Jingjing's 11 Skills & Attributes Development
This section elaborates on eleven skills in leadership, as well as how I improved with each skill. In addition, I have provided evidence of these skills through examples.
Self Development
1. Self Awareness
Ø I-program (Insight)
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it."
- Samuel Johnson
As I learned from the leadership theory, self awareness is an assessment of individual’s strengths and weaknesses, values, motivations, passions, and leadership styles. Self awareness has a great impact on my primary leadership focus and development, especially by knowing who I myself am. I have learned and realized so much including what I am good at and what is my motivation, as well as learning from my drawbacks. Eventually, my self-awareness skill will impact to future team and group works.
I have attended Insight as one of the five I-Programs in order to improve my own self awareness skill. This overnight conference provided me a great chance to definitely know myself better than before, and helped me shape my values, and leadership styles. Ahead of the conference, each candidate was required to complete an Emotional Competence Inventory - University (ECI-U) assessment. Under section Self-Awareness is 4.3 over 5.0, which indicates my self-awareness is relatively high. Emotional Intelligence is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in us and in our relationships, which I learned from AGED260. As a common sense that emotional intelligence is more than two time as important as IQ is. For example in the corporations nowadays people value more on relationships rather than only focus on IQ. So seek out myself thoroughly and then figure out my personal leadership skills was my first step to improve my all 11 leadership skills.
2. Self Management
Ø RSO – BizChina
"Don't push for growth. Instead, remove the constraints which limit growth."
- Peter M. Senge
Self management incorporates one’s reflection, integrity, initiative, accountability, goal setting, and wellness with his or her overall personal leadership style. To me, improving on my own self management skill would shape my self-development in to another higher level. By learning and developing self management skills --- I could manage my time and tasks much more efficiently, handle difficult situation with a better and mature mindset, and how do I effectively respond to others. Mainly, I like to focus on my communication skill and time-management skill improvement, and how these two skills helped me to become who I am right now.
One evidence for improving on self management skill is being one of the founders of a three-year-old registered student organization - BizChina, to establish a platform for further communication in culture and news between American and Chinese students in professional fields. As a freshman, I have learned to take initiative and become a leader in the early stage of my college career. Throughout the authorization and events planning procedures, I learned how to set up semester goal for our organization, register and organize presentations, also I improved my communication skills from interacting with others as a student leader. With a well balance between academic works and all my responsibilities for my organization, I have also achieved certain degree of development for time manage skills by prioritizing tasks and planning ahead, as well as taking the uncertainty into account when schedule for the future.
1. Self Awareness
Ø I-program (Insight)
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it."
- Samuel Johnson
As I learned from the leadership theory, self awareness is an assessment of individual’s strengths and weaknesses, values, motivations, passions, and leadership styles. Self awareness has a great impact on my primary leadership focus and development, especially by knowing who I myself am. I have learned and realized so much including what I am good at and what is my motivation, as well as learning from my drawbacks. Eventually, my self-awareness skill will impact to future team and group works.
I have attended Insight as one of the five I-Programs in order to improve my own self awareness skill. This overnight conference provided me a great chance to definitely know myself better than before, and helped me shape my values, and leadership styles. Ahead of the conference, each candidate was required to complete an Emotional Competence Inventory - University (ECI-U) assessment. Under section Self-Awareness is 4.3 over 5.0, which indicates my self-awareness is relatively high. Emotional Intelligence is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in us and in our relationships, which I learned from AGED260. As a common sense that emotional intelligence is more than two time as important as IQ is. For example in the corporations nowadays people value more on relationships rather than only focus on IQ. So seek out myself thoroughly and then figure out my personal leadership skills was my first step to improve my all 11 leadership skills.
2. Self Management
Ø RSO – BizChina
"Don't push for growth. Instead, remove the constraints which limit growth."
- Peter M. Senge
Self management incorporates one’s reflection, integrity, initiative, accountability, goal setting, and wellness with his or her overall personal leadership style. To me, improving on my own self management skill would shape my self-development in to another higher level. By learning and developing self management skills --- I could manage my time and tasks much more efficiently, handle difficult situation with a better and mature mindset, and how do I effectively respond to others. Mainly, I like to focus on my communication skill and time-management skill improvement, and how these two skills helped me to become who I am right now.
