My favorite aspect of leadership is helping others to uncover their leadership potential and purpose in life. As a part of my work with the LEAD office, I developed the presentation “Discovering Your Purpose and Brining it to Life” and presented it at the Mason Leadership Conference. This facilitation helps participants to uncover what is truly important to them in the short and long term and helping them to craft a purpose statement. Participants then work to craft goals to make their personal vision’s a reality. The facilitation concludes with showing participants what tools and resources they have available to make their vision come to life.
Beyond my involvement with the LEAD office, I have staffed five leadership development courses and served as the leader on three of these courses. Most of my experience developing others comes from the National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience, the highest level of leadership training offered to young adults by the Boy Scouts of America. At this training, participants are presented with a variety of training exercises and scenarios that they apply leadership skills from previous courses. I have staffed four of these courses, and led the staff in course execution in two of these course.
My proudest experience developing others was helping to launch the Interamerican Leadership Training (ILT). Since inception in 2013, ILT has directly trained approximately 335 young adults, ages 18 to 26, in various leadership, team building, project planning, communication, and conflict resolution skills. Individuals who receive the training then take their skills to develop leadership training’s in their home countries. Indirectly, ILT has trained over 1,000 young people across the Interamerican Region (IAR). In December 2017, almost 90 young people from almost every continent were trained by this program. A part of the training asks participants to use their new skills to develop and lead projects for their community. One project, Trees for the World, resulted in the planting of well over 50,000 trees all over the world. The projects that have resulted from ILT has had a worldwide impact; for example, ILT projects have impacted over 2,000 individuals just in one country (Guatemala) alone. By investing in others and helping them to become better leaders, they can become the catalyst for global change.
