My Day as leader

My day as a leader involved me taking initiative to get better ideas for my group project. A leader was designated from each group and was told to stay at the board and get ideas from different groups on how we can better our projects.  I knew that since there would be many people giving me ideas, that I had to develop some sort of strategy and be completely open-minded to everyone's ideas without changing my group goals. I listened to what the group members had to say then  picked which ideas would be more beneficial in the end. It was  tough when I had to come in contact with larger groups because it was difficult to keep everyone on task and have them not have side conversations. However, larger groups were able to come up with more ideas. The smaller groups of one or two individuals was a lot easier to maintain however there was only so much information that they could come up with. I think this really challenged me considering I am a quiet person. It made me step up more so that I could complete the task at hand.

Active Listening

Today I went out to lunch with an old friend that I hadn't seen in a very long time. She has been going through some rough times recently and she really needed a friend she could trust to vent to. When we went out to lunch I could feel that she had a lot of tension and really just needed to let everything out. As she started to open up and let everything out I thought back to our active listening lesson and I thought that this would be a great time to put this to practice. And it really did work. She said she felt really relieved that I was actually listening and I understood everything she was saying. Even though it felt awkward at first to be repeating what she was saying, to her it helped to know that I was truly engaged in her conversation and it made her feel comfortable to open up even more.

The Virtual Water Cooler

My name is Jennifer Ortiz and I am a junior here at the University of Delaware. My major is medical technology and I am thinking about minoring in leadership. I am from south jersey from a little town called Egg Harbor City NJ. I am a member of Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Incorporated and I am also NALFO president. I chose to answer question number 2. It is as follows: Do you hold a leadership position in a campus group? Explain your position. Who are your followers? Is there anyone who leads above you and how does that affect your ability to lead your group?
 I am currently NALFO president here at the University of Delaware. NALFO stands for national association of Latino Fraternal Organizations. Basically what NALFO is is an umbrella organization for all the Latino fraternities and sororities on campus. My job as NALFO president is to make sure all university rules are followed and to make sure my council can be the most affective to the community and to my members. My followers are my follow peers. I currently oversee 3 fraternities and 5 sororities, making a total of 30 people. How NALFO is run is that I basically conduct the meetings once a week with my council enforcing rules, putting on programs, doing community service and fundraisers. I also meet with the assistant director of student life once a week to talk about my council. We discuss my budgets and we discuss what my council does around the university and ways we can improve. I think having someone such as the assistant director of student life above me makes me act a lot more professional at my meetings. It effects me because I know this has to be run right. I feel as if a student were above me I wouldn't necessarily take my job so serious, but because a professional is above me, it makes me want to always be professional.