Kouzes, Ch. 3

     When Kouzes, in his exercises, asked me to recall a few meaningful moments of leadership and relate why they were meaningful, I found a persistent and recurring theme. The first, was as soccer captain when we were able to celebrate our successes (which we did at the end of each season whether it was a good one or a bad one). Another was as a vision and hearing tester for elementary age children; there was a boy going into kindergarten who didn't know his alphabet yet. I got there late and my colleague had given up on him; the boy looked miserable. I got on a computer and printed out a new vision chart that used directions instead of letters and asked him if we could try again. As he moved further and further down the chart, he got this huge smile on his face and he and his mom left happy. But the most meaningful, at the time that I was filling out the chart, was something that had just happened an hour before. Last night, a freshman from Chi Alpha Kappa called me and explained to me how stressed she is with the club and with her other friends and her family; she wanted to quit. Luckily for me, my Freshman Council President has a freshman meeting scheduled for tonight and we had just met to discuss the most important points she was going to bring up - pertaining to club unity, sisterhood, bonding, less drama. I told Courtney that I completely understood where she was coming from; I told her that I'd heard from a lot of other girls who were struggling with these same issues; I asked her if she could do me the favor of going to her President's meeting and hearing what she had to say and then call me afterward. Regardless of whether or not she does quit, I celebrated that moment. I was able to calm her down, make her feel better, convince her that we didn't want to lose her as a sister, and, ultimately, to take a moment to breathe and think thoroughly.
     This instance was the one that helped me most in choosing my values from the given list: Happiness, Family, Achievement, Organization, Patience. Family, though, not in the specific sense, but rather in a feeling of community; and Patience last, but not least: more of an overarching concept for the whole leadership process. I'm excited to have these in my mind consciously so I can further develop them as skills and put these values into action.