Leadership Skills

1)      Share one personal experience where you have seen the Technical/Professional Expertise leadership competency in action.

While playing on Occidental College's football team, I had the opportunity to play with one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Andy was excellent. He was a leader that worked hard and motivated others. Andy had many strengths as a leader but among his top was his expertise in the position at quarterback. Andy had worked long and hard to refine his skills and knowledge for the position and any time Andy walked onto the field, he delivered results. Among all of Andy's strengths this expertise led to him being a great leader of our team. People trusted him because he knew how to get his hands dirty and perform in way that gave him success but also helped those around him become better.

Sure, without these technical skills, Andy still would have been motivational, a hard worker, full of integrity but he would never have a) been put in a position to have as much impact as he did nor b) been as effective of a leader if he did not posses the skills that acted a catalyst to enable his other skills to shine through.

2)      Share one personal experience where you have applied skills from the Solves Problems and Analyzes Issues leadership competency.

While serving as Vice President of the Utah College Republicans, I had the opportunity to help solve a major problem for the UVU chapter. UVU has long had a strong College Republican chapter but recently, the organization was on the verge of collapsing. The club President, after winning a very bitterly contested election decided to drop out of college, leaving the chapter without leadership. When I became aware of the situation, I had only a few days to reach out to some of the old club leaders, help them decide to step up, and aid them in the the task of rechartering  the club before the University deadline.

3)      How does innovation apply to your specific responsibilities?  How do you show support of innovation in others?

To innovate means to make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products or to introduce something new, There are only two ways to improve: do the same things better or do new things. Innovation is a key ingredient in the former and is essentially synonmous with the latter. In esssence, innovation is essential for improveing effectiveness and efficiency. Without innovation, growth and progress would come to a near standstill; processes and organizations can only marginally improve so far. 

With this in mind, here are three specific ways that innovation applies to my duties:

• Presenting: I can innovate in the way that I present. Rather than simply presenting the same way everytime, I can think of new and creative ways to convey inspiration and inspire.
• Brightideas: I can work with program director to help do things differently and better. Bright ideas is more "open ended" program. As such, there is a lot of room creativity not only in the way we run the program but also the way we encourage innovation in students. In fact, the enitre program runs on innovation.
• Focus groups: Although focus groups is a clearly defined program, I can work with my program directors to think of new ways of working with others within BYUSA and even more avant guarde ways of hosting a focus group.

You can support innovation in others by:

• Listening to others ideas without rejecting them
• Compimenting innovation when you see it
• Sharing your ideas openly and freely with others
• Bounce ideas back in a supportive matter
• Encourage others to challenge the status quo by showing your confidence in them

This is in no way an exhaustive list but they are a few suggestions.