Jingjing's Leadership Programs & Experiences
Ignite
My favorite I- Program out of five programs is Ignite. During this three-day conference, I did not only make my two best friends from college but also learned how to adapt a sudden change and improve my system thinking skill. I had a team of 7 people on this community project to solve marketing and comfort-zone strategy for the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transsexual (LGBT) group. During the middle of the preparation of the project, instructors exchanged two leaders out of each team and forced us to re-form a team and continue on our project. Such a sudden change definitely gave my team a depression because we lost our team leader and rest of our team members had to start taking the lead and explain what was going on with our project to the new two team members. This practice made me realize that a lot of times in the future events are not planned perfectly in order and people will face the leading change and re-system thinking process. Ignite helped me to adapt well to the new change and I feel ready to face changes in the future. Eventually, my team performed also well without our “original” leaders with everyone’s effort as a whole team. This great experience definitely developed my multiple leadership skills from different dimensions.
Insight
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 also 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. Great started!
Intersect
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.
My favorite I- Program out of five programs is Ignite. During this three-day conference, I did not only make my two best friends from college but also learned how to adapt a sudden change and improve my system thinking skill. I had a team of 7 people on this community project to solve marketing and comfort-zone strategy for the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transsexual (LGBT) group. During the middle of the preparation of the project, instructors exchanged two leaders out of each team and forced us to re-form a team and continue on our project. Such a sudden change definitely gave my team a depression because we lost our team leader and rest of our team members had to start taking the lead and explain what was going on with our project to the new two team members. This practice made me realize that a lot of times in the future events are not planned perfectly in order and people will face the leading change and re-system thinking process. Ignite helped me to adapt well to the new change and I feel ready to face changes in the future. Eventually, my team performed also well without our “original” leaders with everyone’s effort as a whole team. This great experience definitely developed my multiple leadership skills from different dimensions.
Insight
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 also 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. Great started!
Intersect
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.
Guest Speaker
Leadership workshop that features industry leader about personal experience and advice on how to make ethical decisions in the workplace
Guest speaker: Tim Reierson -- PwC partner
What was the issue?
Today Leadership Center welcomed Tim Reierson from PwC to give us a lecture on “How to make ethical decisions in the workplace”. Tim has been partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers for 18 years and would like to share his knowledge on ethical dilemma. 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.
Why was it important?
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.
What did you find most interesting
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.
During the session, Tim showed several interesting daily life situations that are ethical dilemmas. These examples are fun and light, but involve ethical dilemmas. For example, “You accidently drop your roommate’s toothbrush into the toilet, would you flush it away or tell the truth?” A simple example draws my attention to start thinking what I would really do.
Leadership workshop that features industry leader about personal experience and advice on how to make ethical decisions in the workplace
Guest speaker: Tim Reierson -- PwC partner
What was the issue?
Today Leadership Center welcomed Tim Reierson from PwC to give us a lecture on “How to make ethical decisions in the workplace”. Tim has been partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers for 18 years and would like to share his knowledge on ethical dilemma. 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.
Why was it important?
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.
What did you find most interesting
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.
During the session, Tim showed several interesting daily life situations that are ethical dilemmas. These examples are fun and light, but involve ethical dilemmas. For example, “You accidently drop your roommate’s toothbrush into the toilet, would you flush it away or tell the truth?” A simple example draws my attention to start thinking what I would really do.
BADM 310
This course focuses on Leadership & Organizational Behavior, which I have taken during my sophomore year first semester. It prepares me with some general analysis of management and organizational behavior from a systems point of view, including classical organizational theory and management, organizational behavior, and management science; environmental forces; planning, organizing, and control processes; motivation, incentives, leadership, communication, and interpersonal relations; and discussion of production and decision-making and mathematical models.
I have improved my perspectives on leadership by listening to the examples professor shared during class which related to the workplaces. These examples seem very real and could happen anytime in the future, such as ethical dilemma and team. I have struggled with facing office ethical dilemmas especially with peer pressure involved, while I have learned how to deal with certain situations after this course.
AGED 260
I took this one of the most popular required leadership courses during my second semester sophomore year. During the class, I learned eight different leadership approaches. It is a study of leadership theories and their application to the development of leadership skills. I have developed a personal philosophy of leadership, prepared a development plan for enhancing my leadership skills, and began a portfolio to record my leadership growth. I have explored such topics on concerning diversity, ethics, and leadership/follower roles.
Other than the classroom experiences, my professor also provided several opportunities for us to attend some leadership conferences or guest speakers. I reflected my thoughts after each event, which related my personal leadership experiences to the topics we have discussed.
PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009 xACT Case Competition
One of the team experiences I have had the pleasure to participate in was the PricewaterhouseCoopers xACT Case Competition. This activity involved teamwork, planning, and precise execution. The competition allowed me to learn the fundamentals of teamwork, as each member provided their thoughts and opinions, and as a team, we combined and compromised them into a single presentation. Prior to this competition, I was used to working independently and having my results based strictly on my opinions. However, our case was complex and required us to ensure that each of our sections were in sync. The case related to a company’s issues, and how we, as consultants, were able to add value to them. Our team consisted of five individuals, and each team member played a leadership role as a team leader, or a team follower (based on our individual strengths). Also involved in this competition were our presentation and public speaking skills, which we helped each other strengthen during our rehearsals. Finally, there were many facets of inter-personal leadership that each of us developed during our experience in this competition, which included communication skills, relationship building, and building chemistry with one another. All of these pieces contribute to the overall leadership sustainability.
RSO-BizChina
Another experience that I have had which added to my development of sustainable leadership was my involvement in BizChina, a student organization that I fortunate enough to be one of the founders of during my freshman year. I have continuously developed my self-awareness and self-management leadership skills throughout my college career by taking the role of Treasurer and Social Chair. This long-term improvement for leadership improvement will help prepare me for the future as I progress in my career.
Work at The Career Center as a peer professional
My experience working at the Career Center has provided me the opportunity to share the skills I have developed with others. This has allowed me to improve on my communication skills, and see the results of my work through others. I can assess the impact I have had on others by seeing improvements in their resumes, and helping them seek opportunities for internships and full-time offers from various companies. Through my job at this organization, I have been able to see how effective the program is, and how it impacts other students. Every two weeks, we also have team meetings with a Multi-Cultural and Diversity team, in which we discuss future events and plans that will take place through coordination with the Career Center. These meetings and events help improve my communication and negotiation skills, as I help these two organizations work together to achieve the same goal.
