Leadership Training
1. CedarS CampS Staff Development Week
2. Thea 359 Leadership Enneagrams
& Clifton Strengths Workshop
3. Thea 450 Stress Management Workshop
1
Staff Development Training
CedarS CampS
This past summer, I was selected to serve as a full-time counselor and assistant program director at a national resident summer camp in Lebanon, Missouri, called CedarS CampS. I managed and coached a cabin of 2-3 training/junior counselors and 6-8 diverse adolescents. I worked as an instructional leader for field sports and cooperative games, outdoor education and non-motorized watercraft as well as leadership, character development, and Bible study. I assisted in coordinating a week long rock climbing and camping trip to Arkansas for 25 adolescents with 5 other staff members and planned and lead several overnight trips for 15-20 campers throughout the summer. During the first two weeks of the summer, the staff participate in Pre-camp, which is our time to set up the facilities and property for the summer, receive training for specific activities, and participate in essential meetings focused on strengthening the camaraderie of our staff in team building activities. I received training in lead rock climbing, belaying, first aid and CPR, Red Cross Lifeguarding, Wilderness First Aid, zipline facilitation, and specifically trained in group facilitation for middle and high school ages. Our focus was to learn how to support our campers to exemplify and grow. The training that I received during pre-camp set me up for success for the rest of the summer and helped me further connect my personal development needs to the purpose of my role. I learned how to redirect focus in stressful and frustrating situations to be more productive and positive. We received training on how to help our campers more naturally lead, grow in self-discipline, practice active listening, and be conscious of how they work in team settings, and we as staff set the example in how we work within our program teams. Our focus was to have a collaborative team orientation and maintain a growth mindset.
Enneagram & Strengths Workshop
2
In my Undergraduate Stage Management Seminar class, we had Sam, from the Leadership Center, lead two workshops that revolved around Self Discovery of our Strengths using the Clifton Strengths test and then apply our strengths to building stronger team dynamics. The first time I took the Clifton Strengths test, there was really no follow up or explanation of the test and I didn’t understand how my results applied to me. The second time around with this test I found it very helpful to learn about what my strengths are and how my motivations are expressed. I most appreciated the descriptions of the strengths because I think that some of the strengths can be interpreted in a negative connotation. My #1 strength was an Achiever and I agree that I demonstrate this theme with my work ethic, attention to detail, the more challenging tasks are most rewarding, and that I get a great deal of satisfaction from being busy and productive. I’m an internally driven and forwarding thinking type of person. A strength that I most didn’t understand before the Leadership Center Workshops was the strength of connectedness. I first interpreted this to mean that I need things to be completed, that I don’t like it when there are loose ends, when projects don’t get completed, or not knowing the answer to a question. But that wasn’t quite the right conclusion. The description resonated with me and aligns with my personal mentality that everything is connected one way or another. Connection may not be labeled for everyone as faith or religion but could be recognized as a connection that is foundational, a human likeness. I also liked how it describes that everything happens for a reason. I believe that our experiences are all building upon each other and have a specific reason to occur that is a developmental piece of growing into the person we are today. I don’t know if I necessarily label this as fate in my own thinking, but I do believe that we are all part of a greater plan and I did think that the point is to understand why things happen in this greater plan, but I think that it is important to take in the experiences we have, learn from the people we meet, and apply what we’ve learned to our current situations.In the second workshop, I enjoyed learning about how our strengths are categorized into different, broad leadership/follower/ team member styles. I found it comforting to see that my strengths lay out across all four sections, which I recognize to mean that I am a flexible leader; I tend to understand/feel out in different group settings where I fit in. I’ve definitely been in teams where I have felt a bit torn between what I think my team members need from me and what my given position is and avoiding stepping on other’s toes. This workshop made me more aware of how I tend to express my strengths and has made me more conscious of how I want to better utilize my strengths this semester in my SM team for Crazy for You. Adeline, Zeenah, and I briefly talking about we noticed that our dominant styles are all different and how that can strengthen our trust and dependability on each other. Adeline’s dominate strength is in the strategic thinking category, Zeenah in relationship building, and I am executing primary and relationship building secondary. I am excited to challenge myself to understand and utilize my strengths more with this production process. I thought that it was interesting when Sam asked who was disappointed/was expecting to learn about our weaknesses, and that was exactly what Lauren and I were talking about in the office before class. I learned that I tend to be an introspective person and sometimes get “too in my own head”, focusing on only the things I do wrong/poorly and have a hard time recognizing my successes. After attending these two workshops and the day long leadership I-Program that I participated in a few weekends ago, I have made some leadership focused goals for myself to focus on the rest of this semester and carry into my position at my summer job.
3
Stress Management Workshop
In my stage management seminar class (Thea 450), we had a guest from the UIUC Counseling Center visit us to talk about stress management tips and provide an opportunity to discuss how we can better support ourselves and others during our most stressful week, tech week. He talked to us about about how being more conscious of what our needs and wants are can help us better monitor the pressure that we put on ourselves. Time management is a key to living a more emotionally and productively balanced lifestyle. He talked us about the Convey’s priority box, where you can place the different tasks on your to-do list in different boxes based on the urgency (time factor) and the importance. I find it hard to use this method because majority of the time it feels like my tasks fall into the highly important and urgent category, part of this is due to the fact that I am not just a student, but I also am in a constant leadership position on a production team that relies on me to complete my tasks efficiently and for the production to be my number 1 priority. We talked about how we not only need to find a balance in prioritizing tasks in our productions and classwork, but also how to better care for ourselves. Our facilitator talked to us about how to practice healthy sleep habits. One way that I am going to work on is not doing classwork and production work in bed because my brain has started to associate my bed as a place to work and be mentally active. I know that I am a happier, more motivated person when I get the proper amount of sleep. My classmates and I also brought up a challenge that we have all faced at one point or another, which is finding the line between our professional and personal relationships with the actors and the designers because we are not just working on a production together, but we are also in class and sometimes friends too. The actors in particular tend to rely on members of the stage management team for emotional support and validation, and that is hard because it blurs the line between relationships. So our facilitator helped us brainstorm ways to help those that come to us in emotional distress and support the role we are in throughout the process. We learned more about the support that the Counseling Center offers and how we can get those that are in need of professional help in contact with the Counseling Center.
