Learning to Lead in the Digital Age

 "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...