Leading Change

As a Junior in high school, I was required to read a book called "Who Moved My Cheese." This book was all about accepting change and and how to adapt to the changes that are thrown at us in life. I really liked this book and found that I am usually pretty accepting to change. This past week in our leadership class, we learned about leading change. It was interesting to look at change in the view point of someone who initiates change rather than just accepting it. There are situations where as a leader you need to be able to accept change but other times where as a leader you need to be the one who leads change.
All throughout life, we will be put into situations where things are not running well or something needs to be changed. A good leader will recognize this needed change and will take the necessary steps to fulfilling this needed change.
In my leadership role of Relief Society president, me and my counselors had the opportunity to see an issue and promote a desire to fix it. We had been having a hard time getting girls to report their visiting teaching to their supervisors and we were trying to fix the problem from the top down. With a little thoughtful actions and work, we found the basis of the problem and were able to solve this issue. This last month we had 99% Visiting Teaching. This initiation to lead change almost solved the problem completely!

GOOD... BETTER.... BEST!

This week's lecture was all focused around ethics. We did a whole bunch of scenarios where we had to decide to support one story or the other. What I found most interesting is that most of the options we had were not between good and bad but rather two decent options to choose from.
With General Conference right around the corner, this activity reminded me of the talk given a few years ago about "Good, Better, Best." Most of the decisions in life will not be one's where there is a clear line between what is good and what is bad. There will be a few but not many. And I believe that if we have prepared ourselves prior to this then those decisions will be really easy to make. The real challenge comes when trying to choose between something that is good and something that is better. When this happens, you really have to search into what your core ethics and values are. You have to know what you really want in the long run, not necessarily what is appealing for today.
As I apply this to my leadership role, it is very relevant. In Relief Society, there are many ways that we can go about helping the sisters in my ward. However, we need to take the time and find what way is BEST to help them become the BEST girls they can become. Each and every girl needs help in a different way and I need to search hard to find what is best for them.

As an update from previous weeks, our visiting teaching numbers were off the charts this month. I really think that working from the bottom up helped a lot and made it so we were more successful. There was only one companionship in our entire Relief Society that didn't get their VT done this month. YAY.. I am so proud of my girls. Well, that is all for this week. I'll keep you updated next week.

Situational Leadership

This week's lessons were highly informative. I learned some great things that will be very important to my leadership role now and in the future. We learned about situational leadership. On Monday we learned a few things that I really liked. First, when we are put in tough situations, never forget the divine. Never lose sight of what is truly important and what matters most. The other thing that I learned was that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. We have talked about many different typs of leadership this year and I have worked hard each week to acquire characteristics of those types each week but it wasn't until this week that I learned the importance of having a wide range of leadership skills. Depending on different situations, I will have to use different approaches to leading others.
This is highly important when applying it to my leadership role. As Relief Society president, every person that I serve and watch over is different. In my ward, there are varying people all with different concerns and needs. This requires me to be able to adapt to different situations easily and to have an open mind to the needs of the sisters.
This Sunday I am giving my last Relief Society lesson for the year and I plan to teach on carying out some of the things we have learned this year at BYU and keeping those things with us throughout the summer. There are many things that I think the sisters in my ward need to hear so I will try and pull as many of those ideas together to best fit everyone. I have loved getting to know the sisters in my ward and they have made me a better leader, friend, supporter, and overall just a better person. I will forever be grateful for this experience and the growth I have experienced from it!

Strategic Planning

This week we learned about strategic planning by using the model RACE! RACE stands for Research, Action Plan, Carry Out, and Evaluate. I really enjoyed being able to take a problem step by step to find the best solution to our problem. It was quite ironic because the problem our group was given was a ward problem that was to be discussed at ward council. I participate in ward council each month and we are often faced with problems similar to the one we worked through on Wednesday in class. 

As I attempt to cary some of the things that I learned on Wednesday into my leadership role, I found that it will be crucial to start at the foundation and work through PrOACT. PrOACT stands for problem, objectives, alternatives, consequences, and tradeoffs. It is crucial that you really find what the problem is before you try to work on solutions. In my calling, we have really been struggling with getting girls to report their visiting teaching. The district leaders have a hard time remembering to contact the girls that do not contact them and this makes it so my counselors have to call a lot of girls each week. For the past few weeks we have be trying to work from the top down and it REALLY has not worked at all. After much conversation, we decided that we needed to work from the bottom (foundation) up. We gathered all of our district supervisors and just let them know what our problem was and how they could help. I am hoping that this will help and that we will begin to see better results. This next Sunday I hope to see that from the bottom up, the girls have reported their information. I'll be sure to let you know if it works or if there are other adjustments we need to make! 

