ALDP - Advanced Leadership Development Program
ALDP was a several week long program with about twenty fellow ROAR tour guides. We met once a week to talk about developing ourselves as leaders, developing our fellow tour guides as more influential leaders and how to better the university that we not only love, but represent.
With this program we read the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. I really connected with a few of his laws such as the law of solid ground. He explains this by saying “Trust is like change in a leader’s pocket. Each time you make good leadership decisions, you earn more change. Each time you make poor decisions, you pay some of your change out to the people.” Trust is one of the most important things to have a leader. If people cant even trust you why would they want to follow or support you. Demonstrating your character is key. Another important law is the law of connection. “When it comes to working with people, the heart comes before the head… You first have to touch people’s hearts before you ask them for a hand.” People don’t want to work with or go the extra mile for someone who doesn’t care about them. No one does any favors for a jerk. But if you can show someone that you do genuinely care about them, believe in them, they might start to believe in themselves and look out for you too. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
One of our first assignments, along with the readings was to develop our leadership and personal goals for the next five years. My three most prominent and broad goals were: staying curious, not letting fear stand in the way of possibility and doing what I love.
With this program we read the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. I really connected with a few of his laws such as the law of solid ground. He explains this by saying “Trust is like change in a leader’s pocket. Each time you make good leadership decisions, you earn more change. Each time you make poor decisions, you pay some of your change out to the people.” Trust is one of the most important things to have a leader. If people cant even trust you why would they want to follow or support you. Demonstrating your character is key. Another important law is the law of connection. “When it comes to working with people, the heart comes before the head… You first have to touch people’s hearts before you ask them for a hand.” People don’t want to work with or go the extra mile for someone who doesn’t care about them. No one does any favors for a jerk. But if you can show someone that you do genuinely care about them, believe in them, they might start to believe in themselves and look out for you too. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
One of our first assignments, along with the readings was to develop our leadership and personal goals for the next five years. My three most prominent and broad goals were: staying curious, not letting fear stand in the way of possibility and doing what I love.
Five years seems rather short, I’m not going to lie. That fifth year will hopefully my first year working as an actual graphic designer after graduating from DAAP. It doesn’t even seem like a possibility at this moment. I’m terrified for my first coop, and here I am talking about the real work force… Insert concerned emoji face here. All trivialities aside, I hope to be working for magazine as a designer. I want to be the person to help design the layouts, the placement, making the whole thing come together and of course, look pretty.
Above all of this I want, like my title dictates, to be happy. Whether that is in graphic design, or if I change my mind in the coming months or years, in something else. I want to have taken the opportunity to travel the world, to go somewhere I’ve never been every year. Paris, Greece, Egypt. I want to continue to apply my love of Disney and belief in everyday magic and the power of dreams to everything I do and those around me. I want to dream, without the fear of failure. Or even to change the way that I view failure, instead of being an end, it’s a part of the process, only helping me get to the proper solution. Sounds like design thinking, there are no mistakes, only possibilities, multiple answers to a problem. This goes along with being curious. I want to continue learning new things and growing as a person. I want to establish new relationships and strengthen old ones. What I seem to be getting at here falls under the Law of Solid Ground. I want to firmly establish myself as a trustworthy and dependable person. A happy, Disney loving, magazine working, world traveling, family oriented, positive outlooking person. No a happy, Disney loving, magazine working, world traveling, family oriented, positive outlooking leader. Whether that’s in some large company or even just within my own community. I want to earn the respect and support of those around me, those that share my beliefs and matter most.
One of our next assignments after discussing at length an ultimate vision statement for our organization, ROAR tourguides, we made an ultimate vision statement for ourselves.
I strive to do what I love, as a curious leader, learning new things, establishing new relationships, strengthening old ones and ultimately growing as a person. I want to dream, without the fear of failure, proving to those around me that I am a dedicated, trustworthy, open-minded person. A happy person, determined to make a difference, using my voice to facilitate the ideas of many.
I have completed the DiSC profile previously and knew that my primary trait would be dominant. I found out this time that my secondary trait was influencer. While both of these traits, especially dominant, have negative connotations at times, I find that I also represent many of the positive characteristics embodied in these archetypes. I am a determined, goal oriented person. I dislike when people beat around the bush, and really believe in being honest. I am also personable and compassionate. I dislike being alone and being ignored. I want to be a leader for this reason, to be surrounded by people, and work in an environment that builds off of itself and everyone’s energy. I think collaboration leads to great things. I think that this ties into my mission statement of being curious and learning new things. These new things can be as simple as other people’s ideas. Being happy to me is also closely related to being around people who are positive and enthusiastic.
