The Leadership competency area addresses the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required of a leader, with or without positional authority. Leadership involves both the individual role of a leader and the leadership process of individuals working together to envision, plan, and affect change in organizations and respond to broad-based constituencies and issues.

Ever since I was a young person, others have recognized leadership abilities in me. I was elected to my first leadership position at the age of 12, in sixth grade; more leadership responsibility quickly followed. I participated in a youth leadership organization until I graduated from high school. In college, I was nominated to The Bridge, an interfaith leadership organization. Our primary accomplishment was convincing the college dining hall to stay open later during Ramadan so Muslim students could eat after sundown. In seminary, I served as President of CAUSE Justice, the social justice organization on campus. I was the only student nominated to the Boston University School of Theology Leadership Society by two separate faculty members: once for CAUSE Justice, and another for my leadership in Seminary Singers, which I helped to grow by using my strength in Winning Others Over to recruit members.

            Although I have never taken any formal training or courses specific to leadership, leadership skills and abilities have always come naturally to me. I was nominated and elected to my first formal leadership position at the age of twelve, and subsequently began a role in a youth leadership organization just after I turned thirteen; I continued participation through high school graduation. Like my compatriots in the organization, I just dove in and did it. One component of leadership, in my experience, is simply being willing to be the first volunteer for something. Often, other folks follow in a volunteer effort once the first person has agreed to join. Being a somewhat fearless person, I never found it difficult to jump into new things. Another more challenging component of leadership is collaborative problem-solving. This is a necessary skill when a large committee is planning a regional event, and that was the focus of our organization. Before long, I picked up the interpersonal (sometimes called the political) side of leadership within an organization, especially using skills like consensus-building, , and compromise, and networking to find creative solutions to problems.

            Without being afforded leadership training in a traditional setting, I learned more advanced components of leadership through trial-and-error. One aspect I had to learn on my own is change management. In my corporate job, I quickly recognized the tension between the nature of a technology company, rooted in a sector that values innovation above all else, and its clients in higher education, a sector that tends to resist change and approach it with caution. Our transition to a completely new software platform taught me quite a bit about change management. In a client-facing role, I quickly discovered that relationships can be jeopardized when process changes are not communicated properly, and when stakeholders are not involved in the process as valued participants. This can result in clients feeling that decisions are arbitrary (innovation for innovation’s sake, with no rhyme or reason) and that decision-makers do not care about them or their needs. I found that anticipating and attending to clients’ emotional needs around these changes effectively helped to mitigate their ire. Effectively managing relationships clients involves knowing them personally and understanding what is most important to them, regardless of whether or not their priorities were consciously acknowledged. Moreover, knowing my superiors’ preference for data-driven decision-making allowed me to assemble the relevant information before lobbying them to better meet clients’ needs.

            When I enrolled at Northeastern, I brought this knowledge of change management with me. The primary reason I was recruited was to help transition our nursing programs’ admissions processes to a new platform, NursingCAS.  While my knowledge I possessed from having worked at the company that built NursingCAS is valuable, it was even more valuable that I recognized that the resistance to change was rooted in the nursing faculty not feeling heard or validated by their leadership. After a few months on the job, I realized that the nursing faculty are driven by relationships. I decided to take the time to sit down with faculty members individually and listen deeply to their needs. My supervisors were skeptical at first, but they did not object since I was still able to successfully balance my workload. Where large group trainings had failed, my individual meetings succeeded. I made it a point to ask faculty, “What is your biggest pain point? What takes up too much of your time?” I did everything I could within the system’s functionality to save them time and effort. My dual knowledge of the tech side and the relational side of admissions work allowed me to forge relationships and teach new skills to nursing faculty whom some had considered too entrenched in old workflows to learn. Recently I was able to accomplish a major breakthrough in interdepartmental collaboration toward transitioning our ABSN program to the new platform. Currently, I am planning a meeting to bring together all the stakeholders to present the process and seek consensus moving forward.             As a result of these accomplishments in change management and leading an interdepartmental process, in some ways I have reached Intermediate mastery in leadership. However, my lack of formal training means that I am missing theoretical information on the theory of leadership, and decision-making models. While I have informally mentored and encouraged others to contribute since high school, I am only now embarking on a formal mentorship experience. So far, I have not been offered training specific to leadership, but I am eager to participate as soon as the occasion arises. I intend to consult a colleague who specializes in leadership theory and practice to determine which resources I should seek. I hope that through independent study, and later in training through my employer, I can fill in my knowledge gaps and move toward Intermediate mastery in all dimensions of leadership.