Students Today, Leaders Forever (STLF) was an amazing opportunity to travel over spring break all over the US and finally to Pensacola, Florida. STLF is a non-profit organization that’s mission is to “reveal leadership through service, relationships, and actions.” I love telling people what I did for spring break because it will always hold a special place in my heart. Instead of going on vacation, I chose to help those in need as well as getting to explore so many new cities. I believe myself to be an extroverted leader, but it takes a lot for me to put myself out there when hopping on a bus with 40 students whom I don’t know well. The most atypical part of the experience was to be a person on the trip that wasn’t “in charge” per see, as in I didn’t plan any of the trip. A group of 5 college students lead the trip, dubbed bus core, and to me this meant no “real” adults. By being able to step back from leading the trip, it allowed me to critique the bus core’s leadership style. The bus core had an affiliative leadership approach with the multitude of team activities meant to bring everyone on the bus closer to each other. Some activities focused on getting energy out, quieting us down, learning about each other, and discovering ourselves. This type of leadership was meant to create emotional bonds and harmony between students, part of the mission behind STLF. These are my favorite leadership traits as I lead with empathy very often and want others to respect my presence as a leader. However, I did not enjoy the spontaneity of the trip and the lack of an itinerary to look at. Some parts of the trip were poorly executed, and better planning could have potentially avoided some situations, such as staying in a homeless shelter type place in a more crime ridden part of Jackson, Mississippi. However, most students took it all in good spirit. I began to understand it’s ok to not always have a plan, and to just go with the flow, and that this is the style many college students take as we begin to grow into the people we will become.
Every day the students on the trip worked together to do a specific volunteer activity. While at our first service project, packaging Cheerios at a food distribution center, it was clear at first that my group was confused on what we were supposed to do to start the project. In the best interest of doing as much service as possible, I delegated tasks to my other group members. Nobody disagreed, and most were happy that I had taken charge and split up the task in an easy to follow way. Since we were standing on a concrete floor doing a repetitive task for a couple of hours, it would get difficult to not get bored as we are all so tired from sleeping on the floor. To keep everyone in good spirits, several teams came up with cheers and some even had a competition to see who could package the most food. What also worked well was switching jobs with other students periodically. You can read about my other volunteer leadership experiences throughout the week in my STLF journal below by clicking on the button.
My leadership philosophy used to be along the lines of “work hard, do as your told, be respectful to everyone, and be on time”. When I started the trip, I also thought I would be with other students who had very similar leadership styles to mine, but I was quite wrong. The biggest difference was our view on work ethic. I am a person that puts 110% into the work I’m doing, and it really frustrates me when others goof off instead of working. This even became a big issue after an organization kicked our group out after realizing a lot of students weren’t taking the work seriously, saying disrespectful remarks about the task and why we were there. I struggled with this immensely throughout the trip as I worked so hard and felt like I was one of the very few actually trying.
I finally made the realization after the trip that not everyone shared the same work ethic as I did, and that I was going to encounter this throughout my entire life. I was making an impact where I went and that’s what mattered. By beginning to understand this was when my philosophy of leadership began to change. I realized I needed to listen to my team’s opinions more often and take a step back. Such as when I returned to RHA Executive Board after the trip, instead of laying out tasks that needed to be completed, I would ask what everyone thought needed to be done and let them volunteer for the positions first. This allowed everyone to choose a job that fit to their strengths. I also had us look over our team standards again and how we could change them to better our group and align and discuss each of our own strengths and weakness’.
My philosophy changed to “clear communication and accountability within reason, open to discussion on all ideas, working towards a common goal based on our strengths and weakness’” I know that if I hadn’t gone on this trip I may not have changed the way I interacted with different teams. What I have learned about how to build relationships on this trip will also be applied to forming relationships with my floor as a Community Advisor at MSU, such as how recognition of a good job is so important, understanding the importance of where everyone comes from, and how to overcome and understand our weaknesses