Leadership and your life
as a Cal State San
Marcos student.
Leadership in your life
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The first few weeks and months of your first
year can prove to be both challenging and
exciting because of the many opportunities
that are available to you
Through multiple experience you will begin
to learn more about yourself and what you
can and cannot handle as you begin this
new chapter of your life.
Some question that may have come to your
mind during transition period include:
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What I am doing here?, who am I?, How do
I make this decision? And Where do I
begin? If you have tried to answer to any of
these questions, you are not alone.
College provides an environment and the
opportunity where you become a leader in
your own life and the knowledge and skills
to the entire campus community and
beyond.
I’m a Leader?
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Leadership is define as lifting of people’s
vision to a higher sight, the raising of their
performance to a higher standard, the
building of their personality beyond its
normal limitations.
In order to become a leader in your life, the
first step is to reflect on who you are and
what you believe. In addition, leadership
involves taking accountability for who you
are and what you believe.
What do you value?
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How often do you get asked who are you?
To many people, specially college students,
this is one of the most difficult questions to
answer and, many times, the answer
changes frequently.
In order to explore these question, it is
important to reflect on what you value:
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Do you value education? Family? Health?
Once you are able to identify your core
values, you are then able to start to make
informed decisions and create a clear path
for your life.
If you don’t know what you are doing and
why, it becomes that much harder to
complete a task or achieve your goal.
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If you know what you stand for and hold
important to your life, you can be confident
to express your thoughts and feelings to
others around you
Being able to identify your values is difficult
but a crucial step in becoming a leader in
your own life.
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What are your top five values?
How are your values reflected in
your everyday life?
Take responsibility
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Once you begin to reflect on your values,
you will have a better sense of what is
important to you and what you are willing to
stand up and take responsibility for.
One of the most important characteristic of
a leader is the ability to take personal
responsibility and ownership over their life.
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One of the vast difference between high
school and college is the power you have
over your education.
This means that you have a power to
choose the class you take and if you will
attend class on any given day. Due to this
your role in your education journey is huge.
This is time to feel empowered and start
chanting, “No one can do it for me”
So what does taking responsibility
look like?
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Utilize resources available to you at campus
Take ownership over your schedule and use an
organizational system. Remember the planner you
received at orientation? Use it!
Ask Questions so you know what is expected of
you. In order to take responsibility for your
education, you need to know what is expected. Ask
questions, meet with your professor and utilize your
classmates. If you don’t understand it is your
responsibility to clear up the confusion.
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Remember that you are adult now. Yes it can be
scary. Repeat it to yourself a few times. Part of
being adult is taking responsibility for your actions,
beliefs, thoughts, and behavior.
College is the safe environment to learn how to be
an adult but the most important factor in this
development is you.
Like everywhere else there are rules and
regulations you must follow and they are in place
for the good of the whole campus community
Be informed and understand what the university is
holding you to.
What does leadership look like at
CSUSM?
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Leadership in high school and leadership in
college may be expressed very differently.
In high school you might think of leadership
as related to popularity or position in
student government.
On the CSUSM campus, leadership is more
regularly reflected in responsibility,
initiative, preparation and contribution an
individual makes to group projects in
classroom.
Social change model of leadership
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The social change model of leader ship was
developed at University of California, Los
Angeles, and specifically provides to one
major dilemmas configuring any modern
democratic society: how to reconcile the
twin values of individualism and community.
College is important time to discover the
individual that you are in the context of an
academic and social community filled with
challenge and support.
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The social change model of leader ship
defines values of leadership across three
spheres: the individual, the group, and the
community/society. It acknowledges that all
students have the potential to be leaders.
That leadership is a values-based process,
and that by nature, leadership is
collaborative and often rooted in the vehicle
of service to others. Within each of these
three spheres of influence are values called
the seven C’s of leadership.
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Individual values include consciences of self,
congruence, and commitment.
Group values include collaboration, common
purpose, and controversy with civility.
Community values include citizenship and
change, with change as the ultimate
outcome of the expression of leadership.
