Molly Gard
My Social Impact Leadership Vision
My Why
I am motivated to excel my leadership because I believe in the power of action and agency. Considering the countless problems of this world, we need more leaders that can call out injustice and move others towards positive action. I am also persistent in the lifelong goal of leaving this world better than it was when I entered it. The skill of leadership contains core strategies that allow me to become a part of the movement towards positive change. If I can even be a single stepping stone towards a better world, then I'll do all I can to help us get there. I've also swayed into this pathway as I hold the core belief that people deserve equitable opportunities, and it breaks me when I see the oppressive systems that keep people down throughout this current world. I want to be able to take advantage of the privileges that I do hold in order to create a platform to call out the marginalization that I have experienced or that others are going through.
About SOAR through Leadership
SOAR through Leadership is a social impact group formed by Boilermakers that is dedicated to empowering youth through creating leadership-focused training and character development activities. Our goal is to equip the Greater Lafayette youth with the training, tools, and exposure to climb greater heights as leaders for their community. SOAR is also committed to guiding these individuals to become vibrant and confident adults that boldly lead their own futures. Through targeted programming and consistent community engagement, we aspire to help Lafayette children to learn core leadership competencies such as emotional regulation, decision making, and collaborative endeavors. By partnering with local organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters Lafayette, we are dedicated to increasing accessibility to important youth development resources. As we emerge as a social impact group, we are always eager to learn from established projects and provide a novel experience for all students. Needs assessment and asset mapping is at the heart of our endeavor, and we are committed to fully understanding how to best supplement and complement current initiatives. To that end, we are focused on building transformational relationships with community partners and Lafayette adolescents. SOAR’s overarching purpose is to engage with kids in fun, structured activities and gain new perspectives. We then work with the students to uplift each other as individuals and leaders by collaborating and sharing. Our aim is to show adolescents that there is boundless potential for them to achieve, through character development and leadership-oriented viewpoints. In short, Purdue students and community partners engage in conversation, uplift one another in mutually fulfilling ways, and achieve a symbiosis within the community.
My Leadership Philosophy
Through my time in the Lead Forward Program and in SOAR through Leadership, I have learned not only what it means to be a true social impact leader, but I have also discovered how these leaders effectively come together to make positive change. My current definition of social impact leadership is the development and strategic employment of socially proactive competencies in order to foster positive change for one or multiple communities. I believe that the core principles of social impact leadership are effectively presented within The Social Change Model for Leadership Development, developed by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI). This model proposes a three-pronged approach to social impact leadership which includes and connects the following: individual values, group values, and society/community values (Leadership for a Better World, Komives & Wagner, pg. 20). This model effectively describes the core values of social impact leadership because it effectively conveys the importance of mastering the skills of understanding oneself, effectively communicating with others, and learning how to successfully foster change based on community contexts. Some specific competencies that I hold to be a necessity in order to make a difference in the world are the ability to create a vision, being able to constructively collaborate with others, and creating time for reflection in order to develop greater self-understanding. I believe that vision building is a vital start to one’s social impact journey as it sets the standards for the ways in which one wants to make a positive impact. Collaboration is a skill that is necessary in order to succeed in social impact work because nobody can make true change on their own, and it is important to develop connections with other partners in order to form a collaborative environment in which positive changes can be made efficiently and effectively. Reflection is a strategy that will be valuable for one’s entire leadership journey because in order to understand the best actions to take in terms of social impact work, it is important to understand oneself, the communities that are being impacted by this work, and the best practices in order to respect the needs of both the leaders and communities involved.