Have a great week!

Public Speaking

Well this week has been an eventful one to say the least. I learned how to speak in public and then I gave a presentation on an awesome book.
There was one thing that we learned on Monday in our group lecture that really stuck out to me about public speaking. It was that you first need to know your audience. And of course I already knew that but not to the extent that she took it.
I have personally experienced times when a guest speaker came to a class of mine and spoke on something at the time that was very difficult to hear. I have had some interesting/hard experiences in life. When I was nine my older brother and sister were taken in a car accident. A few months after, we moved from where we were living in Colorado to Spanish Fork, Utah. In my first few months of school, we had a lady come to our class and talk about drunk driving. At the time, this was a huge deal to me. As a little 9 year old, I could not hold back the tears and the class quickly became very awkward and I left in tears.
As she spoke to us on Monday, I realized how important it is to truly KNOW your audience. Of course, there was no way that this nice counselor could have known but now that I look back, I realize how helpful it would have been if I would have had a little heads up to the topic being discussed and if she would have known a little of my background.
As I apppy this to my current leadership role, it is a very prevelant topic. In Relief Society, we are there to help others draw closer to Christ and to help them strengthen their testimony. This week, my goal is is to get to know a few of the girls a little more. I will do visits one night this week and get to know a few girls a little deeper. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has a story. I want to know their story!

Its going to be a SPECTACULAR week!!!

Hold The ROPE!

I really loved this week's classes and the things we learned and the activities we did! For my entire life, I have always been a member of a team and to me there is nothing more fulfilling than being successful as a team.
In high school, I had the opportunity to play on many sports teams including soccer, basketball, and track! In basketball we were back-to-back state champions. The first year we won state, our theme of the tournament was "Hold the Rope." It was a story of trust, team work, and commitment. The story goes somewhat like this:
If you were dangling off a cliff and the only thing you had between you and death was a rope, who would you want holding on to the other end? You would want someone you trust. Someone you know would never let go and would do anything to make sure you made it to safety.
We then went on to compare this to our team and how we could trust anyone on our team to hold the end of the rope. How we knew that together we could do anything. That year we went undefeated and made friendships that will last a lifetime.

This experience has taught me a lot. I have learned the value of working together as a team and how everyone has to have a common goal in mind in order to be successful. As I try and apply these things I have learned from past experiences and also from the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, I think the one aspect I want to work hardest on is trust!
I strongly believe that trust is the foundation that every interaction is based on. If I can build the trust of the sisters in my ward, then maybe I can be able to better help them and their needs. This week I will look for little ways to serve the sisters in my ward and better build their trust!
HAVE A VERY HAPPY WEEK!!!!!

Me? Conflicts? Never!

First of all, just a quick update on my goal from last week! I had a chance to meet with a sister in my ward that had asked me a few questions and needed help with a few things. It was awesome. And in the long run, she ended up helping me find a few of my talents and she completely made my day. It is always amazing to me how serving others can bless my life so much.
So this week we talked about something that is a little hard for me and is something that I will work to improve: CONFLICT. First of all, when it comes to arguments, for the most part I am a very passive person. If it is not a topic I am extremely interested in, I would rather just let the other person be right. On Monday we discussed ways that we can solve conflict. I'm not going to lie, I am not very good at confronting people. I am way too afraid that I will hurt someone's feelings and I really don't like doing that.
On Wednesday we participated in little skits where we had a problem and then had to figure out how to solve it. I realized that in my leadership role as Relief Society president one of the problems that I often face is girls not wanting to do their Visiting Teaching. One thing I chose to do at the beginning of the semester (when the girls were getting new assignments) was to pair girls who didn't always do their VT with girls who had always been valiant in completing it. This is one approach to conflict resolution: fix the problem before it can even be started.
My goal for this next week is to find a girl who is not doing her VT and offer to do anything I can to help... even if it includes me going with her to get it done. That way they will see that I really do care about all of the sisters in my ward.
Well, I hope this week goes well and that I am able to solve a few problems. I will continue to work on being more confident in confronting people but always doing it in a kind way.