One evidence for improving on self management skill is being one of the founders of a three-year-old registered student organization - BizChina, to establish a platform for further communication in culture and news between American and Chinese students in professional fields. As a freshman, I have learned to take initiative and become a leader in the early stage of my college career. Throughout the authorization and events planning procedures, I learned how to set up semester goal for our organization, register and organize presentations, also I improved my communication skills from interacting with others as a student leader. With a well balance between academic works and all my responsibilities for my organization, I have also achieved certain degree of development for time manage skills by prioritizing tasks and planning ahead, as well as taking the uncertainty into account when schedule for the future.
Interpersonal Development
3. Relationship Building
Ø I-program (Intersect)
"You can't be a leader if you can't influence others to act."
- Dale E. Zand
After discussing the developments with my personal leadership skills, now I am willing to show some of my interpersonal leadership skill improvements. One could hardly successfully lead without any cooperation or teamwork in this society. Thus, relationship building is critical to us within our further developments. To me, networking is everywhere, so is relationship building. Relationships are the lifeblood of any business and without them you'll either fail or have a lonely existence. Building up a relationship with someone takes time, and can take a lot of work and effort. In the long term it’s rewarding and definitely worth it.
To improve my relationship building skills, I have attended one of the leadership programs that U of I Leadership Center provided, Intersect. It was a one day workshop with certain tasks that encourage students to build skills to help interact with others. During the problem solving process, I realized that no matter how strong one individual’s potential is, group work solves the problem more effectively with a diverse combination of opinions. I had a chance to see from my group members’ ideas that different than mine and learnt from the better ones. Also, throughout solving the project, my group members are very close and open to each other with creative opinions and being respectful to one another. Therefore I improved myself on relationship building with others and trying to provide new ideas as well as give others my respects for the better outcome solution for teamwork.
4. Communication skills
Ø The Career Center - Peer Professional Development
"Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes form being open to all the questions."
- Earl Gray Stevens
Similar to relationship building skills, communications skills are also essential within the society while interacting with one another to accomplish all kinds of tasks. I value communication skills highly not only because it helps individuals to cooperate with others, but also enhance people to be open-minded and absorb information to learn from others for improvements. It encompasses many other things, such as the way in which we respond to the person we are speaking, body gestures including the facial ones, pitch and tone of our voice and a lot of other things. The importance of communication skills is not just limited to the management world, since effective communication skills are now required in each and every aspect of our life.
To enhance my communication skills, I was proactive to apply this on-campus job as a peer professional working at The Career Center. My duty is helping all major wide students with their resume and cover letter critiquing, as well as holding on campus career services related presentations among student organizations. I love my job not only because it helps me so much with my communication skills through the interactions with students when doing resume critique, but also it improves my interpersonal leadership skills overall from different dimensional aspects.
· Relationship building – well utilizing eye contacts while showing respects to others
· Communication skills – effectively indicate own opinion while absorb advantages from others
· Ethical Practices – be professional and ethical at the job, representing the Career Center
· Team Practices – bi-weekly team meeting and monthly staff meeting
5. Ethical Practices
Ø The Career Center - Peer Professional Development
"The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.
- C.C. Scott"
Nowadays, integrity and ethics become very critical to businesses. To reach a full capacity of one entity and keep successful, it is always important to make good decisions and well adjust ethical dilemmas. No matter how little one unethical spot is, it is very obvious compare to ethical situations.For being successful, one individual can never go alone. People need to depend one another to accomplish certain tasks. Therefore, trusts, respects and cares come to help building relationships between people. To maximize one’s success, step into one wrong behavior or ethical dilemma will significantly affect one’s future. A successful relationship is ability to make a good ethical behavior. This is not only essential at the workplace, but also important to students on-campus to start being aware of ethical decisions for their future career paths.
An ethical dilemma is a situation that involves either right or wrong judgment calls or decisions which leads potentially undesirable or unpleasant consequences. Everyone faces ethical dilemma either in school, at work, or simply in the daily life. Moral compass, culture, friends, relationships, law and regulations, etc all might be the factors which influence a person’s response to an ethical dilemma. Everyone has their own personal experiences and beliefs. Peer pressure in the relationships could directly lead to severe degree of negative consequences. Moreover, ignorant, intimidations, greedy, stresses are some main drivers that make people easily get involved into unethical manners. Possible consequences after act unethically may be loss reputation, financial loss, loss of power, embarrassment, loss of employment, loss of trust, or nothing. I learned a lot on how to react to ethical dilemmas from my past summer internship in Beijing as well as from working at the Career Center on-campus. I have enhanced on how to choose to do the right things smartly and be strong when I find it is the right decision even though it might be tough. I think this will benefits me for both my school experience and future career path in ethics.
