So what is leadership to me? Well it’s something I’ve definitely thought about a whole lot in the last three weeks or so. I’ve thought about it, discussed it with my peers, and even put some of my leadership skills into action. In the beginning of this course we started in Pittsburgh taking classes on leadership theories, a couple different ones. One specifically was strength based leadership which focuses more on a persons strengths rather than their weaknesses. I think I really related to this type of leadership on the trek and could see some of my own strengths come out while I was in the Himalayas. I also was able to learn many valuable lessons as well on how I can become an even better leader in my own way. 

I learned a lot on our trek on the Rupin Supin in the Himalayas. A lot about myself and a lot about myself and others as leaders. I was able to both see how I could lead and how my own leadership was perceived through self and one-on-one reflection. I also was able to observe others and how they lead, especially when they were selected as designated leaders for the day. Each day 2 people from the group were selected as leaders and throughout the week everyone was able to lead at least once. 

I learned that I do in fact align with most of my strengths in the way that I act and lead. My top 5 strengths were Responsibility, Achiever, Input, Strategic, and Includer. I think my top two definitely showed a lot during the trek and with the way I tried to do things. Those two fall under executing, which is definitely a way in which I lead others. I am given a task or set of goals and I try to accomplish them. Although many of the things that fall under responsibility and achiever seem to be positive, there is also a bit of a negative side that comes along with my achiever strength. I have a very strong work ethic so I surround myself with lots of things to do which means I am always busy. When I do have free time to sit with my thoughts or I am not the one necessarily laying out what needs to be done for the task my attention span wavers. This is something I received in my feedback as well and something I both observed about myself and that others perceived about me as well. For example, during one of my meetings with Vipul, I was drawing on my paper as he was talking. This was not because I wasn’t listening to him. I was listening intently, I just couldn’t sit still for that period of time without filling it with something. I distinctly remember mentioning to him that I was indeed listening I just was drawing as a way of twiddling my fingers of sorts. This same thing also occurred sometimes during our group discussions, decisions, or meetings where maybe I didn’t have a large part to play, and I would just sketch or shake my leg, etc. This plays a part in leadership because it’s not always a leaders job to facilitate but rather to listen to the group. A good listener is a good leader. And not just a listener but an active listener and I think that working on being an active listener will really help in the development of my own leadership. 

A huge part of leadership that I learned on this trip was that everyone leads completely differently and sometimes one way of doing things, although correct, may not be the best way for the leader and their group. I observed many different leadership styles on the trek by watching all of my peers and how they lead as both designated and not designated leaders. It gave me many different interesting viewpoints of leadership and the reflection portions of the trek really helped me to understand them.

Although this is just one step in the direction of my personal development as a leader, I know there will be many more in the future.