By the end of Leadership 11, I hope to gain strategic decision-making, conflict resolution, and effective communication skills. Understanding how to adapt to different leadership frameworks is important to me because it will enable me to lead in diverse settings, whether in school or my future career. Although I haven’t been a point person yet, I still have a duty to fulfill my role to the best of my ability, contributing to the rest of my team and to our Leadership family. I want to be able to stay organized in a higher-pressure environment and hopefully use newly gained critical thinking skills, and group work skills, and contribute my ideas and opinions to help better our school environment.
What I will learn in this course is crucial in future jobs or career paths for me, as building deeper connections and fostering a growth mindset is important for those. When I am put in a situation where I have to take on a leadership role, I will have the necessary skill set to be successful and perform the best that I can. For example, if I have to lead my team in a research project or group presentation, by applying the strategies I learned in Leadership, I will be able to ensure smooth and productive collaboration.
Although I like taking on a leading role in a group setting, I always strayed away from volunteering for those types of roles, sometimes out of fear or self-doubt. I believe through this course, I can step out of my comfort zone, and explore my strengths and weaknesses. It will significantly help my critical thinking skills, as I will constantly be investigating new and different ways to lead events and activities. For many events, during the moment, I can learn to work well under pressure and use my team as well as the people around me to solve a problem and work together to ensure a desirable outcome. Additionally, this course will help me view a problem strategically, communicate my thoughts, and provide constructive feedback to ultimately improve and lead discussions.
A potential challenge I might face is balancing leadership responsibilities with the demands of other coursework or personal commitments. Because of this challenge, I strive to manage my time effectively and stay organized throughout this grade 11 year. Another challenge that could arise is conflict of interest within teams. As I’m surrounded by other students who desire leading roles and like taking control, I will actively listen to different perspectives and try my best to foster an environment of open communication, often seeking feedback from peers to try to improve my leadership approach.