HDF 190:

FIRST YEAR LEADERS INSPIRED TO EXCELLENCE

LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO

Jamie mendelson
SPRING 2018

Jamie_mendelson@my.uri.edu
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Strengths
Opening Statement SLIDE #
Section 1: Self Leadership SLIDE #
Section 2: Leadership Theories SLIDE #
Section 3: Inclusive Leadership SLIDE #
Section 4: Critical Thinking SLIDE #
Section 5: Interpersonal/Organizational Leadership SLIDE #

*If you do not have one outcome from each area of the Inventory completed,
you may opt to choose 2 from one of the sections.
 Signature Strengths
Activator
Includer
Responsibility
Arranger
Significance
Values in Action Strengths
Fairness
Humor
Perseverance
Honesty
Leadership
 OPENING STATEMENT
Throughout HDF 190 I have learned more about myself than expected. I learned about how I can be an effective leader in the
community (inside and out of the classroom) without my strengths and values that tend to be different than others. My strengths
are activator, responsibility, arranger and significance. Understanding my strengths were hard at first but learning about how to
be a strong leader through all the models allowed me to understand how I use these strengths daily without even realizing. When
working in a group I use activator, arranger and significance because I like to know that stuff is getting done and I make sure I
understand the organizational process we use all together. A big part for me is also understanding that I can ask questions and
not feel like it is a dumb questions but will just help me and my group members progress. Being responsible and making sure
each part of the project is significant to me is useful because it allows me to realize that I put a lot into my group work. Working
in small groups all semester has allowed me to understand the significant of my strengths and how I portray them into being a
strong leader. Learning my strengths in HDF 190 has allowed me to comprehend how to be a leader daily. Another strong suite
that has shaped me is my values of fairness, humor, perseverance, honesty and leadership. These values allows people to see
how my character is important to how I lead and react to situations. These five values allow me to work with my strengths and be
the best leader beyond HDF 190. Thinking about the models we have covered in class, I believe I resonate most with the servant
leadership model because being is a leader is a feeling I just exhibit, which the creator of this model Robert Greenleaf shares is
initially how servant leaders feel. Then I work with my characteristics (strengths and values) to bring them into my community
and leave my impact. I find this model so important because it describes being a leader in the smallest situation, in my case
holding a door or smiling at somebody, to the biggest situation, of me being a camp counselor. Understanding this model has
allowed me to understand my strengths and values that much more to become a valuable leader in the community. This model
has also taught me that even though I am an undecided major as of know, I know I want to lead my community in the future no
matter what field I end up in. The elements and servant leadership model have taught me what type of impact I want to leave on
the community and how being an effective leader is the skills I already have, I just have to embrace them.
 SECTION 1
SELF LEADERSHIP
17) Student will describe StrengthsQuest Signature Themes, shadow side of
Strengths and/or weaknesses, and examples of application (Source = Gallup)
In the first week of HDF 190, we took the StrengthQuest Quiz. When taking this quiz the 5 outcomes that describe me were activator, includer,
responsibility, arranger and significance. For me, it was hard for me to grasp these strengths and find them in myself. Thinking about my past
experience, I realize that these words describe me perfectly. Two examples that I found these words rising to the surface were in the leadership
institute and sleepaway camp. During institute, I was force to step out of my comfort zone and be me all by myself with a bunch of strangers. The
main strength I used was inlcuder. I used includer by getting to know everybody in my group really well when we would work together and then
at night when we all would hangout, we all would do so together. This allowed me to show off one of my top strengths because I worked with the
12 people around me by lighting the mood and showing how we all can go from strangers to good friends in a fixed amount of time. two Also I
believe that my summer job that change me as a person was working at camp. Working at sleepaway camp has allowed me shape my leadership
skills and see how it will affect my future. For me, it is important that my relationship is extremely strong with my campers and they feel
comfortable talking to me inside and out of camp. I believe my main strength that were put to the test was responsibility. When working at camp
my first summer I worked hard for my campers to look at me as a friend in situations that was approachable, but also they show me respect. By
working my responsibility strength I showed my campers how we can have fun at activities but when there is an issue or something where I need
to be in charge, I need to be shown respect. These rules that were outline for them, allowed me to grow closer with them ad build bigger bonds.
Even though I learned how my strengths are significant in my leaderships roles, I also can see how my weaknesses play a part. I believe my
biggest weakness is discipline. One of my top character strengths is humor, which shows that I have a very lay back and go with the flow
personality. When it comes to me being firm, it is hard for the people around me to take me seriously. One example is last summer at camp my
campers knew that they couldn’t have food in the bunk but there were rumors going around that one of them had food. When I walked over to
discipline my camper she was just laughing at me and not responding in the way she should of in the situation because we were hanging out have a
good time ten minutes before. My weakness is something I just need to work on and have them not contradict to much with my strengths. I
believe in looking at back at both institute and working at camp, these five roles play a much bigger part in my life that I didn’t even realize taking

