DFS Week 4 Reaction

Directed Field Student Week 4

This week I spent six hours with a my mentor at her Social Justice Leadership Institute reunion. SJLI is a series of educational leadership workshops for women, people of color, LBGTQ members, and other members of underserved groups. Its mission is to provide needed mentorship, network connections, and confidence to underserved populations serving in a multitude of roles within the Washington's 34 community and technical colleges.

I was one of the initial 20 members of the original cohort. Dr. Irey created this institute in response to research she completed during her doctoral studies. The research revealed an incredible amount of underutilized talent and she wanted to do something about it. This week's connections was a reunion of that initial group and introduction to the newest cohort who were completing their own serial of workshops.

In this week's culminating series, we discussed our journeys. The most recent cohort discuss her their lives had perspectives have been affected by their participation. We, the first year cohort, discuss our growth and where we the journey has taken us since we last met more than a year ago. From that point, we participated in a workshop discussing real-life case studies. We were to develop our thoughts from the frame of being the leader responding to these circumstances. The objective of the exercise was to develop within the participants an understanding of how politics impact our decision making in many educational settings. Additionally, we also discussed how perceptions may impact our judgement or the judgement of our colleagues and coworkers and contribute to a multitude of unfavorable outcomes.

I found the entire experience useful because I was able to expand my network of colleagues and I was able to participate in real leadership scenarios and capture a glimpse of my response in those situations. Finally, Dr. Irey also revealed some biases that may exist in our conversational approaches such as males dominating conversations and not valuing women in these exchanges, internal biases toward people of color in leadership, and heterosexual vs homosexual male conversation and discussion styles.

From this week's readings a key takeaway was the use of checklists to guide the Rider and motivate the Elephant. During my time at a Burger King in Alabama, we used checklists to ensure all tasks for opening and closing the restaurant were completed. We also used these checklists to guide our work throughout the day. It proved a very effective method to developing a solid work ethic in young workers with minimal to no experience and the development came rather quickly. I also used a number of checklists in the Army. These checklists supported leadership in making sure all of their direct reports were prepared to do a mission or perform a task to standard. This was critical because many of the tasks and missions we participate in must be completed with almost no margin for error.

In my current work, I had been reluctant to institute a checklist in the past. I have found that many civilian workers, including those who were former military members, find such checklists to be signs of wrongdoing. I implemented the checklist with my team of advisors and they immediately went down this path. I explained that the purpose of the checklist was to help make it easier to recall the series of tasks we need to complete throughout the day to successfully execute our mission of serving students. Once I explained the purpose, they agreed that the checklist would really help them better manage the day and reduce the pressure that they feel to remember every single step of every task. This is the first full week of the checklist. I plan to evaluate to its effectiveness over the next several weeks. I also plan to use the checklist to guide my work and develop a checklist for many of my personal tasks and projects to help me better manage my life outside of work.