What makes a leader: Leading groups effectively

Another busy week, but a week closer to warm weather! Whooo!

This week Brady and Josh lead the learning session about leading groups effectively.  They had a very cleaver (and maybe a little odd) question about your talent in the Miss America pageant.  They did a very good job referring to the book and incorporating that information into the lesson this week.  One thing they did that I thought was very helpful was having us write down some qualities needed to be an effective leader.  Although my list wasn’t very long, I think that you could make a list that would go on forever.

At the end of our chapter this week it talked about problem personalities.  I thought this was a very important part of the chapter, because we are likely to run into a few people with these types of personalities in the fall.  So, we have to learn how to deal with them effectively.  First there are monopolizers who will dominate the group verbally and draw attention to themselves.  This type of personality can lead some members of the group to withdrawal and not participate.  The next type of personality was manipulators.  People with this type of personality will do almost anything to ensure protection for themselves and to have a sense of control.  The third type of personality is distractors.  In my mind these are your typical class clown trying whatever they can to get off topic.  Then there are aggressors who create disturbances in groups.  The final type of personalities the book mentions is harmonizers.  They try to prevent conflict at all costs which is bad when it is a topic that needs to be discussed.  Knowing how to deal with each of these personalities will be a useful skill in the fall.

This week was also a peer mentor retreat.  Woot! Woot!  I hope everyone had a good time and didn’t leave too depressed after hearing how much debt we are likely to be in when we graduate.  Even though we hate to hear it at least we are aware which is better than a lot of college students.  Hope everyone stays safe this week.  See you Wednesday!