College Student Leadership Development

Valerie I. Sessa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317378822
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

College Student Leadership Development introduces the idea that we all play a part in producing leadership and that learning how to participate in the process of leadership is something that all college students need to learn as part of their college academic experience. Rather than approaching leadership from the traditional model emphasizing specific skill sets, this book acquaints students with how to learn leadership using the ReAChS model of leadership development (Reflection, Assessment, Challenge, Support). It then encourages students to directly engage their own experiences to hone their leader identity and understanding of leadership as well as improve their leadership knowledge and skills. Step-by-step exercises lead students in reflecting on their experiences, assessing themselves, choosing challenges, creating support networks, and finally capturing and communicating to others what they have learned. Throughout, examples of student leaders' experiences provide readers with powerful examples of others' successes and struggles in leadership alongside the latest psychological research on learning and development.

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INTRODUCTION: STARTING WITH YOU

LEADERSHIP. We all know what leadership is, right? When you see or hear this word, what do you think of? How do you know when someone is a leader or doing leadership? Stop reading right now (four sentences into this book), pick up a pen or pencil, and jot down words or images that come to mind.

Look at your words or your image. Do they include descriptions of a leader? Did you list personal characteristics? Appearance? Skills? Behavior? Do your words or images include followers (and perhaps words such as influence or power)? Do your words or images include something about a goal to be accomplished? When they think about leadership, most people, including students, think about leaders, followers, and goals, or some combination. Interestingly, even though most people consider one or all these pieces when they think about leadership, they each define leadership a little differently. I begin this book by carefully defining what I mean by leadership.

However, you note, the title of this book includes the words “leadership development”. The purpose of this book is to help you take charge of your own leadership development. Part of your leadership development is to think more deeply about what leadership is. You have already started your leadership development journey in the first paragraph of this chapter. And like that first exercise, rather than telling you “what” to learn to participate in leadership, this book concentrates on helping you learn “how to” learn what you need.

Leadership Definition

In this book, I am approaching leadership from a different angle. One that will probably seem strange to you right now. Instead of concentrating on the “who” of leadership (that is, the leader), I concentrate on the “what” of leadership; that is, the tasks of leadership. What exactly is happening that is making us think that leadership is occurring? Using work done at the Center for Creative Leadership (McCauley, 2014), I believe that leadership happens when three activities or tasks are being accomplished. The first task of leadership is setting direction, which is people coming to agreement on what they are trying to achieve. This deals with solving questions such as “Where are we going?”, “What are we going to do?”, and “How will we get there?”. It is envisioning the future. The second task is alignment, which is dealing with helping the group, organization, or community effectively coordinate and integrate all the different aspects of the work so that it fits together and heads everyone and everything in the shared direction. The third task is commitment, which is people willingly making the success of that direction and alignment a personal priority to accomplish.

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Defining leadership in this way does three things. First, we tend to think of Leaders and Leadership with a capital “L.” We think Leaders are different from others: Leaders have special characteristics, special skills, special behaviors. Leaders are important. Leaders do big important jobs. Leaders work hard. We want our Leaders to take care of us, to solve our problems. We want to blame Leaders when something goes wrong. Some of us aspire to be Leaders while others do not want to ever be a Leader. Leadership defined as setting direction, alignment, and commitment is leadership with a little “l.” It is important but not special; it is actually rather mundane and everyday work. And everyone bears responsibility for participating. If something goes wrong, it is not the Leader’s fault; the responsibility lies with all.

Second, it takes the weight of leadership off individual leaders. They don’t need to do leadership all by themselves. If you do a web search on what Leaders do, you will find they are expected to do all sorts of things and do them well. And there is little agreement among articles; what they need to do and be is endless. And they need to do this all by themselves. No wonder we think we need big “L” leaders. My definition opens options regarding how these leadership tasks get accomplished. Individuals can “participate” in leadership in different ways, from alone to in a group:

• They can be hired to set direction, align people and processes, and motivate people to be committed.

• They can be elected to do these tasks.

• They can step up or volunteer.

These three are the usual ways we think of participating in leadership. But here are more ways that individuals can participate in leadership:

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• They can participate in leadership tasks (setting direction, aligning people and processes, motivating people to be committed) in a formal setting (an organization, club, etc.) or in an informal setting (with friends).

• They can participate in leadership alone (set their own direction, align their life towards that goal, and create their own commitment to succeed).

• They can participate in leadership as part of a group with someone else who has the title of “leader” or “manager.” Here, “a follower” participates in leadership by either helping set direction, helping ensure that all are aligned, and helping all to be committed, or by actively supporting the direction that was set, and being willing to work in alignment, and being aligned and committed, as defined by the leader.

• They can participate in leadership as part of a group that has no official leader and everyone works together to set direction, to align people and processes, and to commit to accomplishing the direction.

• And here is a real stretch; they can write a manual that lays out the direction, demonstrates how to align people and processes, and give ideas on how to become committed to accomplishing the direction. The constitution of the United States of America is such a document. It has helped citizens of the USA determine how to govern themselves for over 200 years!

In these options, all are participating in leadership regardless of their role. You may have the title of “leader” or may see yourself as “follower” but in truth, if setting direction, aligning people and processes, and motivating people to be committed is happening, you are all participating in leadership together.