the quiz in HDF 190 allowed me to relate all of this back to each other.
 SECTION 2
Leadership Theories
27) Student will show knowledge of the “Servant Leadership” theory of leadership by Greenleaf
In HDF 190, we learned about the Servant Leadership Theory. This theory is significant because it allows you to understand the impact of your character and how
you can bring that in being a leader in your community. There are ten characteristics of a leader that will allow you to understand how you can fit into a category.
They are Listening, Empathy, Healing, Awareness, Persuasion, Conceptualization, Foresight, Stewardship, Commitment to growth of people, and building
community. Listening, Empathy and Healing are all vital parts of being a servant part of servant leadership because all three of these are characteristics you
would use to help others. You would use listening by communicating and being there for others, you would use empathy by understanding that everybody brings
something different to the table and use healing by helping somebody who is need of helping them find their way out of this broken stage. These three
characteristics are important because it shapes stronger relationships with those around you who need it. Awareness, persuasion, conceptualization and foresight
are all characteristics that fit into the leader side because these are all characteristics you find in yourself to keep growing which will allow you to become stronger
with the people around you. Awareness is something you find in yourself and it allows you to use your personal values to become a strong leader. Knowing what
you are strong and your strengths are will allow you to lead strong. Persuasion is using your power to make a clear decision in a group. This is important
because as a leader this something you will do instantly, it is in your personality. Next is conceptualization, which is following your dreams to do something you
believe in every day. This is important because if you are a driven leader, you will set daily goals to be the best and do the best. Finally the last one is foresight.
This is when you take ideas from the past and make decision for the future based off of the good and bad of what came out of it. For being a leader and knowing
yourself experience is something that is so important. Finally the last words which brings your values of working with people (servant) and characteristics that
make you a strong leader together. They are Stewardship, Commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Stewardship is when you take control of
your strengths because it is to help serving others. This is significant because you are taking your listening skill and awareness strengths and bringing them
together to build a greater society. Commitment to the growth of people is working with all types of people and putting them on the right track to help them find
themselves. In this you take your skill of being aware with the difference around you and your strength of being able to relate to different positions and making
decisions for others based off of that. This is all about working for the greater of other people. Finally the last one is building community. This is when you work
with the community has a whole to make sure everybody around you is working together. As a leader in the community you would use your skill of healing and
helping the people around you and your strengths of conceptualization and foresight to use your experience in the past to help you make valuable decisions in the
future. The servant leadership theory is so important because it shows you how your skills and strengths work together to allow you to be a strong leader for
yourself and others around you.
 SECTION 3
Inclusive Leadership/ Diversity and it’s application to leadership
88) Student will describe personal examples of being a change agent
On Forbes.com in an article called “Every Leader Must be Change Agent or Face Extinction talks about how
leaders in the community face different changes and how it effects them. It is important to see that “for many
leaders, their primary roles and responsibilities have rapidly evolved.” As being a camp counselor for two
consecutive years, my roles from the first year were significantly different the first year then the second. As a first
year counselor, I needed to learn the ropes and adjust to the position I was working in and get to know my
campers. After adjusting quickly from being a camper to a counselor I learned how I was going to be an effective
leader in my camp community. Adjusting allowed me to face the change agent talked about in this article because I
learned about how to be a leader and how my strengths and values would be representing me as a leader. It was
important to realize that as I learned more about being a leader and my role as one, the more I would change my
