Learning to Lead in the Digital Age

It seems while the world continues to move to increased digital reliance, this concept of the digital divide grows ever more prominent.  Understanding the inequity that exists when it comes to the use and access of technology is crucial to understanding how to best utilize technology in various fields, especially education.  At its most fundamental level, the digital divide is concerned with understanding how to integrate and utilize technology in a way that is equitable and provides the greatest service to the greatest number of users.  When considering the field of education, the digital divide also deals with a number of issues restorative justice practices also aim to improve.   For our emerging technology practices project our group focused on the importance of restorative justice practices in peak transition periods in education (middle to secondary education and secondary to higher education).  What we discussed was an overwhelming theme of meeting s...

  Photo credit: Larisa-K   "We are more likely to learn something from people who disagree with us than we are from people who agree." (Fullen, p. 53).  When thinking about the leaders I admire most I realize they lead with this idea in mind.  So often the most respected leaders I've encountered surround themselves with people who differ in ideas and strategies from them, in an attempt to create meaningful dialogue.  These leaders also do not force others to follow their lead simply because they have the best ideas.  They understand that disagreement or varying perspectives is essential for an office, department, team or institution to ultimately thrive. For example, I can remember my boss completely halting a project because someone suggested an alternative plan that would require the entire team to pivot.  The entire team had spent months planning a campus wide event and had specifically spent countless meetings trying to find the easiest way for par...

  I  decided to use TagCrowd to create a visualization of my first blog post: Who Am I as a Leader?  I've used this tool in the past when working with younger students, training new tour guides, and developing student organization activities.  I like this tool a lot and its ability to show common themes in your writing in a new way.  

 "You're going to be in charge of managing a sheep herd this semester.  Whoever has the most living sheep at the end of the semester wins."  This is how my animal genetics professor opened class the first day of my sophomore year.  I distinctly remember my classmates and I looking at each other in disbelief before the whispers started.   She's going to put us in charge of sheep?  Is that legal? I don't know the first thing about sheep! This is insane! Yes, we all could have guessed that our professor was not actually going to put a bunch of inexperienced students in charge of multiple live sheep herds but this was pre-pandemic learning and technology-based lab experiments were not common practice in our Animal Science program.   Our professor was one of a handful of professors who understood the importance of integrating fun and interactive technology into what was otherwise a class full of numbers, calculations and confusing situations....

You know those people who can walk into a room full of chaos and immediately bring a sense of calm and order to the situation?  Those are great leaders.  The best leader I've had the pleasure of working with has the innate ability to bring calm and order to any chaos while empowering those around them to take initiative and find confidence in their own abilities and ideas.  Watching them interact with others and from interacting with them myself I feel this leader balances professionalism with a genuine interest in others.   They are authentic, compassionate, humorous, hard-working, and always willing to step into any task needed.  They grew into their role through hard work and experience and they are always willing to share insight and advice with those looking to further their careers or better themselves.   A key element of this leader's style is humility.  They are not afraid to admit when they do not know something or when an idea did n...

 When reflecting on who I am as a leader I am reminded of various leadership roles I have held over the past few years.  These roles varied in so many ways; types of organizations, responsibilities, coworkers or members of the organizations, etc.  I'm also forced to evaluate whether these roles were considered "official" or "unofficial".   One of the main leadership roles that come to mind when reflecting on who I am as a leader is my role as Training Supervisor for a service dog training organization.  In short, my job was to oversee all hander and dog teams in the organization and conduct group and individual training sessions designed to help these dogs on their journeys to becoming active service dogs.  This collegiate, service organization presented a number of incredible opportunities for me as a leader and gave me the chance to fine-tune communication and other necessary leadership skills.   During my time as Training Supervisor, I rel...