Leadership

Katie Rasmuson, Ajla Smajlovic, Amam Nasir, Ludith Leon

Leadership (ˈlēdərˌSHip) - The action of leading a group of people or an organization

How our individual experiences improved our leadership skills:

Katie Rasmuson: "During our trip to Louisville, we were all able to interact with each other very closely. We worked on several projects, such as painting, organizing food, and laying mulch. Each time that we started a new project, we had to work together to figure out the best 'system.' For me, I was able to develop better problem-solving skills and apply them to our service. Because we were working together, this also helped be develop my leadership skills. I have not done much work similar to the things we were doing in Louisville, so it was beneficial for me to apply my skills in a different context."

Amam Nasir: “I believe my leadership skills improved drastically by being a part of Alternative Spring Break. An individual moment I believe that impacted my leadership view was at the House of Ruth. Growing up, I always found joy in making other people laugh and smile because I know when people smile, all is good. As we were doing our yardwork, I could not help myself by being goofy and making some fun games that made our yard work more fun. Little did I realize that doing this helped create a positive atmosphere where everyone felt energized and excited to do volunteering work. I was not thinking about this at the moment until my fellow peers told me how much they appreciated my positive attitude. I learned that I can use my personality and strengths into creating a positive environment and being inclusive at moments where things might not always be fun."

Ajla Smajlovic: “During one of our service days, we had to do yardwork such as raking leaves and mulching. A lot of this work utilized manual labor and was hard. I am probably one of the weakest people (especially with upper body muscles) so I felt useless when it came to carrying the bags of mulch around and spreading them. Since I couldn’t help with that aspect of mulching I decided to open the bags for everyone. I went around and did that for our whole group which made me feel a part of our group even though I couldn’t help with much else. Even though everyone could have done that for themselves, my group helped me use the skills I had to the best of my ability. Each person in my group showed me what a true leader was by being patient, supporting, and amazing individuals.”

Judith Leon: “Alternative Spring Break taught me what being an active citizen means. Everyone has something to contribute to their community whether it be big or small. My leadership skills greatly improved in that I was willing to take initiative and help out wherever I was needed at our volunteer locations. I was able to work individually as well as in a group setting which taught me more about my strengths. I also made sure I went out of my comfort zone during the trip to talk to people of the community and those we were volunteering for. I wanted to engage as much as possible to my community and think like an active citizen which I believe I accomplished on my trip.”

Sorting donated food and filling bags for distribution at House of Ruth

How We will Apply our Leadership Skills in the Future:

Katie Rasmuson: "Teamwork is something that will always be important. Nearly every aspect of life involves being a member of a team and working together to get a job done. The skills that I developed and improved during the course of our alternative spring break trip to Louisville, Kentucky will transfer to my everyday life, my future education, and my career. I plan to do more service work not only in my home community, but also in the Iowa City community as well. Communication, problem-solving, strategy, and many other leadership skills will come in handy, just as they did in Louisville."

Amam Nasir: “A leadership skill I plan to apply in my future is using my strengths to have more of an influential presence on my surroundings. Alternative Spring Break helped develop my skills by putting me in situations where I was able to improve them. For example, one of my Clifton Strengths is Achiever. I believe using my sense of wanting to always achieve my goals and correlate this into my personality, I can hopefully push towards accomplishing my goals by helping to influence people around me."

Ajla Smajlovic: “A leadership skill I developed through the Alternative Spring Break was improving my communication skills. Communication was a large part of every service project we worked on and being able to communicate to our team members and the people who worked with us during our service projects were very important. Because of Alternative Spring Break, I now know how to better communicate with others so that we could more efficiently work on a mutual goal. This reaffirmed my love for working with communities and I will definitely be more involved in the Iowa City community and my community back home.”

Judith Leon: “Going forward I will apply my leadership skills by serving my local community more often and taking on the role of an active citizen. I will try my best to stay updated about policies implemented in my community and how I can help others. I am currently in the process of helping my friend with her non-profit organization involving after-school programs/extracurricular activities at lower income high schools and am more motivated now to get it up and going. I have always been someone who takes the initiative to volunteer and my friends always point out that I do a lot of volunteer work; my goal now is to not only volunteer but to make strong connections with those I volunteer along with and hopefully encourage people around me to participate in volunteer work as well. I also hope to be confident enough to take on leadership positions in my community.”

Working at Our Place, helping clean, paint, and do office work

Leadership in our Common Read:

House on Fire : The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox

William H. Foege

In this book, Wiliam H. Foege describes his experiences with public health - more specifically with transmitting the smallpox vaccine in various counties in Africa and Asia. Foege made use of his leadership skill set throughout the entire book, which has helped our team utilize similar skills to become leaders of our own. In this book, Foege had to make very crucial decisions to help the greater good, which is what we believe true leaders do and this is what we strive to become.

Laying mulch and doing yard work at House of Ruth

"Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing"- Muhammed Ali

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