My leadership style is mainly Transformational Leadership. Throughout my experiences, I have always considered myself a facilitator; someone who strives to lead and inform simultaneously. In my current role, I directly advise our largest student lead organization, the Campus Activities Board. This organization is comprised of 30 plus general members, with an executive board comprised of 11 event coordinators and 2 leaders (Director and Assistant Director). My contact is mainly with the Director and Assistant Director, where I meet with them on a weekly basis in order to review upcoming events, plan for future events, and help them develop professionally as leaders. I have found that throughout my time in this role, I have always guided these leaders towards the most successful paths when planning school wide events. As with every institution, there is "inside baseball" and "office politics" at play, and being a student who is not privy to those factors can sometimes make it tougher to accomplish tasks. I am always as transparent and informative as I can be when it comes to leading my students. I take pride in helping these student navigate the ins-and-outs of school wide event planning and the issues that come along with it. I explain to my students that I am not there to "hold their hands" during their processes, but to rather guide and facilitate discussion so they can arrive at the solutions, and feel more comfortable making those decisions within their organization without consulting me on every detail. I put a lot of trust into the student leaders on campus. Therefore, if issues arise with planned events, I always trust that these leaders can find solutions.
In reviewing the differing types of leadership styles, I recognize that different situations may call for different styles. For example, I also advise and operate our club sport program on campus. Again, these club sports are all student led, so I do put a lot of stock in the trust I have for these leaders to follow the guidelines, facilitate all practices and games, and adhere to our overall policies surrounding play and rosters. Having said that, there have been a couple of instances where the leadership for the team has failed drastically in adhering to policy, controlling and maintaining an operating budget, and lacked the wherewithal to set up game play or practice accordingly. In these cases, I needed to utilize a more Directive or Authoritarian leadership approach. I needed to explicitly show these teams what the correct steps were in realigning their season, maintaining their budgets, and controlling there roster and team. There is nothing subtle about utilizing directive and authoritarian approaches, but in my example, it did yield results.
Overall, I consider myself friendly, approachable, and responsive. These characteristics help in facilitating large groups of student leaders. In order for them to feel comfortable being in that leadership role, they need someone that they know they can rely on to help them through the tougher issues, be there to talk through how to effectively converse with their peer subordinates, and support them in an overall manner in order to ensure success in their roles. There are some negative aspects to being a charismatic type of leader, especially when dealing with students. I have encountered some student leaders that felt threatened by my personality. I can be excitable, boisterous, and energetic when conversing with students. Sometimes, there are students who do not share those same characteristics, and that may stifle our relationship, or cause them more distress when thinking about their leadership role.
