. I am one of those cell phone freaks that ALWAYS has to have their cell phone within an arms length of them or they freak out. So usually when I'm listening to one of my friends or co-workers I have my phone in my hand or close by and am not fully listening 100%. I have really tried to keep my cell phone put away if I'm having a conversation with someone. I can always call someone back, but I can't take back being rude and a bad leader to one of friends or co-workers. By showing that I have respect for the person who is talking and a concern for what they are talking about my relationships have improved over the past few months.

Like Professor Feinberg said, communication is a very difficult thing. You need to be fully engaged in the communication process to be a great leader. Professor Feinberg's 5 secrets to leadership are all about communicating. The first secret to leadership is "Tell them what you expect." You need to communicate clearly what you expect of them so they can perform it to the best of their abilities. If they don't know what to do, how do you expect them to do it? I took this lesson to my leadership position. We had some girls go through a full day of training so they could teach their own class of that particular format. After 10 hours of training, they knew what was going on but did not yet have the confidence to go out there and teach their own class right away. So we came up with a "plan" that would include them teaching with an instructor that had already been certified and slowly easing in to the process of having their own class. We typed out their schedule, asked them if they thought it was doable, e-mailed it to them, gave them a hard copy, and printed out one for the gym where they teach so they would see it everyday. By doing this I think it really helped them stay on track and set goals for themselves. We rewarded them after each goal they accomplished and gave them feedback constantly. And after it was all over they were rewarded by having their own class for the rest of the semester. Along the way there were some bumps, but actively listening to their concerns and issues made the communication process a lot easier.

These are not the only lessons I learned, but just a few that stuck out and really made a difference in my life. So whats the point? I think the main point of the class for me was to grow and change as a leader as well as a person. And through the experiences I've had just this semester I believe I have done just that. (But there is a lot more room to grow, so its not over yet!)

Thank you Professor Feinberg, you really did change my life. You made me a better leader in the short time I had you as a professor. Sure at times I wondered what was going on, but in the end everything makes sense. You are great at what you do - keep it up!

So I guess this is the end of my 309 journey, but I'm getting ready to start a journey that I will be able use the tools I have been taught and they will help make me a better person and leader in the future.

Last Week of 309

Wow, I can't believe the semester is only a few weeks from being over. Time flies when you're having fun and learning about leadership! :)

I took what Prof. Feinberg said about writing hand written thank you notes and put it to good use. Last weekend was Easter and I was way excited to go home and see my family. That was until I figured out I scheduled myself to teach on Saturday at noon, so I would not be able to leave until after that. I was so disappointed and on a whim decided to e-mail out our instructors Friday morning to see if anyone was going to be around and was willing to teach it for me. (On a side note over the past year, mostly due to our new awesome leader, the Group X program has become a more tightly knit family and everyone is always willing to step up and help out when needed!)Thinking that everyone had probably already gone home, I had just made my plans to leave Saturday afternoon, when I get a phone call from one of our instructors. As soon as she picked up the phone she said "Go home and see your family, I'll be there to teach your class tomorrow!" I was so happy and told her I would help her out whenever just name that time, but I knew I had to do something else for her last minute help. I obviously had thanked her on the phone but I knew if I wrote her a little thank you card it would mean much more and she would understand what she did for me. And what good is a thank you card without a Starbucks gift card? :)

Pain. That lecture got to me (in a good way though!) It was a much different experience hearing Prof. Feinberg reading the pain statements out loud and knowing that someone in that room was going through that rather than reading them from my office by myself. "Treat others how you want to be treated." This is a perfect quote to go along with this lecture in my opinion. You never know what someone else has gone through until they tell you and even then you probably will not be able to comprehend all the pain it has caused them because you were not in their shoes. Being cautious about what you say in front of others and how you word what you say is so important.

I am guilty sometimes of just shooting my mouth off not even thinking about what is coming out, I'm sure most of us are. Just today, I was on the phone with a girl that I consider to be one of my best friends. We were talking about a subject that has caused me a great deal of pain lately and she made a comment that really just made the pain worse. I'm sure she did not think at the time it would have caused me pain because she is not the type of person to intentionally try to hurt someone. She probably thought it would help the situation but instead it just added to my pain. Maybe I have done something similar to her in the past? I hope not, I would never want to cause anyone more pain than they are already suffering.