position to become an effective one. I also learned more from transitioning into my second year as a counselor. It
was important to realize that I changed as a leader because I continued to learn and see that the more head staff
and my campers would trust me, the more I would continue to grow. Going back to understanding my primary
roles and responsibilities as a counselor, I learned so much and became a stronger leader as I kept changing.
 SECTION 4
Critical Thinking
102) Student will show knowledge of at least five decision making methods
An important step in life is understanding decision making methods and implementing them into your work. On www.meetingsift.com it
states the five decision making steps that are vital to group work are voting, ranking, scoring, multiple votes on multiple rounds and lastly
iterative convergence. Knowing how to work in a group and deciding on important factors will allow the group to work together and have a
stronger bond. The first method is voting. Voting tends to be the easiest method of them all because instead of weighing out the pros and
cons you are jumping to conclusion and choosing based off majority rules. This step is efficient in the way that it gets you right to the
decision and allows you and the group to move on. The next method is ranking. Having the same idea has voting, ranking is when you talk
out and really get an understanding off what each group members opinions are. Ranking is a useful tool in conflict with the group because
it allows people to argue for what their word is and allow the group to end up to a decision based off of what each group members agrees
on. The third method is scoring. Like ranking, scoring is a more in depth situation where group members were talk through all ideas. Just
like the other two methods, scoring is helpful in a way where each and everybody’s opinioned is scored out and talk thoroughly out.
Scoring is a way that allows a group to get passed problems by talking every single thing out. Communication is a vital part of group
work because it allows each team member to get their feelings and thoughts shared. The fourth method is multiple rounds of voting. This
method is significant because it allows each team member to share all their thoughts. Although this method of voting is just like ranking
and scoring, it allows each team member to share more thoughts because it is multiple rounds instead of one. Each of these decision
making steps are so vital to group work because it allows all members to share their opinions along with their own strengths and values to
group work. The last method is iterative convergence. Although the rest of these were spin offs of each other, this method is different
because it allows each member to give each other feedback anonymously from other groups which gives an outside perspective. This
method is significant because it allows the group to see how other outside sources feel about the information they are debating over.
Overall decision making methods are significant to group work because it allows each group member to share their individual and
strengths and work together to making their project the best it could be. In ECN 201, me and my 6 group members had a long semester
project. We use all types of decision making methods throughout the project but the one that sticks out to me most is when we were
deciding on how to split up and present, we voted on and decided that we should make it even and just know that we needed to all be
prepared to answer all questions. Decision making methods are vital because they all group projects to run smoothly but also strong
communication between group members.
 SECTION 5
(Interpersonal and Organizational Concepts and Skills )
109) Student will demonstrate knowledge of active listening techniques
In HDF 190 and more specifically the FLITE retreat we talked about active listening skills. Active listening to me
is showing some sort of ques to the person who is talking to show you are engaged and continually listening. This
is such an important trait because when somebody is talking it is important to show them ques that’s what they are
saying is important and valuable to the conversation. When actively listening to somebody there are three
approaches you can have to show them that you are listening. These are setting a goal, processing and answering
in a positive way allowing them to keep going tor asking a specific question and what to say, which would just be
filler words to express to them that you are fully listening. During the FLITE retreat this skill was stressed to teach
us that staying engaged is important for both the listener and the speaker. Active listening is a skill learned in HDF
190 that will be significant for the rest of time.