Skill Builders
SB #1: Observed leadership in action when we visited the legislature in progress. Two of us also saw and learned about how the Mayor runs her meetings in the UK. We've also observed volunteers developing plans for events.
SB #2: During a troop meeting we observed the interactoins of each other. We noted who talked the most, who blocks progress and who moves it along, the room's setting's effects on the group (we did this in two different meetings at two different settings), etc. We found that from two different meetings that the person who "blocks" progress changed, one who blocked one time was the one who moved progress along the next time. There are distinct persons who are the talkers and those who aren't. Our leader was good at involving everyone.
SB #3: We discussed leadership skills and determined which ones we are: K=Delegator, A=Nurturer, E=Clarifier, and H=Motivator. (we have different members now) We picked skills we thought we need to develop and worked on those.
SB #4: We read about leadership styles and figured out our style. We discussed these in our meeting and what we have in common. Then we chose a leadership style different from our own and used it in helping to plan a Bridging ceremony for the service unit.
SB #5: Two girls named and discussed examples of negative leadership. We came up with a group vision on recognizing and preventing destructive aspects of negative leadership. Technology
T #3: Via the wagggs-l list we emailed different people about how changing technologies affect leadership.
Telephone conferences are more difficult as you do not have visual contact, you have to rely on verbal tones to pick up on the mood of the other person(s).
Video conferences are also more difficul as one person is delivering all the information, there is no feedback or feedback is delayed depending on the amount of time required for the other person(s) to respond.
Forum discussions on the internet are similar to telephone, there's no way to know the real intent or tone of the person saying something.
Service Project
SP #2: We organized a program we called "Adopt-a-Grandparent" with our local nursing home and all the troops in the service unit.
Career Exploration
CE #2: We sent emails to different people in careers that each of us were interested in. They responded with answers to questions about leadership that we included in our emails.
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