My

Personal Mission Statement

My personal leadership philosophy is based on three premises: family,
health, and honesty. These values are important to me for several reasons. Family is
important because they are the people that invest in me and believe in me, and that
is what motivates me. Whenever I need encouragement or support, I know that my
family is always a phone call away or a simple drive away. Talking to them always
inspires me to keep going and to always do my best because they believe in me.
Additionally, health is important to me because if you are in poor health, then you
cannot be the best you can be. Therefore, it is important for me to be in good health
so that I can be at my best. I practice good health by running and working out almost
every day and I try to have excellent nutrition habits. Lastly, honesty is important to
me because to me, honesty and integrity go hand and hand. If you are honest in your
work then you are doing the best that you can do.
I define leadership as an ongoing process in which people influence others to
work towards a common goal. My life goal is to feel fulfilled and happy. I hope to feel
fulfilled by surrounding myself with people who love me and by having a job that I
am passionate about. My passion lies in aquatic animal medicine and I hope to have
a career as a board-certified zoological veterinarian with an emphasis on aquatic
medicine. Learning leadership skills fits into these goals because in order to be a
successful veterinarian, I need to be an effective communicator and a good team
player and in order to feel fulfilled, I need to self-reflect and identify and live by my
core values. I am enrolled in the Leadership Certificate Program because I desire to
gain insight into what makes me who I am, what my core values are, and how I can
improve myself to be a better leader in the future. Additionally, I am enrolled in this
program because I am able to gain knowledge about various leadership practices
and then exercise and reinforce what I learn in class through participating in i-
Programs and experiential learning opportunities. However, leadership is an
ongoing process and I know that even after I obtain my Certificate, I will continue to
seek out opportunities to improve myself as a leader.

Learning Goals: Conflict Management and Accurate Self-Assessment

After taking the ECI-U for AGED 260, I was able to identify the competencies I
am strong in and competencies I am weak in. After analyzing the results, I found that
I am weak in the competencies of conflict management and accurate self-
assessment.
In terms of conflict management, the areas that I lack in in this competency
are bringing disagreements out into the open, helping to de-escalate conflicts, and
communicating the positions of those involved in a conflict to all concerned. Conflict
management is important to me because it is a vital skill to have in both my personal
and professional life. Conflict management is important in my personal life because
if I get in a disagreement with my friends or family, I will be able to handle it
properly and it is important in my professional life because if there is a
disagreement in the workplace or between my peers, I will be able to resolve it
properly and learn from it.

I deal with conflicts, no matter how big or small, on a daily basis. Therefore,
my goal is to be able to identify, resolve, and learn from conflict. Achieving this goal
means that I will be able to grow as a person and as a professional. Additionally, this
goal will help me to develop confidence as well. Currently, I feel as though I struggle
with managing conflict because I avoid situations in which one party could
potentially become upset. Therefore, I feel that by working on improving this
competency, I will be able to gain not only confidence, but a stronger backbone as
well. I plan to measure my growth in this competency quantitatively by counting
and recording how many times I bring disagreements out in the open, helping to de-
escalate conflicts, and communicate the positions of those involved in a conflict to
all concerned.
I plan to measure my growth in this competency qualitatively by recording
the quality of my conflict management. I plan to answer questions such as how
difficult was handling this conflict? How did I feel going into managing the conflict?
How did I feel after handling the conflict? What can I improve on for next time?
What kind of conflict was it? My goal is not to handle as may conflicts as I can or be
perfect at handling conflicts, my goal is to improve upon my handling and
management of conflict so that I feel more confident and comfortable when it comes
to conflict management. I will know that I have reached this goal if I am able to
comfortably handle conflicts in a variety of settings.
In terms of accurate self-assessment, I found that the areas that I lack in this
competency are having a sense of humor about myself, being aware of my own
strengths and weaknesses, and being open to new information about myself.
Accurate self-assessment is very important to me because knowing what your
strengths and weaknesses are is the first step to being able to evaluate yourself and
grow as a person. This is also important to me because I hope to continuously grow
as a leader in every stage of my life and in order to do so, I need to be able to
practice accurate self-assessment because I may acquire different competencies.
My goal is to be able to develop the skills and tools I need to be able to
continuously practice accurate self-assessment. I plan to quantitatively assess and
record my progress in this competency by recording how many times I practice
accurate self-assessment per week. I plan to qualitatively assess and record my
progress by journaling daily. I plan to record thoughts such as how easy is to
practice self-reflection? What criteria am I using to evaluate my self-assessment?
What is the current outcome of my self-assessment? I will know that I reached my
goal if I can refer back to my journal and see a positive growth trend and concrete
examples of my development of accurate self-assessment.


Plan for Development Using the 11 Skills and Attributes

Skill/Attribute

Leadership Objective

Evidence

Self-Development
My objective for self-awareness is to learn how

Self-Awareness to effectively self-reflect. I believe that self-

To improve on self-reflecting so that I can

be more self-aware, I plan on journaling

reflection is an important part of a persons

daily routine because it allows you to look back
at the past while seeing what you can improve
on for the future.

Self-
Management

My objective for self-management is to really

hone in on my weaknesses and work on
improving them. For me, self-management is
the next step after self-awareness. Therefore, I
hope to manage my weaknesses by purposefully
engaging in activities that will push me out of
my comfort zone so that I can work on
improving my weaknesses so that I can grow
was a person.

every week so that I can keep track of my

growth.
To improve on my self-reflection so that I
can be more self-aware, I hope to think
about my actions and intentions at the end
of every day so that I can reflect on what I
hope to improve on for the next day.
To improve on strengthening my
weaknesses, I participated in LeaderShape.
Since LeaderShape is a week-long
program, I was able to really focus on
enhancing the competencies that I lack in. I
worked on conflict management and
accurate self-assessment for the majority of
the program since these are the two areas
that I lack most in.

