My Social Change Competencies

I have seen great strides of growth in my leadership throughout my time in the Lead Forward Fellowship, and it makes me feel proud to see how far I’ve come. Three areas that I have seen the most growth in are Vision Building, Agency, and Consciousness of Self. 

Prior to my participation in Lead Forward, I only had a vague understanding of how to go about creating a vision for future change. I was able to build general visions of how I would like to see myself grow in the future, but I had no idea of how to apply vision building to community change. After learning more about building a vision through the Lead Forward courses and fellowship, I was able to culminate this ability for the co-creation of SOAR through Leadership. I collaborated with my co-founder in the creation of the vision of this initiative through the creation and multiple revisions of our mission statement. I learned that a mission statement is a living text in which every word breathes a future vision of change through an initiative, and I was motivated to make SOAR’s mission statement a powerful resource that would guide me as well as others involved with SOAR towards our ultimate goals. 

Agency, or the strength of feeling in control of one’s ability to make change and take action towards one’s goals, has been something I’ve greatly focused on this past year as well. Going into the Lead Forward Fellowship, I knew that agency would be a vital skill to have and employ in order to ensure that SOAR through Leadership stays on track towards its goals and future vision. One time in which I had to use my agency for the betterment of SOAR was when I led the development of SOAR’s curriculum. I had the ultimate goal of finishing the curriculum in time for the Spring 2024 semester, but I knew that it would take a lot of literature analysis, task delegation, and overall time management. In order to hold agency over this large task, I made sure to organize the tasks SOAR’s Research Squad would take on for the Fall 2023 semester in such a way that we would incrementally progress towards the completion of the curriculum. I also used my agency in order to effectively explain and delegate tasks to each member of the Research Squad and made sure that everyone contributed in a meaningful way. I believe that my agency was the motivator to me continuously progressing towards this end of semester goal and completing it in time. 

Consciousness of Self, or the ability to understand oneself in multiple aspects, has been an area in which I have strategically worked to improve during my time with Lead Forward. Through consistent reflection of not only the past objectives and tasks I have completed but also of my own thoughts and feelings, I have learned a great amount about myself as a leader and as a person. I have learned more about my biases, my strengths, and my areas for future improvement. I would not say that there has been one specific moment in which I used Consciousness of Self the most, but rather there have been a countless number of instances in which I have built upon my expanding knowledge of who I am and how I can best serve as a leader. One of the best ways I have worked to develop this skill, however, is through the written reflections assigned in the Lead Forward Fellowship courses. Each time I reflected on my past experiences within SOAR through Leadership, I was able to highlight areas in which I thrived as a leader and areas in which I could further develop. Each time I completed a reflection, I felt ready to take on any future tasks or obstacles with my new knowledge.