The Conclusion

At the very beginning of Dr.Feinberg's class he stated that he wanted to change our lives in someway, whether it be small or large. Well I believe that what I learned in his class will forever be remembered. Leadership is in everything and now I see that. I can't help but to find the leadership connection in TV shows, movies, and newspaper articles. Now that I see leadership everywhere it is a daily reminder to be the best leader that I can truly be. Dr. Feinberg's class has helped me see that yes, I was doing some good things to become a leader, but I needed to branch out a little more and stretch my ideas about what leadership is. I have stepped into more leader type roles on campus like becoming a Consumer and Family Sciences Ambassador, trying to become the Vice President of the Financial Planning Club, and wanting to tryout for Old Masters next year. The best lecture in my mind was the one that Kirk spoke at. Yes it was five hours long,which was a little extensive, but all of the messages that he gave me will stay with me forever. I have decided this summer to read more leadership books in order to find common ground with interviewers and I have also decided to do more little things to show the people around me that I care. The one lecture that was the most beneficial to me was when Feinberg told us his five principles to leadership. I have the card on my desk and look at it from time to time. I, too, believe it is very important to reward one's group very often. I wish that my boss now would tell me I am doing a great job or something so that I knew that I am appreciated. Even though, this class was later in the evening I am glad that I had it. It has helped me shape my view on leadership and has helped me realize what I still need to work on in order to be a great leader.

Pain

This last lecture given by Dr. Feinberg was the most eye opening and depressing lecture I have ever heard in my college career. Everyone had to write about the pain and suffering that they go through everyday. I noticed that pain can come in many different forms, with everything from family lose to feeling like you don't fit in to people dealing with drug additions. The more and more Feinberg read the entries the more I started to feel like my pain wasn't so bad. There are many people out there that have it worse then I do. I have always heard from my parents that I should feel grateful for what I have and that I am very fortunate to have such an amazing life. I never truly saw how fortunate until I realized that the pain entries that were being read were from students sitting right next to me. I had never heard about all of these different types of pain but on television. Hearing that my fellow peers were dealing with huge issues made me reevaluate my own pain. I have learned to deal with my pain in a pretty optimistic manner and will continue to do so after this class. I hope that CSR 309 has helped some of my peers deal with their pains more easily. Being a leader and being able to have a positive outlet to show others what you can do and what you are made of will defiantly help everyone deal with their pain better. Thank you Feinberg for giving us that positive outlet!

Decision Making

When it comes to being a great leader one has to be able to be a great decision maker. There are two dimensions of decision making that are very important to remember: the right decision and the need for others to adopt that decision. The right decision means that you need to feel comfortable with the path that you decided to go about figuring out a problem. How is your group going to support and follow your decisions if you yourself don't feel comfortable and proud of the decision that you made. Secondly, you need to have your team want to adopt your ideas and your decision. One way you can go about this is to explain to your team how you came up with the decision that you are making and ask them if they have any input to add. Remember it is important to make your team feel like they are wanted and that their ideas are relevant and important to the team. There is a technique named, The Nominal Group Technique that is used in a lot of different office environments to help everyone contribute to decision making. During this technique the leader makes everyone in the group state one strength and one weakness of the subject they are discussing. Next the leader picks someone to explain someone else's strength and weakness. By doing this, it helps makes everyone contribute and it also helps the group to see the different views in a very constructive way. So remember decision making is key to being a great leader and how you go about making that decision helps to shape the leader you will become.

Communication is Key

Communication is key in almost everything that we do. If someone misunderstands you it can create a lot of problems on both ends. It is always important to know that your message is getting across accurately when you are a leader of a group. You need to make sure that it is two-way communication instead of one-way communication. Also as a leader, you have to make sure that your followers are listening and know how serious the subject is that you are talking to them about. We did a great experiment in class that helped to illustrate that there needs to be two-way conversations in the work place instead of one-way conversations. We had to draw a picture by just listening to the speaker describe it, and we weren't able to ask any questions about the picture. The result was that only 11 people out of like 250 got the right drawing. We then did the experiment using two-way communication and we were able to ask questions, the outcome was profoundly better with almost the whole class getting the right drawing. The lesson was that the solution to communication issues is to use active listening. Active listening is when you repeat what the speaker says in a different way to make sure that you heard them correctly. Lastly, it is important to have communication with everyone in your group when you are a leader because there are three sides to every story and the truth to the story is more like a circle with no sides.

Leading Others

A leader is only as strong as his/her team members. As a leader, you have to be able to help the team grow and mature. There are a lot of different books that talk about the key steps to use when leading others. From the book, The Leadership Challenge, the authors came up with five simple practices to use to achieve exemplary leadership. They are: 1) Challenge the Process, 2) Inspire a Shared Vision, 3) Enable Others to Act, 4) Model the Way, and 5) Encourage the Heart. The two practices that I believe are the most important are to inspire a shared vision and to encourage the heart. Members of a group want a leader that shows that he/she cares about the individual members of the team, not just the outcome of their hard work. If a team member feels cared about then they will go above and beyond the call of duty to get the best possible outcome for their leader. The second one that I feel is very important is to inspire a shared vision. How can a group know what they are working towards unless the leader has told them what the vision is for the team. If everyone is on the same page then it is much easier to get the task done on time and to the best of the groups ability. Feinberg also came up with his own five secrets to leadership that I found to be very profound. They are: 1) Tell Them what you expect, 2) Make it Doable, 3) Reward them, 4) Give them feedback, 5) When they are done, reward them again. I believe the most important one here is to reward them. If you give your group an incentive to get something done they are more likely to do it. Now that I have been given two different five secret summaries of great leadership, it will definitely help me when I become a leader.

Key Ideas about Leadership Groups

Groups come in all different structures and sizes, but there is one common trend between all of them. That one common trend is that structure helps a group see how they are going to succeed or fail. If a group has no structure at all then that group needs a very strong leader with a well developed vision, but if the group has structure then it is okay to have a weaker leader. Not only is the structure of a group important, but so is figuring out what the group stands for. Once the leader decides what the group should stand for it is his/her job to make sure that every member of their team knows that goal. If one member doesn't know what the group stands for then how can they work effectively to accomplish the goal? Once everyone in the group knows the essence of the team then the leader needs to find a way to measure the goals that they want to accomplish as a team. How can the team really tell if they are accomplishing the goal if they don't have a way to measure their success?

Cohesiveness

When you are in a group, you want to feel that everyone is there for the group and wants the group to achieve their common goal. This can be thought of as wanting the group to have cohesiveness. However, too much cohesiveness can be just as detrimental has not having any at all. If there is too much cohesiveness in a group it can lead to group thinking and a lack of creativity when solving problems. In a lot of group meetings group thinking goes on because the members don't want to hurt the other teammate's feelings. A good way to get rid of group thinking it to assign someone at the meeting to play devils advocate. If there is a devils advocate in the group it helps to challenge the team to think of different alternatives. When a team is challenged that is when the best answers to solve problems get spoken about. So just remember that a group needs to have the perfect balance of cohesiveness in order to have a successful team.