Earlier this month, I attended a leadership institute hosted by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and funded by the National Science Foundation.
Why would a scientist go to a leadership institute, you ask? Well, there are several reasons:
- From my personal experience, although there are many opportunities to be a leader, there isn’t much training (outside of business settings, perhaps) on how to be an effective leader. Good intentions can only take you so far.
- Throughout my life, I have gravitated towards leadership rolls. Mostly because I am incapable of saying no (lol, goodness) but also because I find that I enjoy taking on these positions because it gives me an opportunity to engage with a wide array of people.
- As we move towards breaking down institutional and societal barriers for people of color and underrepresented groups, is it imperative that these same individuals are the voices of change. And being these voices means being placed in or taking on these positions of leadership without receiving the proper training to do so. This needs to change.
So, when I received the email to apply for this institute, I jumped on it (like I always do).
As mentioned previously, the institute was held at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (pronounced Wuh-ster. I know…Massachusetts, eh?). The institute was held from June 3-5, 2018 and applications were open to all NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recipients and honorable mentions.
I want to discuss some of the major themes that were addressed during the course of the institute, and include links to resources to learn more:
- Personality types
- Emotional intelligence
- Conflict management
- Diversity and inclusion in teams and leadership
In looking at this list of big words, although they are important, they can seem kind of boring. SO. To mitigate this, I will be addressing each of these topics with a series of gifs because gifs are the greatest form of communication (fight me).
Personality types (led by Dr. Rory Flinn)
When I first got to the institute, and we began by talking about personality types, I honestly thought this referred to other people’s personalities. You know, how do you work with an introvert, an extrovert, a stubborn individual, etc.
I didn’t realize that, in order to understand how to interact with people that have different personality characteristics from ourselves and be effective leaders for all personality types, we need to have a firm grasp of our own personality.
Cue the MBTI.
The MBTI test, or the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator, is a tool employed in order to understand what personality “type” you are of 16 different categories, each of which is different combination of 4 variables. I will define each of these in the context of the MBTI below:
- Extrovert vs introvert
- Sensing vs intuition
- Thinking vs feeling
- Judging vs perceiving
*DISCLAIMER: These categories are a bit simplistic and binning people into these categories can lead to a false understanding of the complexities of personalities. This test is by no means saying that ALL individuals can fit into these categories. Rather, it gives you a general sense of your preferences. For example, I am CRAZY extroverted, but that does not mean I cannot adopt a more introverted perspective when I am listening and learning. Having basic understanding of what these categories are and how they manifest in individuals can give you a better understanding of why people address problems from different perspectives and find the VALUE in these different perspectives.*
(bring on the gifs!)
Extrovert
Extroverts get their energy from interacting with the people and the world in general
Introvert
Introverts, on the other hand, get their energy from reflecting on their experiences from within
Sensing
Individuals that prefer Sensing tend to be great at picking up on important details…
Intuition
…while individuals that prefer Intuition are better able to pick up on patterns and perceive the whole picture
Thinking
People who prefer Thinking are very logical in their approach to making decisions, using facts to dictate the outcome…
Feeling
while Feeling individuals make their decisions based on the emotional needs of others
Judging
Individuals who Judge are organized and regularly plan…
Perceiving
…while individuals that Perceive are more flexible and “go with the flow”
Alright now, moment of truth. My MBTI personality type is:
ENFJ
Extrovert, Intuition, Feeling, Judging
Here’s a little description of characteristics that tend to be associated with this type:
“Warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. Highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism. Sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership.”
IF. THAT. DOESN’T. DESCRIBE. ME. I. DON’T. KNOW. WHAT. DOES.
Although this may seem kind of like a horoscope (with descriptions so vague it could fit anybody), I can tell you that each of the 16 personality types is very, very different. See for yourself.
So what does this tell me about…me?
It tells me what my strengths are (which can be obvious), but it also highlights my weaknesses. Specifically, it addresses these weaknesses and lets me know what other personality types I can lean on when certain group situations call for it.
Being able to step back and self-evaluate is a strong leadership characteristic and knowing when to rely on other’s strengths is essential.
This is what I feel the MBTI is addressing.
Emotional intelligence (led by Carol Edelstein)
Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s ability to perceive other’s emotions and control their own. You can test your own emotional intelligence using this tool (the same one we used during the institute. Not all the questions are perfect, but this does give you general sense of where you stand).
Emotional intelligence is particularly important in leadership positions because it allows you to understand the emotional states of others while also allowing you to control your own emotions and your reactions to external stimuli.
Having a preference for Feeling, I may consider others’ emotions too much, perhaps to my detriment. I scored “high” for my emotional intelligence using this particular tool. Although this may seem like a positive thing, dealing with, and especially accommodating, other people’s emotions sometimes comes at the price of my own emotions and comfort.
Conflict management
Y’all.
I suck at conflict management.
I am NOT good at dealing with confrontation. So this particular section of the institute was important for me.
In order to understand what my particular style of conflict management is, we used another tool called the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Style Questionnaire.
Essentially, conflict management boils down to 5 different approaches.
Can you guess what my default style of conflict management is?
If you guessed accommodating…
Taking this quiz and the subsequent discussion during this session made me realize that my preferred style of resolving conflict is to, essentially, give in. Although I kind of saw this coming already, I was still bummed to see that I constantly put the needs of others ahead of my own in almost every aspect of my life.
What I learned during this particular session, though, is this: there is no wrong approach towards conflict resolution, rather different situations may call for different approaches, and recognizing which approach fits each particular situation is an important leadership skill.
Diversity and inclusion in teams and leadership (led by Charlana Simmons)
My.
Favorite.
Session.
I love me some woke people that know how to communicate about diversity and inclusion.
Charlana Simmons was just that. Her lecture addressed a variety of topics, including why diversity in STEM is critical, addressing the difference between equality and equity, different elements of diversity, and discussing and identifying privilege.
Charlana shook me to my core with some of her statements:
“Talent is equally distributed. Opportunity is not. Unless you believe in eugenics, then you must address that something is seriously wrong.”
“In one generation, a PhD can change the [socioeconomic status] of all the generations after you. Someone telling you to stop getting your PhD is an insult to your lineage.“
#babashook
Charlana effectively communicated several aspects of diversity and inclusion that I think are worth sharing:
- How you solve problems is wrapped up in your worldview (anthropology!). By excluding individuals with different worldviews, we are limiting the way we can approach and solve problems.
- If people in your group are all the same, the identification of problems themselves is limited as well.
- Practices that exclude certain underrepresented groups are embedded everywhere, sometimes even without our knowledge. Charlana gave an example of a grant opportunity for undergraduates that required students to write research proposals and have a faculty mentor…in their freshmen year. What did this do to the application pool? It limited it to students that went to great high schools (most likely private) with parents that are college educated or higher (*cough* privilege *cough*).
I could honestly write an entire blog post from Charlana’s lecture alone. But these were the main highlights and take-away points!
All in all, the WPI Leadership Institute was great! I met other leaders in different fields, from different universities within the northeastern United States.
Most importantly, I learned more about myself than I ever thought I would have. I’ve realized that being a leader includes learning just as much about yourself as it does learning how to interact with and inspire others.
I still have a boatload to learn. But I’m grateful I had the opportunity to begin formal training in leadership skill development.
Until next time, friends,
Maggie
