Theories, SWOT, and Emotional Intelligence

Today was another busy day at the leadership institute, beginning with our first look into the newest theories and research about the practice of leadership. Among these theories is the "strength finding" approach as we all discovered in our pre-work reading Now, Discover Your Strengths. We started our day with a nice pop quiz about the main concepts of the book, and as the morning passed we continued to discover our strengths, gaining more insight into ourselves and the themes that best describe us. We had a chance to work in groups to learn more about our talents, tendencies, and other people who posses similar themes.

Lunch was welcomed with open arms, and after everyone was well fed, we were all ready to apply our strengths and weaknesses to our CLP (Community Leadership Plan) projects, using the acronym SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. We learned about the internal and external factors that could help us or harm us in achieving an objective, and partnered up to specifically map out each of the SWOT factors in relation to our individual projects. This gave us the chance to get feedback on our projects, as well as consider how to run our projects effectively (using our strengths/opportunities and planning around any weaknesses/threats).

Our last lesson of the day was my personal favorite, relating to emotional intelligence. We discussed intelligence in it's many forms - how we define it, how we test it, and most importantly, how it affects the people we work with in a group. We played the "HAHA" game, learning that our emotions can be contagious, and as a leader, it is our duty to set the "mood" for our group or team. Furthermore, we discussed the sections of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

In the evening, we had some time to get some fresh air, eat dinner, and grow our leadership community. Then we split up, half of us working on a leadership project to analyze and learn from the styles, strengths, and weaknesses of a historical leader, and half of us working to plan our Ronald McDonald Community Service project to be conducted this weekend. Well, TTFN, ta ta for now.