The Leadership Certificate Program encouraged me to be conscious of my behaviors and abilities in a variety of leadership situations. Now, when I am in any group setting, I am more aware of how I interact with people, how I set goals, and what actions I take to achieve those goals with the group I am with. The Ignite and Integrity i-Programs taught me how to effectively deal with change to lead to positive outcomes, all while staying true to my personal values. Additionally, the Conflict Management workshop gave me a deeper awareness of my personal tendencies when dealing with conflict and provided me with strategies which proved helpful when working in team settings like when I was President of Project: Code.
My team experience as President of Project: Code involved deepening and applying my communication skills. I often needed to articulate goals, expectations, and ideas with people on the exec board, Project Managers, and the general members of the org. I had to engage in active listening when interviewing prospective Project Managers as well as when discussing with the rest of the exec team about a variety of topics. Our organization doesn’t have the capacity to match up everyone who wants to join a project, so we spent a lot of time deliberating about which members we should keep and which members wouldn’t be able to move forward. I had to clearly communicate my viewpoints and listen to others’ opinions, and having practice from the Leadership Certificate workshops helped me tremendously in clearly articulating myself. While I started off feeling not very confident about my communication abilities before starting the program, I feel I have made significant progress and can now easily listen and exchange ideas with others.
Being more comfortable with trying new approaches is necessary when creating constructive change in an organization. Before starting the Leadership Certificate Program, I was wary of change in general and was not confident in my ability to innovate. However, after becoming more comfortable with conflict and change through the workshops and i-Programs, I am more confident in my ability to create purposeful change that leads to improvement. I successfully achieved this improvement during my time as President of Project: Code, and I feel confident that I can innovate in any setting, especially when it comes to structures and processes within an organization.
Prior to the program, I would likely have not found much meaning in my work as a Software Engineer. However, being involved as the President of Project: Code during the Certificate Program has allowed me to find meaning through my role as President. I believe I have opened and increased access for people wanting to get experience working with computer science and have been able to provide opportunities that students wouldn’t normally get in the classroom. When I am leading meetings and hearing from Project Managers and their project members who have contributed to the project, I feel a sense of meaning and accomplishment as I feel like I have been able to contribute to a community of future software engineers. If I hadn’t developed the other leadership competencies that helped me drastically improve the organization, I would not have felt this strong sense of purpose.
The Leadership Certificate Program was powerful and enlightening. During my time in the program, I have grown significantly in my leadership skills and taken on more leadership opportunities. I feel very confident imagining myself as a leader in my future career. As a leader, having many responsibilities can be difficult and time consuming. Especially during my time at Project: Code, I felt more pressure than I had before as Vice President or Project Manager. Suddenly, the future of the organization was up to me. I managed to handle these increasing responsibilities by drawing on my growing self-management skills. I was able to create a plan for our organization’s future as well as communicate with my exec team to let them know about the pressure I was feeling. Ultimately, we ended up collaborating more to plan out the semester and the future of the org.
One aspect of that surprised me during the Leadership Certificate Program was how many leadership competencies exist. Before entering the program, I might have thought that leadership just revolved around communication, relationship management, and creative thinking ability. However, learning about the multitude of competencies for each level of leadership helped me realize that being a leader involves a variety of different skills, and it is important to develop and be aware of all of these skills/competencies. It has also become clear that no one is perfect at all of these competencies. Leaders are people who focus on self-growth and continually developing themselves – after I finish the program, I know I will still be working on developing my competencies, especially those in the Community/Society level.
Through the Leadership Certificate Program, I have grown significantly in my ability to communicate and innovate. I was able to successfully work in a group full of students from a different country and background. I have been able to increase the reach and success of my student organization (Project: Code) by working with my exec team and effectively managing more projects and Project Managers than ever before. Above all, I am simply more aware of my interactions with the people I lead and I am a better listener when people share their ideas with me.
In my Personal Development Plan, I initially defined leadership as “the ability to influence, coordinate, and understand others in order to effectively accomplish a set of goals or tasks”. I still generally like this definition, but I believe it doesn’t fully encapsulate how important working with others is. Yes, accomplishing goals is important, but so is the cohesion of the team. I know now that leading a team also involves prioritizing team dynamics and being very open to hearing others’ concerns.
Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED talk about grit has stuck with me throughout my leadership journey. She describes grit as “passion and perseverance for very long-term goals”. This Leadership Certificate journey has been a long-term goal for me, and I have had to delay it for a few semesters due to studying abroad and being busy with school. However, in the end, I have used grit and managed to develop my leadership skills to a great extent. I am grateful for the knowledge I have acquired through the Leadership Certificate Program, and I feel ready to handle any leadership role I want to pursue in the future.