Leadership and Interpersonal Communication
During the summer of 2019, I endeavored in an Honors 401 seminar: Leadership and Interpersonal Communication. This was a condensed course taught online, so it moved pretty swiftly and covered a lot of information in a short amount of time. Within that time, we discussed various theories of leadership used today and where/how they originated, and also how interpersonal communication plays such a major role in defining yourself as a person and a leader.
Each week, we were challenged with new readings, theories, and prompts to respond to, and then shared our thoughts and perspectives in a discussion post amongst the rest of the class. This was interesting because to see the many different perspectives from peers and our course instructor.
During this course we were also tasked with interviewing someone that we saw as a leader in our personal lives for a case study, and then we were to connect their leadership style back to some of things we learned in class. We also wrote a final paper on how we think leadership will play a role in our future, desired occupational setting. I loved writing this paper because of how much hope it gave me that I am truly equipping myself with the right tools to pursue my dream job someday.
I believe that I met level 4 in 'teams' because I was able to articulate what I thought my own leadership philosophy would be for my desired, future occupational position as a pediatric surgeon. This included me excelling in organizational skills, holding high standards for myself and my work, and being a trustworthy person. This experience also helped me to meet levels 1, 2, and 3 in 'values.' I met level 1 because I was able to identify my own leadership values as part of assignments through this course; things like how I am a futuristic thinker, a planner, outspoken, and driven. I met level 2 because I reflected upon those values stated previously throughout our readings and assignments to understand better how I function as a leader in different hypothetical situations. For example, one of our reflection assignments to debate whether or not a formal leader was more effective than an informal leader, and in doing this reflection I learned that I am most definitely more of a formal leader that likes to hold a defined role. I met level 3 because I was able to critique different styles or situations of leadership within the different contexts assigned to us in some of our weekly discussion posts. Referring back to the example mentioned just above, within this assignment, I had to lay out the pros and cons of both leadership styles and critique them to best come up with my own philosophy on the topic. In doing so, I compared and contrasted the two different types of leaders within the group context of the high soccer team that I used to play on.
Overall, this experience helped expand my leadership philosophy and values through course assignments, case studies, and projects, while also making me think about what my future role as a leader could look like in the healthcare field.