Interpersonal Development

Relationship
Building

My objective for relationship building is to

learn how to sustain a network. I have always
never had a problem building a network due to
my diverse experience, however, I have always
struggled with how to sustain this network.
Having a network is one thing, but being able to
keep it and continue to grow it is very important
professionally.

My objective for communication skills is to be

an effective communicator in challenging
situations. I face challenging situations daily
Communication
and communication is often the number one
Skills
cause of problems in these situations. Therefore,
I hope to become not a perfect, but an effective
communicator.

My objective for ethical practices is to never

compromise my integrity. It takes years to build
a reputation but only seconds to crush one.
Ethical Practices Therefore, I know that I will be put in
compromising situations in the future, but I
hope to have the tools and practice to maintain
my integrity.
My objective for team development is to sit
back and let others lead. Oftentimes, I find
Team
myself speaking up too often and not letting
Development
others have the opportunity to take the lead. I
believe that being a part of a team is a process

To improve on sustaining my network, I

participated in Imprint. At Imprint, I
learned that the best way to sustain a
network is to reach out often but to be very
attuned to the sings of the party that you
are communicating with. Additionally, I
learned that it is important to not just reach
out when you need something as well.
To improve on sustaining my network, I
also updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect
my current experience.
To become an effective communicator, I
work on my communication skills daily at
the Wildlife Medical Clinic.
To become an effective communicator, I
re-read my e-mails and text messages now
to ensure that they are written eloquently
and with clarity so that my main point is
able to get across through my words.
To become an effective communicator, I
participate in as many group projects as I
can so that I can try to work on my
communication as much as I can in diverse
settings.

To improve on maintaining my integrity in

compromising situations, I participated in
Integrity. At integrity, I learned how to
correct myself so that I do not lose my
integrity and how to recognize
compromising situations.

To improve on sitting back and letting

others take the lead, I participated in
Intersect. Through Intersect, I practiced
letting others share their ideas. I learned
more than I ever thought possible by doing

of giving and taking. Therefore, I hope to focus

moreso on the taking part, by sitting back and
actively listening to what by peers have to say.

so. Listening to others ideas before

thinking of my own led me to learn more.
Additionally, it does not mean that I do not
contribute, it means that I contribute when
it is necessary, and not 100% of the time.

Organizational/Group Development

My objective for leading change is to learn how

to create change. Creating change can often be
the most difficult part of the process because
Leading Change that is what gets the ball rolling. Therefore, I
hope to gain the confidence and the tools to
create change in all that I do.

Project and
Program
Effectiveness

My objective for project and program

effectiveness is to learn how to evaluate the
effectiveness of a project or program.
Evaluation is an important tool in creating
bigger and better programs and I hope to
improve upon my evaluation methods so that I
can create innovative improvements in the
future.

My objective for systems thinking is to learn

how to unify a group of diverse people to think
and share their thoughts together in order to
achieve a common goal. When presented with a
group of diverse people with various thoughts
Systems Thinking and ideas, it can often be difficult to unify a
group. Therefore, I want to learn how to
effectively unify a group in order to achieve
effective systems thinking to achieve a common
goal.

In order to learn how to create change, I

attended Ignite. Ignite focused on learning
and practicing how to create, sustain, and
evaluate change. At Ignite, I learned that to
create change, you need to build a coalition
and pitch your idea in order to gain
support.
In order to practice creating change, I
implemented new policies and programs
through my position as Vice President of
Event Planning at Pi Phi. I had to go
through many trial-and-error processes,
however, my most successful program
implementation was Polish Pi Phi. I created
Polish Pi Phi to reward positive social
behavior and it was very successful and it
resulted in less referrals to our Policy and
Standards Board.
In order to better my evaluation methods, I
attended at Ignite. At Ignite, I learned how
to evaluate change. I learned that it is
important to evaluate change so that you
know what alterations to make for the
future. I also learned that the type of
evaluation is also variant upon what you
are evaluating as well.
To improve upon unifying a group of
people to think and work together, I
attended Intersect. Attending Intersect
allowed me to practice seeing the diversity
in everyone and seeing how everyone
brings something special to the table that
allows them to be an effective leader.
Additionally, I was able to see how
everyones differences are able to come
together to allow a group to work towards a
common goal.
To improve upon unifying a group of
people to think and work together, I
practice using effective systems thinking
by being on the executive board of my
sorority. All ten of us on the board came
from different backgrounds and we all had
different thought processes, however, I led
the group to recognize our differences and
use them in a positive light to make a
difference.

 Community
Building

I was able to practice building a cohesive

group as a Facilitator at Emerging Leaders.
At the conference, I led a group of five
promising Undergraduate students who
came from different backgrounds
throughout the day to accomplish various
activities. In doing so, I was able to
practice in leading the group so that they
were able to make themselves unified and
work as one to accomplish each activity of
the day.

In order to learn how I can continuously

grow as a leader, I attended Imprint.
In order to continuously grow as a leader, I
attended LeaderShape. LeaderShape
showed me the various aspects of
leadership that exist to improve upon. This
experience opened my eyes to the
numerous opportunities that exist for
leadership development and I hope to hone
in on each of these components over time
and revisit them to continue my
development.
In order to continuously grow as a leader, I
hope to attend various leadership
conferences even after my Undergraduate
career.

My objective for community building is to learn

how to build a cohesive group.

Transitional Development

Sustaining
Leadership

My objective for sustaining leadership is to

learn how to continuously grow as a leader. As
a person and as a professional, I hope to always
evolve as a leader. Evolving as a leader will
help me to develop as a person, and I hope to
embrace every opportunity that comes along for
leadership development.