Linh Hoang

During the Fall 2017 semester, I took an Honors course in called Leadership Through Social Change. For the class, we examined different forms of leadership and how they apply to social change. This class specifically highlighted the strengths of different leadership styles and how the strengths of each style help when invoking social change. Then, taking the things we had learned in the course, we were required to go out within the community and participate in social change. For me, I had decided to participate in PEACE (Peer Educators Acting for Change and Equality). Subscribing to the idea of peer education, the group uses a group of student volunteers to put on improvised scenarios to inform the audience of effective bystander intervention strategies and help dismantle rape culture.

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This class, and in turn my experience of being part of PEACE, allowed me to complete levels 1,2, and 3 for Values and levels 1,2 and 3 for Teams.

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In this class, one of the first things we did was identify our leadership values. This helped us have a framework about our leadership style, and when working with a group within the community, it also helped us gain better insight in how our values in our impacted our participation in the group. We were given a large list of values at the beginning of the course and were asked to narrow it down to five. At the end of the semester, we looked back on our values to see if we would want to change anything. I had ended up switching out two of my values and a few were rearranged by a higher priority. It showed me how much experiences can give a new perspective, and thus values can change from that as well (Values 1).

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Since a large focus of the class was examining different leadership styles, one of our tasks was to read a book that discusses a specific style of leadership and do a presentation on the book. I ended up reading Quiet by Susan Cain and presented alongside Steven and Aisha. I personally identify as a shy ambivert (a curious combination), and the book helped me use my more introverted personality traits to my advantage. In a society who tends to favor extroversion, it can feel like you do not have a voice, and leadership can be a daunting position. This book showed me there are strengths in introversion, and there have been many successful leaders in the past that used their introversion to their advantage. Some examples that I referenced in my presentation included Gandhi and Rosa Parks (Values 2). In our presentation, it further goes into depth about introversion and extroversion in the context of leadership.

There are many things that I gained from the book, but one thing that stuck with me was the power of solitude. In the U.S, group work is usually encouraged, as it is thought as the best way to get work done. For introverts though, most need solitude to get work done. I had never noticed that dynamic until it was mentioned (Values 3). I am very people orientated, and group work is something that I value. Upon reflection though, while the group sessions were important, when it came to getting work done, I would get much more done in solitude (Values 2).  Now solitude is something I try to put more effort into implementing, especially when it comes to working in teams (Values 3).

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While the presentation gave me a lot of insight on my introversion as part of my leadership, being part of PEACE also gave me real-world experiences about what it was like to be on a team. PEACE was out of my comfort zone in many respects, but that was what made it a great experience. In PEACE, there are multiples roles that are taken on for it work effectively. First would, of course, be the student volunteers. Without students in the group going out and putting on these presentations, the purpose of PEACE, which is peer education, would not be effective. There are also the facilitators as well, who is usually a graduate assistant or an older member of PEACE, who would help explain the different improv scenarios and help make sure that the class who were seeing the performances were understanding the presentations and guiding a meaningful discussion (Teams 1). The graduate assistants were also the ones who were leading the PEACE practices as well. Professors are also a large part of how the group operates, as they are the ones who request to have the group come and perform (Teams 2). For further explanations on PEACE and the responsibilities of all the different roles, please refer to my artifact. Being part of PEACE showed me that there are many different parts that make a group effectively function. This is not necessarily just the group itself, which in this case would be the PEACE members and the graduate assistant, but other outside factors as well, like the professors (Teams 3).

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This class helped take the things I learned about my leadership style during the Introduction to Honors course and put it in a real-life setting. I was able to further understand my leadership style and its strengths. Alongside that, by working with PEACE, I was able to improve my skills as a team member as well. This class was a building block that further strengthened my leadership.

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Below is some of my work from the course.

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