Collaboration
Common purpose
Controversy with civility
Group Values
Congruence
Commitment
Consciousness of Self
Individual Values
Citizenship
Social/Community
Values
Consciousness of self
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Often, college is the time that students find
themselves figuring out who they want to
be. It takes work and time to figure out who
you are. Depending on your personal
background, you may be further along on
this journey than your peers, bout the
journey of self-discovery is life long and
cyclical. Sometimes lessons repeat
throughout your life.
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The value of learning and specially life long
learning is embraced at CSUSM. This is why
you are currently taking GEL which is stands
for life long learning education.
One activity that may assist you in
identifying activities or leadership
opportunities that match you natural talent
is identifying your leadership orientation.
What is your leadership
orientation?
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Take the leadership online survey that can
be find at
http://www.leebolman.com/self_rating.htm
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The letter with the highest total corresponds
to your strongest leadership orientation.
A corresponds to analytical leadership
B corresponds to human resource frame
C indicates political leadership
D symbolic leadership
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If you are analytical leader, your personal
style is grounded in facts, research,
homework, preparation, and planning. You
tend to focus on data , structure, plans and
policies.
If you are a human resource orientation
leader you focus more on relationships and
listening. You may find yourself drawn to
teamwork, communication plan, and
opportunities to empower others
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A political orientation has little to do with
politics, but instead reflects the heart of an
advocate and negotiator. You may find it
easy to navigate informal and formal
network, develop and agenda and built
allies to achieve your goals.
Symbolic leaders set the vision of what to
come. They can communicate a deep belief
in what they represent.
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To learn more about yourself and your
leadership orientation have 1-3 friends take
this survey as if they are describing you.
Compare the difference between the two
scores and your own. This will provide you
with personal feedback as how conscious
you are about your self.
Congruence
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As you can see, the first of the seven C’s is
critical. while you can develop other C’s of
leadership it is difficult to begin to negotiate
group and community dynamics if your
personal values are in flux.
The second C, shows that you are a leader
who does what they say they will do their
personal and professional values are align.
Their talk matches their walk.
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Congruence can be challenging to achieve
during your college years because often, as
a student, you are examining the values you
held while examining, filtering, and
accepting or denying the new ideas and
values espoused by faculty, students and
the campus community members which
whom you come into contact.
Commitment
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What are you committed to? This may be
easy question until that topic of time
management is thrown into mix. Whether
you are selecting courses and course time
that work for you, finding job-for money or
for interest or deciding between hanging out
with an old or new friend, values and
commitment is to a causes that energize
you to continue to pursue the challenging
work of creating positive social change.
Collaboration
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With the amount of group work you will
experience at CSUSM, you will undoubtedly
come to value the forth C, collaboration.
The outcome of collaboration is better than
what individuals could have come up with
together. It is a supreme pizza, with
combination toppings, versus a pizza made
up of slices with single supreme toppings on
each slice.
Common Purpose
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Common purpose describes a group of
individuals who come together around
shared values, taking action to achieve
outcomes that change the status quo and
communicate the importance of their
massage. As human being we often focus
more on how we are unique and individual
rather than the common experiences we
face in life. Finding others who share the
same passions as us is powerful.
Controversy with Civility
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One of the greatest skills you can learn in
college is how to debate, disagree, and
dialogue all while maintaining a sense of
respect for the person or group or individual
with whom you are engaged. It is important
to enter a conversation with a commitment
to honor the other person, treating them in
a civil manner. One of the most powerful
skill you can learn as a leader is the skill of
listening.
Citizenship
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Citizenship focuses on the actions that
individuals take to uphold the
responsibilities that come with the rights
provided members of a community.
So citizenship can be expressed locally,
regionally, or nationally, depending on the
scope of your cause and how community is
defined.
Change
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Change is hard, it takes leaders or at least
an individual or group with a leadership
attitude to make significant change happen.
Significant change can be providing a safe
ride for a friend and preventing a DUI or it
can be rallying for a policy change that
improves the student experience on
campus.
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Leadership , is inclusive and empowering to all
individuals, it simply requires one person to
connect, engage, reflect, act, and make change
happen
In a survey of CSUSM alumni, asked about the
factor that help them to find their position, their
response was:
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(36%) leadership
(43%) major and coursework
(58%) interpersonal skill
(61%) work experience