Leadership Development
This workshop was a presentation done by Leighann Chaffee as part of the Scholarly Selections sessions done at the Washington State History Museum. Leighann, who has a research background in food behavior and food decision-making, was discussing her research into the history and conflict in the Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia at the time, and how this impacted cuisine and availability of food. Leighann discussed the impact of both World War I and World War II and how the communist governments used food as a weapon. She also talked about the importance of understanding the relationship of conflict and hunger and that it is a bidirectional relationship, rather than one causing the other. Finally, she discussed the advances made when the Czech Republic became it's own country and how escaping a communist government aided in the development of food sovereignty and the ability for the country's "restaurant boom" to occur. While discussing Leighann's presentation with my mentor, we discussed how her leadership was different such that she chose to look deeper into the history of an aspect of her area of research. Leighann also demonstrated leadership since she agreed to present in a setting that is a bit different than what she is used to. Like other faculty members at UWT, Leighann is used to presenting research in an academic setting to an audience of students or other faculty members. But for this presentation, she chose to do something different in an environment that is geared more towards the general public. Leighann was still able to talk about a subject that is passionate to her but in a way that she could connect with another members of the community. It was interesting and influential to watch her present in a different style because it prompted personal leadership development to look into the history of my area of interest.
0 Comments
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Psychology Research Seminar Series is when professors at school present current or previous research to students. For this seminar, Dr. Ross presented his study on improving eyewitness identification and discussed the myths that are commonly associated with eyewitness identification and how we can reform these procedures. Three of the myths that he was interested in looking at were: sequential line ups are more effective then simultaneous lineups; confidence of the eyewitness is not a good indicator of accurate identification; and rapport development is beneficial for accurate witness identification. In addition to presenting his findings that debunked each of these myths, he also stressed how much of a role media plays in spreading these false claims when somebody is wrongly convicted for example.
One of the main things that stood out to me about Dr. Ross' presentation is that when he mentioned that after looking at the myth discussing eyewitness' level of confidence, he noticed that when using a correlation, they found no significant evidence supporting the claim that confidence is not a good indicator of accurate identification. They found that when averaging the scores of the participants, there was not a relationship between confidence and accurate identification. Instead of simply accepting the results as they were, Dr. Ross decided to dig a little deeper. He then decided to look at confidence in groups of low, normal, and high levels of confidence and compare it to accuracy scores on identification tasks. Here they found that accuracy is in fact calibrated with confidence. After discussing this with my mentor, we were able to have a great conversation about how we as researchers may need to dig deeper into our results and that seeking help from our peers may be helpful. I think that Dr. Ross showed leadership in an interesting way because he decided to change the way he was looking at his results. In my opinion, he was a leader to his research assistants by demonstrating this ability. During my data analysis, I will be sure to ask my mentor about this. After attending the Leadership 101 workshop, I had never felt so sure and confident about my leadership qualities. During this workshop we discussed what it means to be a leader and to speak about a particular person that we identify as a leader in our life. Every one of us had a different definition of leadership and each chose a different individual as a leader in our life. Some examples of the different types of leaders that were mentioned were parents or family members, pastors at a church, co-workers, professors, and presidents like Barack Obama. This immediately spoke to me that anyone can be a leader and be viewed as a leader by others. This workshop shattered the stereotype that leaders are only those that do big, grand forms of leadership. It was also evident that there are many different definitions of leadership. Therefore, it is important for me to remember that although I may not be making state-wide or nation-wide influences or impacts, the impact of my leadership in my community is still an important aspect of being a leader. In addition, as my leadership continues to develop, who says that I will never be able to make nation-wide influences because of my leadership? Who says that this is a necessary thing to do so in order to be considered a "leader" in the first place? After considering all of this, we were to use this workshop as a way to form our own leadership philosophy (read about mine here: Leadership Philosophy) and to evaluate and watch how our leadership philosophy changes throughout additional workshops, mentor meetings, and my final project.
