How did joined one student organization help me develop skills people spend their whole lives pursuing?
Well the answer is simple: luck and motivation.
Luck - rhetorical, right? Well it's true. I was lucky that as I joined the president at the time was stepping down and needed someone to take over for the upcoming year. I was lucky that my mom and roommate encouraged me to step up and assured me that I was ready for the challenge. So, I did and I became chapter President within 3 months of joining NSCS. But luck didn't make me a leader. I remember clearly talking with the previous president during my transition meeting. She said, "This can be whatever you make out of it. Honestly, you can get away with doing the bare minimum." After that meeting I knew I was going to make the most of this opportunity. So, I took initiative to support and improve the organization as best as I could. I was dedicated to being an active leader, implementing new ideas, motivating members, and positively impacting my chapter and community.
Here are the most important lessons I learned first hand about leadership:
1. Intrinsic motivation is vital - all sorts of motivation is god, and different types of motivation works best for different personalities, but I have found that intrinsic motivation is most powerful for me.
2. Great ideas can fail - it's hard to see ideas you're crazy about not do as successfully as you'd like or even fail. The important part is to learn from these failures! If it's an idea you're really passionate about it will show because you won't let it die. Instead you can bring the idea back bigger, better, and stronger.
3. Earn your position - the way I acquired my leadership role was unconventional - I wasn't able to earn it first. But, I did not accept that - I showed members that I was more than capable of handling the role, and would do great things with it. I'm proud to say that I earned my position even thought it was after I was in it.
4. Share your vision - leaders are often in their positions because they have a vision they want to achieve. In my case, I had a vision for the ISU NSCS Chapter. Not only was it important for me to share my vision but to make sure we, all of the officers and members, had a common vision for our organization. To achieve the vision, I knew I needed help from the rest of the members, so I continuously shared the vision, helped others understand it, and empowered my chapter to together word toward accomplishing our common goals.
Developig people managing skills came later. Although even in my first year as Chapter President I worked with 5 other officers I was not as focused on that function of my position. One of my main goals was to increase our executive board so we could plan more events and in return benefit more of our members, campus, and community. My efforts pai of and for this year we have more than doubled our executive board - we currently have 12 officers.
Here is what I've learned about managing people so far:
1. Empower others - Since I have such a great team, full of amazing ideas and great intentions that is highly motivated, I think the most important role is to empower them to reach their full potential and make their goals for their roles realities.
2. Understand personality differences - no two of my offers are the same. They each have different sources of motivation, challenges, strengths, and ideals. This makes my relationship with each officer different - some need more guidance, some need more praise, and some need to be challenged
more. If I had the same relationship with everyone, not all would be able to achieve their full potential in their respective roles.
3. Encourage Open Mindedness - this one is simple: 12 heads think better than 1. I've found it necessary to encourage individual creativity. It's then even more necessary to encourage an open mind atmosphere while members share their ideas with the rest of the group to make sure good ideas don't fall of the radar.
I am very fortunate that at such a young age I am able to work on my leadership and people management skills. I have really enjoyed my role as a leader, and plan on taking advantage of similar opportunities that come into my life, weather is it in my professional or personal life.
