Jerri Bird

Happy Halloween everyone!

I agree with Sable and Kelly. I enjoyed Jerri Bird but it was hard for me to follow her. I did enjoy her talking about her experiences living in the middle east. It is so cool that she has lived in or visited every Middle Eastern country except for 2. My grandparents travel all the time all over the world and it is great to hear their stories. I think its great that Jerry Bird is doing a lot to help the women over there. I found it very interesting the stories she heard from these women, esp their thoughts on American women. Its fun to have these women speakers come in and tell us their stories. This way we can hear experiences women have in leadership and we can learn from them.

Guest Speaker

I agree with Sable about the guest speaker. Although I really liked what she had to talk about, I did feel that it was difficult, even for me, to pay attention. However, I really liked hearing about her accomplishments as a woman because it gave me insight to what I could maybe one day accomplish in my own life.
When it comes to the guest speakers, I'm sure like others in the class, want someone that is upbeat and funny but also gives a strong message across to everyone. I think that maybe in the future of this course that when the professors look at the different women that they bring to speak, maybe have a mixture of presentation styles since I know not everyone is the same when speaking to a class. :0) But I enjoyed all of them none-the-less and I also look forward to the Dean coming to speak this week.

Guest Speaker Jerri Bird

Ms. Jerri Bird has accomplished a lot in her career. As professor Scott mentioned she was a bit different from the other guest speakers. She was really calm and had this mono-tone speaking voice. I did like her points but I feel as though her presentation would of been more effective if she had been more enthusiastic. Also some of the presentations that were presented last week were good. I personally enjoyed the one about the principal. It seems as though the principal was really down to earth and straight forward which I think are great qualities of a leader.

Guest Speakers

I really enjoyed the guest speakers. I thought the first lady was very inspiring and very funny. I enjoyed listening to her talk about how she got where she is and about her experiences. I was surprised that she was able to meet with all those women and I thought it was great that she engaged us in her speech. I enjoyed the next two women who talked together. Even though they have different political views, they still seem to work great together. They both had amazing stories to tell and I was very grateful that they were able to come to speak to us.

Self Awareness

I think Kelly and Sable have good points about knowing yourself before you lead others. I think that is the most important thing about leadership. Sometimes when people are attempting to lead groups they lose what they believe in just so that they can get ahead. As leaders we are all different and unique that is what groups work. You play roles within the group and if you have have a strong sense of who you are to be able to perform your roles well.

This Weeks Reading!!!!

I just want to comment on what Kelly mentioned about knowing yourself first. In my other leadership class we discussed this as a class and we all pretty much agreed that this is really important for anyone. I believe that you should know what is going on within yourself before you try to correct others. Yes we all have our problems but I think that we should try to solve our own problems before we try to solve other peoples problems. Many people are able to keep their problems to themselves but sometimes eventually your problems can interfere with other things. Personal problems can make you lose focus and hender yourself from doing what it is you might want to do. Not all people are like this but I do think that any leader should know about themselves and their problems before they help others.

Also I would just like to say that I really enjoyed all of our guest speakers. They were so posititve and it shows how everyday people can slowly change something in the world. All of the guest speakers were down to earth and had a lot to share with the class. I couldnt believe how many powerful people that our first guest speaker had met with. Everyone was a true inspiration.

Blog Seven: Komives Chap 3

The first sentence in the "Knowing-Being-Doing" section of chapter three states, "Individuals involved in the leadership process (leaders, members, co-creators, and so on) need to know themselves well before they work with others to influence change or achieve common purpose" (Komives. Pp76). I couldn't agree more with that statement since there is no possible way that anyone could contribute to a group or purpose without first knowing themselves and who they are, their beliefs, etc. To be knowledgeable, to be aware of yourself and others, and finally acting on your beliefs is critical in making change, and this is equally important as related to women and leadership.

Komives III

The reading for this week was overwhelming. But I think just made a few points about groups a little bit more clear. I really did not know the difference between the groups working groups vs teams and so on. I feel like the book is re telling us some facts that we already know. It is intereesting to see how it is presented though. Many times leadership is vague and people just want to be put into a leadership position or not. Reading through the step of how the group is formed and the dynamics that make it work make me look back at the groups that did not work out so well.

I have to also think about the types of groups that I have been. This will be the first class that I have taken that I am working in a group that is entirely female. I traditionally to be honest do not go towards all women in a group because it sometimes causes issues. But as i read the text today I realized that it is not that I am in a group with all females that make it tense. It is the enviroment that is created that makes the group. I think that sometimes women forget that it is ok to take each others sides. We neglect to remember that other women can be the best connections. We need to learn to stick together and then we will be able to get more accomplished. This seems to be the trend of why as women we are not able to always get our point accross. Many men will band together for a cause just for the fact that they can.