I think that as a leader multiculturalism can only help you. It can bring about not only a new sense of awareness but also a diversity of thinking to your team. It allows you a new breadth of consideration and ultimately compassion. To work for the benefit of others, you have to be able to understand them and put yourself in their shoes. I think that being unique is important and having a team of unique individuals and using their strengths allows for the strongest possible group. When I say that I want to be happy, part of this is wanting to make those around me happy. As a leader I want to be aware of the diversity that surrounds us, and I mean much more than just race. So much can be learned from those we don’t know and things that we honestly don’t understand. I want to travel the world, immerse myself in new cultures, There is an aspect of fear there, but as I mentioned in my vision I am looking at the possibilities that could come of it. Continuing to be open minded, empathetic and of course, curious. I believe that this concept makes an adaptable leader, someone able to work with anyone and for any person or cause. I want to be open to all situations and all ways of thinking, making me a more well rounded person in the process.
Another large project that came up was something that we could do as an organization that directly affected our campus. One of the things that we talked about was signage on campus. Our assignment was how we should go about implanting our goals of adding more signage and school spirit to campus.
In order to implement the goal of spreading UC signage and banners around campus and the surrounding community, we need to work directly with students as well as with businesses. It is rather upsetting that you can hardly recognize UC even a block off campus. On Calhoun Street especially, where students live and spend a lot of time, they should be proud to show Bearcat pride! I think that we need to speak directly with shops and restaurants and ask them if they would be willing to put up a UC banner. I think a big motivation to do this would be to provide free signs for them to hang in windows or on doors. I think that getting organizations involved on campus is also very important. Going and talking to other student groups, like Student Government, PAC etc. I think this will go a long way in spreading signage on our own campus even before we worry about Calhoun, W. McMillan and others.
I think another issue on campus is student’s wearing other universities spirit wear. It’s not that people don’t wear UC spirit wear, they do. But the presence of so many other schools as well is confusing, especially when we are giving tours. At schools like UK and Louisville you wouldn’t be caught dead in the other’s apparel. I think as a university we should have a sense of pride for our school, we should want to represent our school. One way that we can do this is by having less expensive spirtwear, especially around game days. I think this would be a good incentive for students. As well, like many people mentioned in the meeting is trading in your other school’s clothing articles for UC ones. I think even offering a 50% discount, saying if you bring us a pair of sweatpants here’s 50% off a pair at the Bookstore. This way it can be used on more than just tshirts making people want to trade in their clothes not worrying about getting something cheap in return.
In order for success in a challenge such as this that really involves the whole campus, it is necessary to get others involved. If people don’t support the changes that we are proposing they won’t help make it happen and we won’t get anywhere. We have to show our peers that we need more school spirit, we need to show people how proud we are to go to UC! As ROAR tour guides this is more than likely why we joined the organization, and while everyone doesn’t necessarily want to be a tour guide, they should want to be a bearcat! I think that developing this skill of influence will help in all future endeavors when reaching out to the community for support, you can’t be a leader if you have no followers. Showing everyone your passion is key to inspiring them to get behind your cause.
One of our last discussions was about the actual implementation of our vision statement. Its one thing to make one, but it’s another to stand behind and spread it.
I do believe that our vision statement can be implemented but it’s going to require a lot of accountability from our members. A large part of the vision statement revolved around bettering ourselves as members and tour guides. This means that we need to keep updated on new rankings, information, accessibility routes, etc. We need to know what it means to give a good tour. One suggestion for this was to have guides shadow other tour guides, giving yourself a means for comparison. Not to say that one person or tour is better than the other, but to give you ideas of other things to talk about or incorporate into your tour. Along with accountability I think that our own members bring a lot to the organization that we don’t take advantage of. We talked about making presentations about the different colleges, from guides in these colleges. This way you can have more things to talk about and don’t just mention something like “these are research labs” when you walk by the ERC. Another idea brought up was having a master calendar of events on campus. This would allow us as guides to get more involved with activities on campus, especially those put on by colleges that are not our own. This again provides more talking points on tours. I think as a leader one thing that I can do along with ALDP is present this vision statement to the general body of ROAR. Make them aware of our goals for the organization and hopefully gain their support and feedback. Along with this, making suggestions on how to be the best tour guide you can and how we can ensure growth as an organization.
ALDP has really taught me what it means to be a leader within an organization. With ROAR there isn’t just one leader, we are all leaders, making a difference in our community. We all want the same things, to share our love of campus with prospective students. I learned how to better relate and commnunicate with my peers and fellow members of ROAR. I learned what it takes to develop and execute a vision. I know what I want to happen on campus, and that I cannot do it myself. Leadership takes people, a lot of people, people that aren’t going to flock to you because of a title. They flock because of you as a person, because of your character, your confidence and your compassion. If you’re going it alone you’re not a leader. I cant wait to put to use what I have learned about bettering myself as a leader in these future years of ROAR and other leadership positions that I strive to attain.