Leadership: Upon graduation, honors students will have demonstrated the ability to utilize personal leadership values and guide groups toward a common goal.
Leadership Synthesis
Throughout my time at MNSU, I have grown as a leader both in and out of the classroom. My growth as a leader is separated into two main phases: development and application. Much of my development phase happened in the classroom, where I learned about different leadership styles, philosophies, and ways to apply great leadership. Conversely, most of my application phase happened outside of the classroom, through jobs and academic extracurriculars.
The development phase started the day I moved into my dorm freshman year. As part of the Honors First-Year Learning Community, I learned how to informally work in a group setting as both a leader and a group member. It also allowed me to see how the values I’d gained from my past experiences and upbringing could either help or hinder my ability to be an effective leader. As a part of my Honors FYEX class, I learned about the leadership competency of the Honors program and introspectively begin to develop my personal leadership philosophy. My development continued into my second year at MNSU in my class, Developing Your Mentor Philosophy. In this class, I teetered on the edge of applying my leadership philosophy. I was able to both develop my individual mentor philosophy and put it into action by applying it to working in Residential Life and my Honors mentee relationship. This class helped show me ways I struggled as a leader and would need to improve, but also ways I could greatly excel.
I also began to move into the application phase during my second year at MNSU. As a Community Advisor, I learned about how I was much better at working with information than with people and found that the dynamic of the team I was on could greatly affect my attitude and effort towards projects and goals. Later that year, I participated in the Integrated Business Experience, where I applied leadership to a mock corporate structure as a Chief Financial Officer. This experience taught me about how proper delegation and giving meaningful work could create the most efficient team. It also gave me a chance to implement my leadership philosophy, seeing what worked well and what needed improvement. My next two years involved several capstone leadership experiences. First, I practiced executive, broad leadership as the Class President at Ambassador Bible College. I learned that taking the leap of faith into scary experiences and positions that I felt unqualified for brought the largest learning curve. I improved on seeing the whole picture while trusting my team to pull through; I also learned to celebrate the small victories when nothing seemed to go right. Second, I learned about individual, specific leadership as an Audit Intern at CliftonLarsonAllen. I experienced how leadership philosophies can apply to teams of one, and how to work as a team on high-stakes projects.
Throughout my collegiate career, my leadership philosophy has also grown and flourished as with me. As a servant leader, it is my goal to give my team the tools they need and best experience they can have to succeed, individually and as a team. One of my mentors once said, “Servant leadership is training your team so they can one day replace you.” I strive to lead in such a way that my mentees are competent enough to replace me, but to simultaneously be invaluable through my diligence, attitude, and hard work. As I continue onto graduate school and begin my career with CliftonLarsonAllen, I will continue to push myself to grow as a leader and be a life-long learner. Through the journey to perfect leadership, you may find there is no such thing, but if you have empathy, a love of learning, and a willingness to correct your mistakes, there are no limits to what you can achieve.
The development phase started the day I moved into my dorm freshman year. As part of the Honors First-Year Learning Community, I learned how to informally work in a group setting as both a leader and a group member. It also allowed me to see how the values I’d gained from my past experiences and upbringing could either help or hinder my ability to be an effective leader. As a part of my Honors FYEX class, I learned about the leadership competency of the Honors program and introspectively begin to develop my personal leadership philosophy. My development continued into my second year at MNSU in my class, Developing Your Mentor Philosophy. In this class, I teetered on the edge of applying my leadership philosophy. I was able to both develop my individual mentor philosophy and put it into action by applying it to working in Residential Life and my Honors mentee relationship. This class helped show me ways I struggled as a leader and would need to improve, but also ways I could greatly excel.
I also began to move into the application phase during my second year at MNSU. As a Community Advisor, I learned about how I was much better at working with information than with people and found that the dynamic of the team I was on could greatly affect my attitude and effort towards projects and goals. Later that year, I participated in the Integrated Business Experience, where I applied leadership to a mock corporate structure as a Chief Financial Officer. This experience taught me about how proper delegation and giving meaningful work could create the most efficient team. It also gave me a chance to implement my leadership philosophy, seeing what worked well and what needed improvement. My next two years involved several capstone leadership experiences. First, I practiced executive, broad leadership as the Class President at Ambassador Bible College. I learned that taking the leap of faith into scary experiences and positions that I felt unqualified for brought the largest learning curve. I improved on seeing the whole picture while trusting my team to pull through; I also learned to celebrate the small victories when nothing seemed to go right. Second, I learned about individual, specific leadership as an Audit Intern at CliftonLarsonAllen. I experienced how leadership philosophies can apply to teams of one, and how to work as a team on high-stakes projects.
Throughout my collegiate career, my leadership philosophy has also grown and flourished as with me. As a servant leader, it is my goal to give my team the tools they need and best experience they can have to succeed, individually and as a team. One of my mentors once said, “Servant leadership is training your team so they can one day replace you.” I strive to lead in such a way that my mentees are competent enough to replace me, but to simultaneously be invaluable through my diligence, attitude, and hard work. As I continue onto graduate school and begin my career with CliftonLarsonAllen, I will continue to push myself to grow as a leader and be a life-long learner. Through the journey to perfect leadership, you may find there is no such thing, but if you have empathy, a love of learning, and a willingness to correct your mistakes, there are no limits to what you can achieve.