6. Team Development
Ø PwC 2009 xACT Case Competition
Ø James Scholar Rockwell Collins Case Competition
"Individuals score points, but teams win games."
- Zig Ziglar
The definition of team is enhancement of the effectiveness of work groups, by improving goal and role clarification and interpersonal processes. Team work is everywhere. Within such a society, people interrelate to one another which require group and team work to accomplish certain goals. To me, team work is extremely important that it helps me to develop inter-personally and well rounded. It is not always about the individual but team work make things happen. Thus, I would stress team development as an essential category within inter-personally leadership improvement.
Two examples help me understand how important team work to me. I have participated two case competitions with the college of business past semester. The case competition is a competition that a group of people present the best solutions as a team to one company on its current difficulty or issue. My team for PwC case competition included 5 people and we were all from different classes. After forming our team, we dropped down each person’s strengths and drawbacks in order to know one another better and started planning on how to maximum utilize each member’s strengths. By knowing each other very well, we finally were able to cover each one’s weaknesses during the presentation and show our best performance. We supported and not afraid to critique each other while showing respects throughout the whole process. As a result, we got selected to the top 5 teams and flew out to New York attending the final round competition then won the national championship. This great experience brought me four more life-long friends and a wonderful team experience. Thinking back, we have been through the four stages that contain forming, storming, norming, and performing. Good team development led us to the successful accomplishment.
3. Relationship Building
Ø I-program (Intersect)
"You can't be a leader if you can't influence others to act."
- Dale E. Zand
After discussing the developments with my personal leadership skills, now I am willing to show some of my interpersonal leadership skill improvements. One could hardly successfully lead without any cooperation or teamwork in this society. Thus, relationship building is critical to us within our further developments. To me, networking is everywhere, so is relationship building. Relationships are the lifeblood of any business and without them you'll either fail or have a lonely existence. Building up a relationship with someone takes time, and can take a lot of work and effort. In the long term it’s rewarding and definitely worth it.
To improve my relationship building skills, I have attended one of the leadership programs that U of I Leadership Center provided, Intersect. It was a one day workshop with certain tasks that encourage students to build skills to help interact with others. During the problem solving process, I realized that no matter how strong one individual’s potential is, group work solves the problem more effectively with a diverse combination of opinions. I had a chance to see from my group members’ ideas that different than mine and learnt from the better ones. Also, throughout solving the project, my group members are very close and open to each other with creative opinions and being respectful to one another. Therefore I improved myself on relationship building with others and trying to provide new ideas as well as give others my respects for the better outcome solution for teamwork.
4. Communication skills
Ø The Career Center - Peer Professional Development
"Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes form being open to all the questions."
- Earl Gray Stevens
Similar to relationship building skills, communications skills are also essential within the society while interacting with one another to accomplish all kinds of tasks. I value communication skills highly not only because it helps individuals to cooperate with others, but also enhance people to be open-minded and absorb information to learn from others for improvements. It encompasses many other things, such as the way in which we respond to the person we are speaking, body gestures including the facial ones, pitch and tone of our voice and a lot of other things. The importance of communication skills is not just limited to the management world, since effective communication skills are now required in each and every aspect of our life.
To enhance my communication skills, I was proactive to apply this on-campus job as a peer professional working at The Career Center. My duty is helping all major wide students with their resume and cover letter critiquing, as well as holding on campus career services related presentations among student organizations. I love my job not only because it helps me so much with my communication skills through the interactions with students when doing resume critique, but also it improves my interpersonal leadership skills overall from different dimensional aspects.
· Relationship building – well utilizing eye contacts while showing respects to others
· Communication skills – effectively indicate own opinion while absorb advantages from others
· Ethical Practices – be professional and ethical at the job, representing the Career Center
· Team Practices – bi-weekly team meeting and monthly staff meeting
5. Ethical Practices
Ø The Career Center - Peer Professional Development
"The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.
