Class Reflection Blog#9

Taking this class made me realize a lot about different leadership styles as well as my own leadership style. I have gained knowledge throughout the semester that I can use in the future. The topics discussed in class made me realize how much the success of a group is not only dependent on the leader, but as a group as a whole. This made me think back to all of my past group and teamwork experiences and I realized that without the collaboration of the group, the final product would not have been as successful. Throughout the class we also related the different topics discussed to our personal experiences which made the class more relatable to everyone.

During the class we took a lot of surveys that helped us know and understand our leadership strengths as well as how we tend to interact with others. I thought these surveys were interesting. I was a little skeptical at first because I thought to myself, "how can just a survey predict my strengths?" After taking them, though, I realized that they seemed to be pretty accurate. For instance, taking the StrengthsQuest quiz, allowed me to learn and understand my own strengths. After taking the quiz, I noticed that my top five strengths actually did relate to my leadership style and how I interact with others. I think that my top strength, includer, best reflects how I generally work in group projects. For instance, in group projects, I think that everyone should have a part and no one should be left out which relates to my strength of being an includer.

One of the models during class that really stood out to me when it came to leadership as a whole was the relational leadership model. As mentioned from the reading, "relationships are they key to leadership effectiveness." This was one model that I emphasized on in my leadership plan. I think I can use this model throughout my life in almost everything I do. I think I have always done this, but now I will be more aware of it. Multiple minds coming together is better than just one because you have more creative minds coming together. Being an officer of a club here at OSU, I have already started using this model and applying it to how everyone on the board works together, which I believe will allow for the best outcome in the future.

Throughout the class, we also spoke about topics like moral muteness and target identities and how it can effect society and workplace. These topics might have been hard to discuss, but I liked how the class as a whole was open about discussing this and allowed for a open environment to allow others to speak up and share their personal experiences. Topics like these, I think are important when in a leadership position to better relate to others in the group. Overall, I think I learned a lot by taking this class. I learned about different skills and attributes that will best help me succeed in a leadership position. In the future, I will definitely use what I learned in this class in clubs, the workplace, and even in just society as a whole. I feel like, not only did we learn how to be effective leaders, but we also learned about skills that we can use in our normal day-to-day life.

Peck's Theory Blog#8

Scott Peck developed a theory in which groups of people come together through four stages in order to create an authentic community. I think that there have been many times throughout everyone's life when these stages have taken place, and most of the time unknowingly have taken place. Thinking back on my experiences, I think that a community that I have been apart that used this theory would be when I was on a competitive dance team in my freshman year at OSU called Buckeye Fusion. I think that from the beginning of the school year to the end, our team went through all of the stages of Peck's theory.

The first stage, known as pseudocommunity, occurs when a group first comes together and is getting along, but relationships may not be real or true at this point. I saw this when I first made the team. The team was full of girls who were returning and others, like me, who were new. We all got along at first because I think all of us new girls wanted to be accepted and feel like were part of the team. The older girls also got along because I think they wanted everyone to feel welcomed. I could tell it was artificial because no one really knew each other at this stage we were all still trying to get to know each other.

The second stage is chaos. During chaos different people may try to invade through harmony and put their opinion in changing the course of things. People start forming friendships and conflict can arise through conflicting opinions. I definitely saw this occur on my dance team. At one point too many opinions were being thrown out which went against the captains opinions. Cliques formed between different groups of people within the team who had their own ideas. Some people felt that they had a good or better idea than the captains causing conflicts in that manner.

The third stage occurs through the realization that these conflicts were creating barriers. These barriers would prevent us from reaching our common goal. For instance, on the team, there was a point before the competitions in which we all sat down together and realized that the fighting was doing nothing but hurting us. We came up with a consensus on how to handle things. Everyone agreed that in order to meet our goal of placing during the competitions, we needed to work together and let go of all preconceived notions. 

This realization led to the fourth and final stage of a true authentic community. After resolving the major conflicts, we came up with a plan on how to share opinions with the captains without disrupting practice time or creating even more conflict behind the scenes. There was still a little conflict, but, this time, it was handled correctly. Everyone was looking towards the greater good of the team as a whole instead of themselves at this point. This developed authentic community helped us realize how we can have a consensus that can benefit the whole team.

I think that throughout the year our whole team went through the stages of Peck's theory. I did not realize it until now, but I think it is pretty interesting how things changed as time went on according to the stages. The common consensus we had was to put our personal opinions aside and work together for the greater good of the team as a whole. I think it worked out for us in the end too, because we ended up doing well in competitions and placing in some of them. Using Peck's theory our team was able to ultimately reach our common goal and work together as an authentic community.

Target/Non-Target Identities Blog#7

Target and non-target identities directly play a role when it comes to privilege. Whether it is through race, nationality, sexuality, religion, or gender, privilege seems to play an role on how people view others who are not a like. Regardless of who the person is, if they are different from what is known to be “socially acceptable”, then there will be less privilege geared towards that individual or group of people. I think that privileges and target/non-target identities can vary from country to country but specifically looking at those in America, I think that the two identities I can most relate to are race and nationality. I think it is interesting how in my past experiences, that even though these coexist, I have been treated and seen differently in each situation. 

For instance, a target identity revolving around race and being a minority can have its negatives. Being brown skinned, I would probably be more likely stopped for a random check in airport security just because my skin looks different from the norm. I am also from Louisiana and have noticed a lot more stigma surrounding those who feel America is and should be a "white" country. Not everyone I know in the south feels that way but I have noticed that those in smaller cities in deep Southern Louisiana feel that way the most. I have a friend who lives in one of those cities that told me that if people in her town saw me, they would take one look at my skin color and judge me as being "lesser" than them.

I think that another privilege that some people take for granted is nationality. Even though I am Indian, I am still American born on American soil and because of this, privilege is favored towards me and others born in America than those who are foreign and who may have an accent. I have directly experienced a time when I noticed how this played a role in privilege in society. Once I went shopping with my aunt who had to return something. When my aunt went to the lady at the register, the lady immediately heard my aunt's accent and started to take advantage of her. She started to confuse my aunt by saying invalid things in a rude and fast-speaking manner. When I walked up, I listened to see what was going on and then I spoke up. Right when I spoke up the lady saw that I did not have an accent and she immediately changed her tone and started to be more cooperative.because she probably felt that she could not take advantage. I have actually seen this happen a lot to other people of different nationalities.

This immediately shocked me and made me realize that despite that I may be in a minority, and target group, for race, I am still privileged in the sense that I am in the non-target group for nationality. I think that these two groups definitely coexist. I experience both sides, privilege with nationality and non-privileged with race, but there are those who experience privilege in both spectrums and those who don't experience privilege in either.