Think
Florida State believes that all students, faculty and staff have the ability to continually develop and enhance their leadership capacity through understanding, acquiring, practicing, reflecting, and applying leadership knowledge, skills and values. The following questions are designed to help you reflect on the ways you currently lead and how you would like to make a difference in the future.
As a process, leadership is a relational, dynamic behavior that occurs within the contexts of individuals, partnerships, groups/teams, and communities. Leadership begins in the heart; it starts with recognizing your passions and building relationships to identify and solve problems within your community.
In this spirit, take your time and reflect on the following questions. These questions are designed to help you think and reflect upon your unique passions, interests and contributions to your community. Many questions may connect with your current state of mind and heart, others may not. Take time to read each question and reflect upon what reactions, thoughts, and/or responses come to mind. Some questions may mean more to you now, others may be more relevant to you in a week, a month or even a year. Questions are grouped in the four contexts of leadership.
Individual - leadership starts within each of us...
“Leadership development is self development.” Barry Posner
“Access your own wisdom.” Margaret Wheatley
- What are your top 5 values? Can you narrow this list to your top 2?
- What social, political, economic, global issues are you passionate about?
- What topic could you stay up all night and talk about with your friends?
- What topic or issue would you like to learn more about?
- Why did you select Florida State University?
- Upon graduation what would you like to be prepared to do?
- What is your professional vision?
- How would you like to make a difference?
- What would you like to accomplish in college? ...in life?
- What is your personal vision?
Partnerships - leadership exists through powerful relationships...
“All change, even very large and powerful change, begins when a few people start talking with one another.” Margaret Wheatley
“Who expects you to be somebody?” Tom Rath
- Who do you care about?
- Who are the people that support you and give you helpful feedback?
- Whom do you trust the most with a burning secret you need to share?
- Who has the most influence in your life?
- Who would you go to talk through an important decision you had to make?
- Who will sit down and truly listen to every word you say?
- Who pushes you to be your best?
- What ethics and moral code guide your relationships with others?
- How do your relationships bring diverse perspectives and ideas to your life?
Groups/Teams - leadership work is done within groups/teams of people
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
“Effective team leaders realize they neither know all the answers, nor can they succeed without the other members of the team.” J. Katzenbach and D. Smith
- What groups/teams are you a part of?
- How do these groups/teams impact your life?
- Do you fall into a specific role or take on similar responsibilities within these groups?
- What behaviors do you notice among individuals in the groups you currently belong to? How are these behaviors helpful to the group? What behaviors are destructive to the group?
- How do you handle conflict with others?
- On a continuum between an exciting opportunity for creativity and learning to a knock-down drag out fight – where would you place conflict?
- How do you like to make decisions within a group?
Communities – leadership is in response to the needs of our community
“To my mind, you cannot speak about the need for leadership within our communities without being prepared to take on responsibility yourself. It’s not enough to point the finger at those who have let us down and to expect others to come forward and fix our problems. Nor can anyone afford to call themselves a leader unless they truly have the interests of our community at heart. Too many people like to think they are leaders and too many are identified by the media as leaders who are not really leaders at all.”
Jackie Huggins
”Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.” Marian Anderson
- What communities are you a part of?
- What places do you call home? Where are you most comfortable?
- What aspect of the FSU community are you most excited about?
- What issues face your campus, local, professional/creative community?
- Where would you like to make a difference?
- What change would you most like to see in the world?
- What will your contribution be…
- To the FSU community?
- To your local community?
- To the global community?