- C.C. Scott"
Nowadays, integrity and ethics become very critical to businesses. To reach a full capacity of one entity and keep successful, it is always important to make good decisions and well adjust ethical dilemmas. No matter how little one unethical spot is, it is very obvious compare to ethical situations.For being successful, one individual can never go alone. People need to depend one another to accomplish certain tasks. Therefore, trusts, respects and cares come to help building relationships between people. To maximize one’s success, step into one wrong behavior or ethical dilemma will significantly affect one’s future. A successful relationship is ability to make a good ethical behavior. This is not only essential at the workplace, but also important to students on-campus to start being aware of ethical decisions for their future career paths.
An ethical dilemma is a situation that involves either right or wrong judgment calls or decisions which leads potentially undesirable or unpleasant consequences. Everyone faces ethical dilemma either in school, at work, or simply in the daily life. Moral compass, culture, friends, relationships, law and regulations, etc all might be the factors which influence a person’s response to an ethical dilemma. Everyone has their own personal experiences and beliefs. Peer pressure in the relationships could directly lead to severe degree of negative consequences. Moreover, ignorant, intimidations, greedy, stresses are some main drivers that make people easily get involved into unethical manners. Possible consequences after act unethically may be loss reputation, financial loss, loss of power, embarrassment, loss of employment, loss of trust, or nothing. I learned a lot on how to react to ethical dilemmas from my past summer internship in Beijing as well as from working at the Career Center on-campus. I have enhanced on how to choose to do the right things smartly and be strong when I find it is the right decision even though it might be tough. I think this will benefits me for both my school experience and future career path in ethics.
6. Team Development
Ø PwC 2009 xACT Case Competition
Ø James Scholar Rockwell Collins Case Competition
"Individuals score points, but teams win games."
- Zig Ziglar
The definition of team is enhancement of the effectiveness of work groups, by improving goal and role clarification and interpersonal processes. Team work is everywhere. Within such a society, people interrelate to one another which require group and team work to accomplish certain goals. To me, team work is extremely important that it helps me to develop inter-personally and well rounded. It is not always about the individual but team work make things happen. Thus, I would stress team development as an essential category within inter-personally leadership improvement.
Two examples help me understand how important team work to me. I have participated two case competitions with the college of business past semester. The case competition is a competition that a group of people present the best solutions as a team to one company on its current difficulty or issue. My team for PwC case competition included 5 people and we were all from different classes. After forming our team, we dropped down each person’s strengths and drawbacks in order to know one another better and started planning on how to maximum utilize each member’s strengths. By knowing each other very well, we finally were able to cover each one’s weaknesses during the presentation and show our best performance. We supported and not afraid to critique each other while showing respects throughout the whole process. As a result, we got selected to the top 5 teams and flew out to New York attending the final round competition then won the national championship. This great experience brought me four more life-long friends and a wonderful team experience. Thinking back, we have been through the four stages that contain forming, storming, norming, and performing. Good team development led us to the successful accomplishment.
Organizational/ Group Development
7. Leading Change
Ø Global Business Brigades - Collegiate Affairs Chair
"If things seem really under control, you're not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
When I hear or read about great leaders in history, I often wonder what they possessed to set them apart from others to reach that level. During the I-Leadership programs I attended, I learned that a leader uses creativity, reslience, and takes risks to lead change. Leaders are also visonaries, and they understand what they must achieve to effectively lead others. I have noticed that successful corporate leaders not only worked hard, but they also had great ideas and were willing to take risks to make those ideas into realities.
This innovative mentality is something that I had the opportunity to express through my involvment in the Global Business Brigades. Within this organization, I was appointed to a leadership position as the Collegiate Affairs Chair. This position requires me to build relationships with faculty within the College of Business, as well as other student leaders within College of Business organizations. In this role, I created a web portal for the Global Business Brigades Illinois Chapter. By taking initiatives like this, I have been able to distinguish myself and show my creativity. This has also helped the organization through a higher level of exposure on campus, specifically, within the College of Business.
8. Project and Program Effectiveness
Ø BizChina Treasurer
"Solutions are not the answer."
