HDF 415: FLITE PEER LEADERSHIP

URI MINOR IN LEADERSHIP STUDIES, CENTER FOR STUDENT LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

CORE REQUIREMENT FOR THE LEADERSHIP MINOR

LEARNING CONTRACT
Goal: To identify and utilize my Strengths in an organizational/interpersonal setting that
aligns with the mission, vision, values and sponsored programs and activities of URIs
Center for Student Leadership Development.

I plan to do this by attending the Northwoods Challenge Course facilitation training, in

order to become a challenge course facilitator. I am looking to apply my strengths to this
activity, to become a better group facilitator, while improving my teamwork and
interpersonal skills.

Activity: During my sophomore year at URI, I decided that I wanted to step outside of
my comfort zone, and figure out a way to improve my interpersonal and management
skills. For this, I went to the challenge course to go through facilitation training. Here, I
first learned about each of the elements by participating as a typical group member. As a
member, I went through introductions, energizers, name games, the full values contract,
challenge by choice, trust sequencing, elements and adjourning. Not only did I get to see
all of these from a general members perspective, but the activities were explained in
detail to insure that we could reciprocate it in the future as facilitators. Towards the end,
we all came together and went over the entire day to further our knowledge. The next
day, we took on the facilitation roll, managing the groups of already trained facilitators.
Here, we were challenged to go over everything that we had learned as a team, while
facilitating an element with only one other team member. This was a difficult experience,
however it led to us getting needed feedback at the end of the day, so that we could
improve before being able to have our own teams on a regular basis. With this training, I
was able to develop my strengths in a much different way than I typically use my
strengths, and this made me excited to continue.

Annotation: My top five strengths are Analytical, Relator, Achiever, Responsibility and
Context. These strengths all helped me immensely throughout my facilitation training,
especially when I actually had to facilitate a group myself. I tried my best to stay cool and
collected throughout the experience, leaning on my strengths and past experiences to
guide me through the journey. By the end, I was told that I did a good job with my
facilitation, and felt excited to improve upon the elements I felt I could have done more
competently.

My top strength of analytical helped me throughout the first day incredibly. I was able to
quickly pick up the organization of a challenge course, and understand why everything
was being done. I found myself already being constructively critical of certain activities
and framings, and planning out how I would facilitate differently. Here, the greatest place
I differed from others was the way I wanted to frame objectives before I began the
elements. I want to always make sure that my group is on task, and understands my
expectations. Before I facilitated, I also found myself planning out multiple activities, and
how I wanted to execute them. This was helpful for the second day, making sure that I
had a solid plan going into the day. I believe that I was analytical in my framing on day
two, when I started off with my expectations, and some rules before moving on to my
element, which was whale watch. Even here, I tried my best to think multiple steps
ahead, so that I didnt have to rely so heavily on the strength of adaptability.

My second strength of relator helped me a lot on day one, when I needed to form
relationships with others being trained, in order to be able to work with them effectively
in the future. I believe that I did a great job with this, as Rob and I made sure that we
were reaching out to everyone we could to ensure that everyone was included, and
everyones voices were heard. I tried my best to sit with different people every time we
had a chance, in order to widen my horizon of interpersonal connections. This helped
immensely the second day, as my co-facilitator was already somewhat comfortable
working with me. This helped us both perform to a higher level, and made it easier to
bounce ideas off of each other. I still talk with multiple people that were trained with me
that weekend, and this has helped us challenge each other to facilitate more together, in
order to grow as a collective unit, and help each other in our endeavors.

My third strength of achiever helped me to be able to work to the best of my ability in

everything that I did. I never found myself slacking off as a contestant, and I always tried
to keep my group on task and excited. When I facilitated, I put front all of my effort in
order to keep everyone on task and successful. My downfall with this was shutting out
my co-facilitator too much, and I felt bad by the end. She could have been involved much
more, and it would have benefited the group, however I believe this happened because I
planned so heavily. This lead to a downfall of communication within my element, where I
needed to have made the game plan more closely with my co-facilitator. Our
communication was not great during the activity, and this was because my achiever
strength wanted to take over. This is where I need my relator strength to come in and let
everyone do their fair share, and make sure that everyone is growing from the experience.
I can get carried away with things I enjoy doing, and I need to focus more on other
people.

My forth strength of responsibility always takes a back burner unless there is an

opportunity to show it. During this activity, I was able to recognize a communication
problem that I had with my co-facilitator, and take responsibility for it without
complaining. I am always open to constructive criticism, as I know that no one is perfect.
I also made sure to be responsible throughout, making sure that everyone knew that I was
a trustworthy person who was here to help. I made sure to be personally responsible by
being on time, and coming prepared and ready each day so that I could further develop
my skills and strengths, while making my facilitators jobs easier.

My final strength of context is always in the back of my mind. During the training, I
looked back to other challenge courses that I have been a part of in the past years, and
tried to think about how I was included, and how my facilitators managed the groups. I
used these past experiences to conduct myself the best way I could. One specific example
was when I spoke about walking to the next element. I made sure to let everyone know
the rules of walking between elements, and that there would be one facilitator in front of
the group and one behind. This was something I had to do for every hike as the Senior
Patrol Leader of my boy scout troop, and I leaned on this strength/experience to make
sure that I could keep my thoughts organized, knowing that less would go wrong between
elements if I outlines my expectations properly, using my past experiences as a guide.

As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience, and cant wait to facilitate challenge

courses myself. I developed relationships that I will have for the coming years, and skills
that I will utilize in my last years of college, as well as in my professional and family life
in the future. I am now more confident with my management, facilitation, interpersonal
and collaborative skills, with more progress to be made. I learned a lot of my weaknesses
on the challenge course, and how to use my strengths to fill in the gaps. I hope to get
back on the course as soon as I can, in order to further my leadership skills in a very rare
and rewarding way.

References:

Gallup, I. (2017, January 26). Develop Engaged & Thriving Students, On Campus and
Beyond.

Evidence:

Picture of the challenge course trainers and trainees attached below