Hello everyone! Since the trek, we have had a few days of rest to ourselves, and we have spent them well. Yesterday, a few of us went to a Tibetan restaurant that was scrumptious. The meals that I ate rank in the top 10 meals I have ever had. Not only was the food great, but there was an immense amount of culture within the architecture and design within the building. Today, we went to the same restaurant because it was that good. Then, we walked through the mall looking at everything and buying nothing.

What are the key lessons that you learned about yourself from the trekking experience?

I learned a lot of lessons on the trekking part of the course. Before the trek, we had a lot of lecture based learning on team building, giving and taking feedback, and different leadership roles. Some of these leadership roles included self-leadership, peer-leadership, and designated leadership. Self-leadership is mostly about taking care of yourself, so that you can do your own part of the team. Peer-leadership is about helping the designated leader or team to succeed using your input. Designated leadership is fairly self-explanatory.

Examples:

Self – Putting on warm clothing when it is cold.

Peer – Not following the trail leader blindly, helping them choose the correct path

Designated – Everyday we had a “leader of the day” that would make all of the decisions

The key lessons that I learned have to do with these leadership styles. First of all, I learned the importance of taking care of myself. Sometimes I feel as if I do not take enough alone time, do not apply sunscreen, or do not eat or exercise well that it will only affect me, but in reality, all of those things affect the group. If I am not well, then I can not take care of my duties, much less help taking care of others within the group. I also learned that I have tended to just follow the atmosphere of the group and the decisions of the leader blindly. There are definitely times when just listening to the designated leader is best, but most of the time, asking questions about the reasoning behind a decision is beneficial for the entire group and may lead to a better outcome.

What new perspectives did you learn about leadership from the trek?  Why?

This is not a new perspective fully, but rather, a continuation and reinforcement of a perspective I lost. The perspective that you are a leader in every situation and/or environment that you are in. There is never a time when you stop leading even if you are not in a designated leadership position. To this end, I realize that I do not need to wait to be told to do something. For example, I do not need to wait to give feedback at a scheduled feedback session. I should be constantly trying to improve myself and others around me. I do not need to only take in the planned curriculum in life. There is so much to learn by taking the initiative yourself by asking questions.

What are three things that you can do to continue learning to be a better leader? What are some specific ways you can apply them to your own leadership development?

1. Read and Learn About Communication
   1. Many of the problems on our trip arose from lack of communication or poor communication. This was difficult as different cultures communicate differently, and at times, we forgot the importance of this reality.
2. Educate Myself
   1. During the trek, we had a small reading every night in which we all learned life lessons. From this, I realized the importance of reading the wisdom of others before me. I can build off of their foundation instead of taking the extra time to build my own.
3. Ask Questions and Challenge Decisions
   1. One of the main principles of this course is to ask why something is happening. This is something that our group was good at when we had energy and very poor at when we did not. Because of this, we lost out on a lot of knowledge and experience. This only became apparent to me yesterday as we had a conversation with the head person at the Hanifl Centre about our review of the course. He had an amazing amount of wisdom, and when we challenged his decisions or asked questions about why something was done, we saw how incredibly thought out every idea was. We also realized that he was also thinking about the same things that we were.