- Richard Nixon
The effectiveness of a project or program can be measured by comparing results to the plan (or in some instances, the budget). Other metrics can include results of recruiting efforts, rentention, and feedback. I had always considered planning and organization skills an area that I excelled in. As I began my education at the University of Illinois, I wanted to make advancements on these skills. Since I began, I have been in many situations where I needed to assess and improve upon the effectiveness of the particular project/program that I was involved with. None were more apparent than my role as the Treasurer of BizChina.
In this role, I learned how to plan events, prepare detailed budgets, and delegate responsibilities to others within the organization. The budgeting aspect was especially beneficial to me, as I was now focusing not on my own finances, but the finances of the organiziation. There were many variables that I had to take into consideration when planning events, and I also had to assess the outcome of these events. By learning how to evaluate the outcome of these events, I was able to see the results of my planning efforts. The key to these results is to learn how I can improve upon them going forward. Through this role, I was able to understand that an effective leader not only looks toward the future, but understands and evaluates prior outcomes. Other opportunities where I have had exposure to project effectiveness are my accounting classes. Many of the mid to upper-level accounting courses are heavily focused on group projects. This forces students to organize their individual thoughts through collaboration. Obstacles that these groups often face include scheduling, varying work-styles, and differing opinions. I feel that these projects help develop students' skills in successfully completing an effective project.
9. Systems Thinking
Ø PricewaterhouseCoopers Transfer Pricing Internship
"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."
- Paul Fix
I feel that Systems Thinking is an attribute that is often overlooked. However, I believe this type of thinking can help develop an individual into a leader. Systems Thinking involves the factors that influence an organization or company. These factors include critical thinking, environmental factors, consideration of technology, and complexities that an organization faces. A prominent leader considers all aspects of the goal they are trying to achieve. They distinguish themselves from others through critical thinking and understanding the effects of the aforementioned factors.
During my internship in PwC's Transfer Pricing group, I performed various analyses and research for the firm's clients. The internship allowed me to see some of the factors that had significant impacts on the companies I researched, which I had previously not considered. The companies I analyzed required a significant amount of critical thinking from their management to maintain a successful organiziation. Management considerations included the systems they were currently using, or planning to implement in the future. They had to consider how these systems integrate with each other, especially if they had operations in other countries. The companies also had to perform detailed analyses around the costs of implementation, such as software and licensing costs, training, and subsequent audit procedures by service providers. Another area that management tended to focus on were regulatory factors. With a significant increase in environmental awareness in recent periods, governments have taken the iniative to increase restrictions around areas such as environmental waste. Companies have had to re-think their production strategies to align with these regulations. By getting an insight into the challenges that companies face, I have learned to improve the way I approach problems. This is accomplished through consideration of all aspects that lead to decision-making, including indirect factors.
10. Community Building
Ø Ethnography of University of Illinois Research Assistant
"Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow."
- Arthur Stringer
How effective is a leader without a strong commuity behind them? Community building is one of the essential foundations that contribute to a leader's success. It is not only essential to help build a strong community, but also a diverse one. Incorporating different cultures, behaviors, and opinions allows a community to grow. This has become more evident to me as an international student coming to the United States for my education. Each of the organizations that I am involved in are made up of diverse individuals with different backgrounds. I have come to the realization that the opportunity to share experiences within these organizations has been invaluable in developing myself as a leader.
Another aspect of community building is through philanthropic activities, which I have been and continue to be involved in through my organizations. From a Children's Book Drive during the holidays to a fundraising tournament for local park districts, these organiziations focus their efforts on giving back to the communities in which they exist. Although focusing on building one's leadership skills is important, one should not lose sight of the impact they can have on others.
One of the opportunities I have had to learn more about community building was through the research paper I wrote for the Ethnography of University of Illinois (EUI). This group consists of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Illinois interested in research on universities as institutions. My research focused on interactions between segregation and university housing. While writing my thesis, I determined the magnitude of segregation at the University based on different cultures, goals, and attitudes. This helped me determine the importance of diversity within communities, as well as understanding that I need reach out to other groups and individuals that I am unfamiliar with. I accomplished this through activities such as volunteering, fundraising, and simply stepping outside of my comfort zone to meet new people. By understanding the thoughts, opinions, and needs of others, I have been able to develop myself as a leader.
