[background]
So in the past few weeks on Sunday evenings we have been discussing the basics of leadership. Starting our leadership team (which YOU are invited to be a part of!), we have started defining leadership and what makes an effective leader. We hope that through this discussion we can have a foundation for more specific issues of leadership later this semester.
This past Sunday, we asked the students to break into small groups and decide on a number of character traits that leaders have. We encouraged them to think of character ideals, not necessarily simply personality traits or style. We then had discussion on what makes a good leader, and effective leader, and what similarities/differences were found in both.
[the raw results]
Group 1 said that a leader is/has:
caring/loving, respectful, honest, wise, relatable, strong minded, brave, accountable, loyal/patriotic, humble, hard-working, dedicated, passionate, trustworthy
Group 2 said that a leader is/has:
respect, responsible, open-minded, flexible, enthusiastic, honest, trustworthy, forgiving, level-headed, easy to talk to, awesome
Group 3 said that a leader is/has:
caring, honest, responsible, respect, faith, says things in a way that doesn't make you feel attacked, humble, considerate, sets a good tone, empathetic, open to change, able to step down when needed
[compiled results - items with multiple mentions]
According to our groups, a leader is/has:
respect
honest
relatable/empathetic/easy to talk to
accountable/trustworthy/responsible
humble/forgiving
flexible/open to change
passionate/enthusiastic/dedicated
[for next week: homework]
We asked students to think about the 5 qualities of a leader that they feel are most important, and write them down. Then see if there are bigger umbrella character traits that are
behind those 5, write those down. Try to boil it down to 1-2 things that leader almost always is.
Also, come prepared to say what one character trait you would use to describe yourself.
