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This past week in class I thought the most interesting aspect was somewhat related to discussing strengths earlier in the semester.  This past week in class during our diversity discussions, I felt that stressing what we have in common (similarities) as opposed to how everyone is different correlates to focusing on our strengths instead of weaknesses.  I think that discussing diversity and how cultural norms come into play directly related to emphasizing our strengths as a strategy to bettering ourselves instead of attempting to fixing our weaknesses.  I feel these two ideas combined assist in providing a better and an overall more positive mindset.  Where I reside in Cleveland, I as a white male am actually the minority in my neighborhood.  My high school hardly had any diversity in that it was predominantly black with a caucasian minority.  I feel growing up in this environment has greatly helped me in communicating with those of different backgrounds from myself.  In addition it has made me much less judgmental in respect to how I view others and my overall perspective-taking.  Taking these points into account, I believe combining these ideas concerning strengths and diversity can assist me in becoming a greater leader by improving my strengths and considering the perspectives of all others I communicate with.

This past week in class I was very surprised of the impact of our guest speaker on Tuesday discussing how leadership is used today to affect change, as well as the variety of our oral book reports we presented on Thursday.  Firstly I thought that our guest speaker Tuesday spoke eloquently and really got across her message of using our leadership skills in the real world to affect positive change.  The story she elaborated on concerning the water treatment plant in Ohio was extremely  moving.  I am from an area that is not very priveleged, so to see how these two school teachers in a relatively small town took the initiative and put forth their efforts into resisting the chemical disposal that would have surely caused many more problems in the city.  This really made an impact mainly due to the fact that these women had to go about getting informed and gaining public attention through their own way since they were not necessarily powerful people within the town (government, police, etc).  I hope that this story sets the proper precedent so others may take it upon themselves to use their own leadership skills to defend what they believe is right.

The last point I wanted to touch on from this past week was our oral book reports that we gave on Thursday.  Since my presentation was more towards the end of class, I had plenty of time to listen to the various books and points of view that each other provided on the topic of leadership/leadership skills.  I saw many connections to what we have learned throughout this course in placing faith in our strengths and stepping up to become more of a leader.  Even some of the books that went about leadership from a different frame of mind intrigued me because it just further illustrated how everyone has different strengths, and therefore different styles of leadership.  I feel that realizing and finding your own path of success and style of leadership is extremely important and can only be done based on one’s personal morals and values he/she has set for their own life.

This past week in class I thought the most interesting topic from class this past week was about time management and priority setting on Tuesday.  I believe these two to be excellent attributes for anyone, particularly college students.  When I first came to OSU as an incoming freshman, I suddenly had many more hours during my day in which I wasn’t in class.  I am a very habit-oriented person so having structure really helps me in terms of time management and deciding what I need to get done day to day.  I feel like I adapted better than I would have expected considering the workload and amount of time spent on schoolwork is exponentially higher in college than high school.  Once I arrived I needed other activities to fill my day that way I could focus on the tasks at hand as opposed to being unproductive most of the day.  In this aspect, working out really helped in that I knew during the week going to the gym was an integral part of my schedule and something that I enjoyed doing as well.  As I prepare for graduate school next year, I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for another difficulty adjustment.  In making this transition I am striving to maintain good habits concerning my time management, and in turn priority setting as well.

I thought one of the most interesting topic from this past week’s classes were when we examined Dr. B’s “Wheel of Life” and began to at least think about our own.  I believe that although everyone’s life is different in very complex ways, however I’m surprised at how well the categories listed for the “Wheel of Life” simply categorized and covered the various aspects of one’s life.  Along with describing each aspect of one’s life, it also categorizes them so as to facilitate more specific and directed goal-setting.  After analyzing each aspect of my own life, it’s very easy to see which parts of my life I need to improve on and how much effort to place on each aspect of my life.

Another topic I wanted to mention related to goal-setting concerns the study done comparing the salaries of Harvard MBA graduates following their graduation.  When Dr. B revealed how much more the graduates who wrote down their goals made compared with those who didn’t have any in mind, I did not expect it to be as high as 10 times more.  I feel like this just provides more evidence to how directed and mindful goal-setting translates to success in anyone’s life.  Even though I am not motivated as much by money as others, seeing the results of this study gives me immediate motivation to write down the goals for my Personal Development Plan.  This process can provide me with tremendous benefits and instill better goal-setting habits as I move forward with graduate school starting in the fall.

In this past week’s classes I felt the most discussion revolved around the various types of power used by different people.  I feel that not just myself, but that mostly everyone can relate in some way in seeing or demonstrating those different types of power.  I think that “legitimate power” perfectly illustrates when people refer to their newly-promoted boss as “power hungry” or something along those lines.  When we were reviewing the various aspects of each type of power, I just always associate that type of legitimate power with a negative connotation.  I’ve been in plenty of situations at work where those in more powerful positions try too hard to assert themselves and how it affects the people and work environment as a whole.  Conversely I’ve seen and experienced the positive effects of those using “referent power” as their primary source of power.  When there is a solid relationship between co-workers, I feel referent power is a huge tool that I think more bosses could utilize more often.

Overall I do see that each source of power has its proper time and place in which it can be used successfully.  I’ve never before dissected or categorized these sources of power, so speaking of them as we did in class greatly helped illustrate how each is/can be used in every day situations.

During this past week’s class periods, I thought it most interesting when we were discussing our various strengths based on our StrengthsQuest results.  I personally thought that the program got it pretty much right in analyzing my top 5 strength themes.  My top 5 from top to bottom were harmony, individualization, developer, learner, and includer respectively.  Just based off of the names I did not immediately think all were necessarily true; however after reading the descriptions of how each relates to how one handles particular situations, I believed all of these to be representative of myself.  A common theme throughout most of my 5 strengths is that I like to work with a diverse group of others, trying to facilitate working together cooperatively for a mutual goal.  Combining this fact with “Harmony” as my number one strength, I believe differing viewpoints are necessary in every situation but do not believe arguing makes the process any easier or enjoyable.  I try to include everyone else’s opinion on a certain subject and try to get everyone in the group on the same page so it is easier to move forward with whatever goal we are trying to accomplish.

Lastly I was also somewhat relieved when Dr. Birkenholz mentioned that just because certain strengths were not listed in your top 5, that does not mean everything else is a weakness.  It just so happens that based on our responses, that these particular themes were most prevalent.  In this way I am very interested to see what other strengths I have and can further utilize as I go through the process of emphasizing my leadership strengths.

The most striking and interesting topic during this week’s class periods was definitely discussing the prospect of focusing on one’s strengths as opposed to focusing on fixing one’s weaknesses.  As an athlete I’ve never honestly even thought of mainly focusing on improving what you already do well.  I’m honestly surprised how closed I was to seeing the other way of thinking as a route to success.  I like to think of myself as very open-minded and understanding of differing viewpoints.  Although this is the exact opposite to how I’ve approached not just sports but many other aspects of my life; it makes so much more sense now when I think back to somewhat lengthy periods of success in my life.  The easiest example are the grades of the classes in which I’ve done well in.  My major GPA is significantly higher in my major courses, which I know to be attributed to my interest in those subjects.  Other examples are in sports when I made great strides in soccer and tennis in my high school career.  When I further developed my strengths I became significantly more successful in those sports and was much happier in the process.  As I move on to graduate school next year in which my work ethic will have to even much more improved than now, and I believe focusing on what I do well will help me throughout school and for the future.  I am overall very glad this was presented to us and in the manner in which it was.  I feel this can really change my outlook and the way I go about my daily life, and is definitely the most interesting topic we have discussed yet this semester.