7. Leading Change
Ø Global Business Brigades - Collegiate Affairs Chair
"If things seem really under control, you're not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
When I hear or read about great leaders in history, I often wonder what they possessed to set them apart from others to reach that level. During the I-Leadership programs I attended, I learned that a leader uses creativity, reslience, and takes risks to lead change. Leaders are also visonaries, and they understand what they must achieve to effectively lead others. I have noticed that successful corporate leaders not only worked hard, but they also had great ideas and were willing to take risks to make those ideas into realities.
This innovative mentality is something that I had the opportunity to express through my involvment in the Global Business Brigades. Within this organization, I was appointed to a leadership position as the Collegiate Affairs Chair. This position requires me to build relationships with faculty within the College of Business, as well as other student leaders within College of Business organizations. In this role, I created a web portal for the Global Business Brigades Illinois Chapter. By taking initiatives like this, I have been able to distinguish myself and show my creativity. This has also helped the organization through a higher level of exposure on campus, specifically, within the College of Business.
8. Project and Program Effectiveness
Ø BizChina Treasurer
"Solutions are not the answer."
- Richard Nixon
The effectiveness of a project or program can be measured by comparing results to the plan (or in some instances, the budget). Other metrics can include results of recruiting efforts, rentention, and feedback. I had always considered planning and organization skills an area that I excelled in. As I began my education at the University of Illinois, I wanted to make advancements on these skills. Since I began, I have been in many situations where I needed to assess and improve upon the effectiveness of the particular project/program that I was involved with. None were more apparent than my role as the Treasurer of BizChina.
In this role, I learned how to plan events, prepare detailed budgets, and delegate responsibilities to others within the organization. The budgeting aspect was especially beneficial to me, as I was now focusing not on my own finances, but the finances of the organiziation. There were many variables that I had to take into consideration when planning events, and I also had to assess the outcome of these events. By learning how to evaluate the outcome of these events, I was able to see the results of my planning efforts. The key to these results is to learn how I can improve upon them going forward. Through this role, I was able to understand that an effective leader not only looks toward the future, but understands and evaluates prior outcomes. Other opportunities where I have had exposure to project effectiveness are my accounting classes. Many of the mid to upper-level accounting courses are heavily focused on group projects. This forces students to organize their individual thoughts through collaboration. Obstacles that these groups often face include scheduling, varying work-styles, and differing opinions. I feel that these projects help develop students' skills in successfully completing an effective project.
9. Systems Thinking
Ø PricewaterhouseCoopers Transfer Pricing Internship
"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."
- Paul Fix
I feel that Systems Thinking is an attribute that is often overlooked. However, I believe this type of thinking can help develop an individual into a leader. Systems Thinking involves the factors that influence an organization or company. These factors include critical thinking, environmental factors, consideration of technology, and complexities that an organization faces. A prominent leader considers all aspects of the goal they are trying to achieve. They distinguish themselves from others through critical thinking and understanding the effects of the aforementioned factors.
During my internship in PwC's Transfer Pricing group, I performed various analyses and research for the firm's clients. The internship allowed me to see some of the factors that had significant impacts on the companies I researched, which I had previously not considered. The companies I analyzed required a significant amount of critical thinking from their management to maintain a successful organiziation. Management considerations included the systems they were currently using, or planning to implement in the future. They had to consider how these systems integrate with each other, especially if they had operations in other countries. The companies also had to perform detailed analyses around the costs of implementation, such as software and licensing costs, training, and subsequent audit procedures by service providers. Another area that management tended to focus on were regulatory factors. With a significant increase in environmental awareness in recent periods, governments have taken the iniative to increase restrictions around areas such as environmental waste. Companies have had to re-think their production strategies to align with these regulations. By getting an insight into the challenges that companies face, I have learned to improve the way I approach problems. This is accomplished through consideration of all aspects that lead to decision-making, including indirect factors.
10. Community Building
Ø Ethnography of University of Illinois Research Assistant
"Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow."
- Arthur Stringer
How effective is a leader without a strong commuity behind them? Community building is one of the essential foundations that contribute to a leader's success. It is not only essential to help build a strong community, but also a diverse one. Incorporating different cultures, behaviors, and opinions allows a community to grow. This has become more evident to me as an international student coming to the United States for my education. Each of the organizations that I am involved in are made up of diverse individuals with different backgrounds. I have come to the realization that the opportunity to share experiences within these organizations has been invaluable in developing myself as a leader.
