RVGS Summer Leadership Institute Weekly Reflection Activities Week

RVGS Summer Leadership Institute Weekly Reflection Activities

Week 1 Reflection Activity • You are in a group of peers (scouts, key club, youth group, etc) and the group needs to plan a fundraiser. The group is supposed to collectively come up with a plan, and no one has been named to a formal leadership role in the discussion. Using what we talked about today, reflect on what steps you could take to gain informal authority and demonstrate leadership in your group. What actions might undermine that effort?

Week 2 Reflection Activity • This week I want you to give yourself some practice dealing with stressful conversations. • Imagine you are a business leader (select some specifics about the situation that suits your interests). You are naming a new leader of a work group under your supervision and two current employees were up for the position. One of them seemed like a perfect fit, but the other person is frequently difficult with their coworkers and gets upset when people question them. You know they will be upset to learn their coworker (who they don’t like) got the position over them. • How would you handle communicating to their employee that they did not get the promotion? Anticipate their reactions, objections, and complaints and game plan the discussion. Play through the interaction in your head. Even better: have someone else play the angry employee in a roleplayed conversation.

Week 3 Reflection Activity • In a setting with a larger number of people (over 15), it can be difficult as the leader to find time to get to know all members of your team individually while you are managing a busy schedule. Brainstorm some methods that you could use to establish individual relationships with your team.

Week 4 Reflection Activity Part 1 (6/29) • Too often, people don’t consider the best ways to collaborate with team members to brainstorm new ideas and just lump that in as that part of the decision-making process. While that can be part of the early stages of decision-making, communication and collaboration can be stifled without proper focus on optimal methods to encourage quality teamwork. Conduct a brief interview of an adult family member or trusted adult, asking about a https: //www. rvgs. k 12. va. us/cms/lib/VA 02207955/Centricity/D time at work where a decision needed to be made in a meeting or team setting omain/4/New. Student. Enrichment 2020 -21. docx (either a positive of negative experience will work). Ask questions along these lines: Did you feel welcome to share your ideas during the discussion? Do you think all team members shared ideas freely? If the previous answers aren’t the same, why do you think that was? Did people become connected to their favorite ideas? Did tension arise anywhere in the process? If they didn’t lead the meeting, what do they think leader have done to promote increased collaboration? If they were the leader, is there anything they wish they had done differently to encourage collaboration/what worked well? Be prepared to share the insights you received at the next session (Thursday).

Session 5 Reflection Activity (7/2) • Consider areas of your own privilege. Review this list and identify whether or not you are aligned with the ‘favored group’ for each category: race, gender/gender identity, sexuality, household income, family educational level, religion, ability/disability/health • Reflect on situations in which each of those categories could prevent feeling welcome to contribute during a meeting at work or through a public organization. • Consider ways, subtle or overt, that people could undermine the standing of someone not in the ‘favored group’ for each of the categories. Consider instances when the person is physically present and when they are not. If you are part of the favored group, dig deeper than your superficial assumptions about what people face. If you haven’t been concerned about wearing your hair naturally for a job interview, been told that your mood is just a result of your hormones, or had someone hesitate to share a bathroom/locker room with you then you won’t be able to understand other people’s experiences without actual effort, conversation, and research. • Recognizing the leader cannot regulate all interactions, brainstorm ways in which you could promote an inclusive culture that sends the right messages about your expectations for how peers should be treated in an organization.

Session 6 Reflection Activity (7/9) • Select a large scale problem that you consider relevant and interesting (options could include reopening schools, controlling COVID-19 spread in the community, changing police department policies, addressing racial disparities, making decisions about confederate monuments, etc). • Use the “Decision-Making Process” file (posted in the file library at the bottom of our summer institutes webpage) to think through how you would address your selected problem if you were a leader in government or agency in a position to act. • While it could be a good exercise to brainstorm possible solutions and work on a hypothetical plan, perhaps more important is you thinking through how you would address the steps and suggestions given in the file. • If you wish: I would encourage you to type out your ideas and brainstorming for future discussion/presentation to your peers.