Group dynamics are an interesting topic and I hope to get down to the core of the issues and find how women can be in mnore productive groups and stop being afraid to turn to one another to ask for help.

Presentations

Sarah Robinson

I enjoyed listening to the presentations. I learned a whole lot not just from the presentations but about my classmates. I'm very excited about presenting my interview however I'm very nervous. Im not a fan of speaking in front of a group of people. But I had a lot of fun doing the interview and putting my presentation together so hopefully that will help me do better at speaking about it. I look forward to see the rest of the classes presentations.

Komives Part III

Komives Part III includes many ideas to help groups develop different leadership skills to help bring different talents within the group. In my other leadership class we discuss group development and I realized that Komives uses the same terms, the four rhyming words forming, storming, norming, performing. With all these qualities in a group it helps brings talent, patience, collaboration, and success. Personally I think that most groups do need all these qualities. I think it brings diversity and strengths. Someone might be strong in communicating and someone else may be strong in writing. With those two strengths your group could easily give a great presentation and write a great essay.
Also in part III I liked the traditional and inverted organizational structures. It is basically a pyramid of how the power is distributed within that certain organization. The models are very interesting because although the manager or president has the most power a lot of the times they don't have the same knowledge as the people under them. I think this is because often the lower people have more to do and complete the task for the higher person and the higher person usually just review it and pass it on to someone even higher. It just seems to me that sometimes they are not as knowledgeable because they do have so much work and they can't do it all themselves.

Blog Six: Presentations

I thought that the presentations from last week were really good. I was kind of nervous to give my presentation since I really don't like speaking in front of the class, but thankfully I didn't pass out. :0) As for the others I really learned a lot and realized how important this assignment has been in comparison to the course and my life. I walked away from the interview learning more about an individual..a woman who has made sacrifices in her own life to have the career she has and is, to me, showing that women are respected in gov't level jobs...at least at the White House. I look forward to the rest of the presentations. :0)

Blog Five: Response to Articles

I have to agree with Janet Napolitano, Arizona Governor, when she says in the article Operation Pipeline, "The minute you say we've arrived, we start going backward. We're still traveling." (Napolitano, 1). Obviously the statistics back that up when you notice that in the fifty governors we have in this nation, only nine of those are in fact women. Yes, we have powerful women in high political offices like Senator Hilary Clinton, who is also running for the presidency, and Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice, but I think that it still isn't enough. I hope that since our country is forever evolving both socially and politically, it would be awesome to see a woman president or even vice president. To have that female side to things will bring a lot of stability to our young nation in my opinion. I'm not saying that because a woman is president that "everyone is going to get along." I'm just excited about the idea of finally switching our views to incorperate another perspective and ideas...that of a woman. I mean, how can a man possibly vote on a law whether or not to legalize abortions?? Do they have a uterus? Can they have babies? I don't think so.

Museum

I was not able to get to the museum on time due to another class so I missed a floor or two I believe. From what I saw when I was at the museum I was not at all empowered either. I think I might would have a different feeling about if our tour guider was more enthused and actually sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Far as the art in the museum, I did like a couple of the paintings. I particularly liked the picture of the naked couple in bed and the pregnant women with the steps coming from inside of her. I felt that the steps symbolized women being walked all over. The other abstracts and creations in the museum didn't really appeal to me. I just think that so much more could of been said and analyzed so that we could of grasped a better understanding of what women were being represented as in that time period.

Museum

I found that I was having the same experience when it comes to walking around and looking at the exhibits. I thought that it would be a different representation of women in the arts. I found that some of the exhibits seemed to be degrading. Such as the diet photos. She was showing her looks after each stage of the diet and I dont really see the real point. I would ave found it more interesting to see her going against the grain.
When discussing the artwork with other class mates we talked about how it is a double standard that men are painting portraits of women but then when they are creating art with them in the portrait not looking realistic. I am interested in seeing the rest of the class' reactions.

Museum and Speaker

I unfortunately was not able to attend the field trip to the museum because I got sick that morning. I was really looking froward to going though. I do plan to go this weekend with my mom and I hope I get a great experience out of it. After reading what Kelly wrote, I'm a little worried about having some of those same feelings but I will have to see for myself.

I enjoyed the guest speaker. She was very nice and very knowledgeable. I enjoyed the activity she gave us; before then i had never really thought about who my role models are now and never really thought of my aunts being true role models for me and my future career of being a teacher. I hope the other guest speakers will be just as fun and interesting.