After hearing something of the pain statements and knowing that they could have come from someone I have come in contact with I am defiantly going to be more cautious about what I'm saying. As a leader, you cannot afford to cause your employees pain. Employees in pain will not work to their full potential, especially for someone who caused them more pain and they will always remember who caused them the extra pain. The same goes for personal relationships; if you cause a loved one pain they may forgive you, but they defiantly will not forget it.

I really enjoyed this class and I'm surprisingly sad that its over 2 weeks early! :)

Change

I had the pleasant surprise of walking into my OLS class yesterday morning and finding Professor Feinberg there. He was asked by one of my fellow students to come in and talk about change..(WHY didn't I think of that?!) Anyway, he talked about a few things he did at the beginning of the semester in class but it seemed to hit me a little harder this time. Maybe it was because in January graduation seemed to be so far away and now its in a month! As most of Professor Feinbergs lectures do..it got me thinking.

I wish I would have taken this class LAST spring. He gives so many good tips when interviewing that I would have never thought of. In my OLS class he talked about bringing up the fact that you love change and that you can handle anything that is thrown at you. That would have been a powerful statement to say in an interview and really WOW them. I will definantly know for my next interview what I want to say though :)

So many changes are going to be happening over the next month its unreal. Seeing how I deal with these changes will be the true test to see if I can really handle anything that is thrown at me. Lets see..I'll be graduating from college, moving somewhere (not really sure yet), be in the real world, being a REAL adult, leaving a job I LOVE, leaving all my friends I've made over the past 4 years..way to much to handle at one time.

Another change I'm going through now is with my job. I'm a lead instructor which basically means we have office hours and help our GA with anything she might need help with. Well after Spring Break we chose the new lead instructors for next semester and they have started taking over our duties already. This was another wake up call that its almost the end and the new beginning is near (whatever that may be.) We have a bulletin board that I usually decorate for our "Instructor of the Month", but my boss told me she wanted to have the new leads do it so that way if they had questions we could help them out. So, I'm going into work last night and notice the board had been changed. I walked by and saw pictures of Michelle (the other lead instructor) and I all over it with 'thank you's' from the instructors for all our hard work and help over the past year. It was so nice to see that we actually made a difference and were thought of as great leaders. Once we get to take it down I want to put one of the thank you's on here..it almost made me shed a tear (and I'm not one to cry over anything!) So this is my note to remind myself :)

I guess Professor Feinberg is right..."The greatest reward is making a difference."

Another Aspect of Leadership

This week has been crazy busy. I have a feeling this is what the rest of the year is going to be like. (BUT there is always time for great leadership stories!) :)

In my current job, I feel like I have one of the best leaders I have come in counter with in the workplace. She is full of energy and gets the rest of us excited about her ideas (encourage the heart.) Most of her ideas are new to the program and not traditional to the rec center here at Purdue (challenge the process.) She is constantly talking about our goals and vision for the program and getting us excited about making these things happen (inspire a shared vision.) One of the most important things she does is model the way; she does what she tells us to do and follows her own rules. Lastly, one of her main objectives as our leader is to help us be the best instructors we can be and make our program the best it can be (enable others to act.) She does this by constantly letting us know she is available to help out in any way she can. She is always giving us class ideas and she conducts her own fitness instructor workshop. All great qualities to have in a leader! I'm very lucky! :)

The one aspect that I have come in counter with most recently was her ability to enable others to act. I am new to teaching a new format of class this semester and was pretty unsure of myself before the semester started. She met with me several times and helped empower me to do the best I could in the class. The other night around 10:30pm, I was looking over new choreography to teach in the class and as pretty confused. I had class all day the next day and needed some questions answered then so I would be ready to teach the next day. I knew I could call her and she would help me out. I did not worry that I was going to bug her or anything because she made it very clear that we could call her anytime (that is why she gave us her cell number!) She cleared several things up for me and I was able to teach the class the next day without any problems!

With any other leader I have had in that position I might have not felt as comfortable calling so late, but since she made it clear that we could I knew it would be ok. She is there for us and wants to make the program the best! So she is doing anything she needs to to make that happen. I'm going to be sad to leave in May..hopefully my next leader is just as great! :)