It was interesting to discuss this workshop with my mentor because she also acknowledged that leadership and the qualities needed to be a leader are not uniform. It is important to have diversity among leaders in our community because of the different roles that they play. What good would it do to only have leaders that emphasized political movements? Or only leaders that demonstrated leadership nation-wide? Having a variety of leaders with different leadership philosophies is what can help our society the most. We additionally discussed that although my leadership has mainly been focused on conducting and presenting research, I have begun to realize my potential for leadership in other areas. For example, while volunteering with children at the Boys and Girls Club, I have realized that I am a leader to them as well. I look forward to watching my leadership development grow in that area in addition to my research. Every quarter at UWT, the psychology department has various professors present their research to students in the Psychology Research Seminar series. Since research is my primary focus and I am working to develop my leadership skills in this area, I thought that attending a couple of these seminar series would spark personal growth. During this presentation, Dr. West was presenting her research on the sexualization of black women in pornography and other forms of popular media, such a rap music and television shows. She discussed how black women are sexualized and dehumanized more severely than women of other ethnicities in the porn industry. Examples of such include films that portray black women as animals, criminals, street workers, and hookers. Dr. West emphasized that the contribution of how black women have been viewed historically, transformation in pornography films, and racism have resulted in the sexualization and dehumanization of black women in modern media. Finally, Dr. West urged us to challenge the current pornography culture and media to take control of this issue and encourage healthy sexual expression within relationships.
When I met with my mentor to discuss this workshop, we discussed how it was evident that Dr. West was exemplifying leadership in a couple different ways. First off, Dr. West was being a leader by conducting research on a topic that is passionate to her and presenting it to others as a way to increase awareness of the issues surrounding it. Additionally, Dr. West demonstrated leadership by taking on a topic that is often highly stigmatized and not usually researched. In the United States there is negative stigma around pornography, and the fact that Dr. West faced this issue directly is a great form of leadership. Finally, Dr. West encouraged the audience to use the information she provided, to make a positive social impact on society by challenging the use of pornography and other forms of popular media which negatively portray black women, and women in general. On March 17th ,18th, and 19th I attended the AP-LS conference in Seattle, WA. This was an excellent conference to attend as my first workshop promoting leadership development because there were so many different examples of leadership done through research. This was my first national conference that I had attended and it was great to experience all of the different areas of research there are. Additionally, it helped prepare me for my project in Sacramento as I attended various poster sessions of undergraduate research. Many of the presentations that I attended were incredibly inspiring as they not only demonstrated excellent research but additionally promoted social growth. One presentation that I attended was lead by Adam Foss, a prosecutor who has recently gained some popularity after his TED talk was released. Adam Foss demonstrated leadership because in addition to presenting research, he additionally emphasized the social change that needs to take place as our criminal justice system needs some serious reforming. Adam Foss discussed some of the issues in the criminal justice system, such as racial bias, and presented suggestions as to how to address these issues and reform the criminal justice system.
Following the attendance of this conference, I met with my mentor to discuss my experience and how this workshop can spark both leadership and personal growth. My mentor and I discussed how leadership took place in this conference not only by those who had larger plenary sessions, but with every individual that was presenting. Even those who were presenting during the poster session demonstrated leadership because they were presenting research they have conducted in a way to publicly inform the audience with information that may not already be known. After my meeting with my mentor and listening to Adam Foss present, I was able to recognize different forms of leadership and it inspired me to continue to do research in order to, hopefully, make a difference in the world. I hope to use the leadership skills gained from this workshop by continuing to conduct research, presenting my findings, and suggesting structural improvements to address issues that I am passionate about. |
In my opinion, leadership qualities are constant changing, evolving, and developing with the more interactions you have with people demonstrating leadership skills. Here I will present the different events that I attended and how my meetings with my mentor shaped and influenced the growth of my leadership qualities. After every event and discussion I had with my mentor, I acquired new leadership skills and my overall view of being a leader was strengthened.
|