Third, it is time to let go of the “Are leaders born or made?” argument. It is a moot point. Everyone participates in leadership in some capacity on a regular basis. Stories about storks and cabbage patches notwithstanding, so far everyone that participates in leadership is born (we will have to revisit this in the near future as Artificial Intelligence evolves). And everyone can use preparation and practice in how to participate in leadership more effectively in a wide range of circumstances. Furthermore, in terms of who steps into a leadership role, research shows that approximately 30 percent of leadership role occupancy is due to genetics, and 70 percent is developed (Arvey, Zhang, Avolio, & Krueger, 2007; Hannah & Avolio, 2010). Even if you think, right now, that there is absolutely no way anyone is ever going to convince you to “take a leader role,” you still need to know how to participate in the tasks of leadership to ensure that good leadership happens, regardless of what your title or role is.

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Thus, I firmly believe that all students need to be prepared to participate in leadership in the capacities above. If you are not yet convinced, here are some more reasons:

• We live in a democracy, which is a type of government that gives the power of governing to the people. For a democracy to be successful, all members of the population must be ready, willing, and able to participate. In college, it is generally expected that you prepare to participate in a democratic and progressive society as an active citizen. This includes participating in setting local, state, and national direction, aligning people and processes to reach that direction, and committing and help others commit to this direction.

• We are heading towards a “maker culture” and “maker movement.” We are becoming a society of inventors, designers, and tinkerers rather than passive users of someone else’s products. Many of you may find yourself as entrepreneurs sometime in the future. You need at minimum to set your own direction, to align your life to meeting that direction, and motivate and commit yourself to that direction. You will probably do this in the company of others struggling with the same issues.

• Many of the problems we will be facing in the future are complex and global— population growth; aging population; shortages of food, water, and jobs; increased energy needs. In this context, one person, group, or country cannot be considered in charge or in a primary position of power. Nations and non-governmental agencies will need to work, in an equal partnership, to solve such problems in a way that is beneficial to all. Students today will be facing these challenges, and will need to set complex multi-faceted directions to solve those problems and align massive numbers of people and processes, and create commitment across nations and the world.

• Many of you plan to have a family some day (or may already have children). Parents set direction (and teach their children to set direction). Parents need to align people, time, processes, equipment—ask your mom and dad or guardian; I’m sure they have many stories about this going awry. And parents need to stay committed to the direction they are setting for themselves, and for their family.

• And finally, you already participate in leadership; you just may not have realized it yet. Although they were measuring leader behaviors rather than participating in leadership tasks, Kouzes and Posner (2016) asked over 2.5 million people across the world in the past 30 years to complete their Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). The LPI contains 30 leader behaviors. No one who has taken the instrument gave themselves a response score of “almost never” to all 30 leader behaviors. Everyone participates in leadership in some capacity.

Developing Yourself to Participate in Leadership

That is my definition of leadership. But this book is about leadership development. Although this book is geared towards helping you develop your capabilities in participating in leadership, I’m not going to tell you what you should learn. Despite the many lists that you will find on Google regarding what you must be and do to be a Leader, there really are no sets of skills or characteristics that will magically turn you into a Leader if you perfect them. I believe that you will learn what you need to learn when you need to learn it. Instead, I’m going to acquaint you with how to learn.

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The Layout of the Book

The remainder of the book is divided into three parts. Part I includes two chapters. Chapter 2 contains the fundamentals of learning in general. Chapter 3 helps you apply what you learned in the previous chapter to learning leadership in particular. This chapter lays out the ReAChS model of Leadership Development. ReAChS stands for (Re)flection, (A)ssessment, (Ch)allenge, (S)upport. The remainder of the book will go into each of these in much more detail including lots of exercises to help you develop your leadership. Part II includes the bulk of the book, addressing each portion of the ReAChS model. Chapter 4 is on (Re)flection. Chapter 5 is on (A)ssessment and includes a number of instruments that you can use to assess yourself. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 cover a number of ways you can (Ch)allenge yourself to develop your leadership. Chapter 6 details challenging experiences; Chapter 7 details challenging people; Chapter 8 details leadership courses and leadership development programs; and Chapter 9 details how to turn hardships into leadership development lessons. Chapter 10 takes the information from these chapters and turns them into how-to exercises for you to determine what you have already learned about leadership, how challenging your current situation is, and how to challenge yourself in the future. Finally, Chapter 11 covers (S)upport, because you cannot do leadership development alone. The final part of this book contains only one chapter. As you are developing yourself to participate in leadership, you need to learn to capture and tell your leadership development story. This how-to chapter is chock full of exercises designed to help you do this and create a leadership development portfolio to showcase your experiences.

My Expectations of You

I am hoping that as you proceed through this book you do five things. First, take charge of your own development. Teachers, staff, administrators, friends, people in your community, and people in your family can suggest things for you to do and accomplish, encourage you, and support you. But only you can learn and develop. They cannot do this for you. Second, be open to changing and growing. You will be asked to do things differently, to think differently, to be differently. You can only learn and develop if you are open to this. Thi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise
• College Student Leadership Development
• Leadership: Research and Practice Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Series Editors’ Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Starting with You
• Part I Fundamentals
• Part II ReAChS Model
• Part III Capturing and Telling Your Leadership Development Story
• Index