Another aspect of community building is through philanthropic activities, which I have been and continue to be involved in through my organizations. From a Children's Book Drive during the holidays to a fundraising tournament for local park districts, these organiziations focus their efforts on giving back to the communities in which they exist. Although focusing on building one's leadership skills is important, one should not lose sight of the impact they can have on others.
One of the opportunities I have had to learn more about community building was through the research paper I wrote for the Ethnography of University of Illinois (EUI). This group consists of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Illinois interested in research on universities as institutions. My research focused on interactions between segregation and university housing. While writing my thesis, I determined the magnitude of segregation at the University based on different cultures, goals, and attitudes. This helped me determine the importance of diversity within communities, as well as understanding that I need reach out to other groups and individuals that I am unfamiliar with. I accomplished this through activities such as volunteering, fundraising, and simply stepping outside of my comfort zone to meet new people. By understanding the thoughts, opinions, and needs of others, I have been able to develop myself as a leader.
Transactional Development
11. Sustainable Leadership
Ø PwC 2009 xACT Case Competition
Ø RSO – BizChina
"It does not matter how slowly you do so long as you do not stop."
- Confucius
The goal of sustaining leadership qualities is to harness the skills developed in the past, and improve upon them going forward. I have had the opportunities to develop leadership skills through various organizations. A key of leadership is the building of relationships, and maintaining them through your career. An effective leader not only advances themselves, but also focuses on developing the ones around them. This is accomplished through mentoring and knowledge sharing. By having opportunities to take on leadership positions, I have been able to build relationships through networking, as well as share knowledge I have gained with my peers. As noted in my example above, I had the opportunity to participate in the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP xACT Case Competition in 2009. As my team advanced during the competition, I was exposed to many individuals both at the University, as well as at PricewaterhouseCoopers. I learned what attributes the Partners were looking for when judging the competition, and I was able to display my team's leadership qualities through organization, critical thinking, and effective presenting. After having this experience, I have been able to help teams this year in preparing for the Case Competition. I have also been able to mentor others through my role at the University of Illinois Career Center by sharing improvement points to students who are preparing resumes. I was able to accomplish this by taking the knowledge I have gained from creating my own resume.
Another example of sustainable leadership that I have experienced is through the BizChina student organization. After taking the role of the Treasurer, I have gone on to be the Public Relations Chair, and subsequently the Social Chair. I have realized that I do not merely like to participate in this organization, but be able to help organize others and be active in any way possible. I feel that this shows my agility to take on various roles.
Of the 11 leadership skills outlined, this is one of the areas that I want to continue being cognizant of as I finish my education. Many of the successes I have had so far were the result of my awareness in the importance of being a leader.
11. Sustainable Leadership
Ø PwC 2009 xACT Case Competition
Ø RSO – BizChina
"It does not matter how slowly you do so long as you do not stop."
- Confucius
The goal of sustaining leadership qualities is to harness the skills developed in the past, and improve upon them going forward. I have had the opportunities to develop leadership skills through various organizations. A key of leadership is the building of relationships, and maintaining them through your career. An effective leader not only advances themselves, but also focuses on developing the ones around them. This is accomplished through mentoring and knowledge sharing. By having opportunities to take on leadership positions, I have been able to build relationships through networking, as well as share knowledge I have gained with my peers. As noted in my example above, I had the opportunity to participate in the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP xACT Case Competition in 2009. As my team advanced during the competition, I was exposed to many individuals both at the University, as well as at PricewaterhouseCoopers. I learned what attributes the Partners were looking for when judging the competition, and I was able to display my team's leadership qualities through organization, critical thinking, and effective presenting. After having this experience, I have been able to help teams this year in preparing for the Case Competition. I have also been able to mentor others through my role at the University of Illinois Career Center by sharing improvement points to students who are preparing resumes. I was able to accomplish this by taking the knowledge I have gained from creating my own resume.
Another example of sustainable leadership that I have experienced is through the BizChina student organization. After taking the role of the Treasurer, I have gone on to be the Public Relations Chair, and subsequently the Social Chair. I have realized that I do not merely like to participate in this organization, but be able to help organize others and be active in any way possible. I feel that this shows my agility to take on various roles.
Of the 11 leadership skills outlined, this is one of the areas that I want to continue being cognizant of as I finish my education. Many of the successes I have had so far were the result of my awareness in the importance of being a leader.
