Reflection 2

How do you think gender informs leadership style? How do you think your leadership strategies vary (or do they) when you are leading a group of only women vs. men and women?

Leadership strategies do change when leading a group of women vs. men and women. I feel that to lead a group of women would be somewhat easier. I say this because being a woman I could think of general ways to lead a group of women. After getting to know the group I can work on specifying strategies of working with the group. On the other hand, it would not be the same if men were put into the mix. I would have to strategize according to women's interests, as well as men's interests.

History has proven that men are harder to convince than are women. Especially, when the topic has to do with change, women are more willing. For example, when the Suffragists were trying to get equal rights for all women. The men, more specifically, husbands and politicians (whom were only men at the time) were not pleased with this movement. Their comfort zone within the American society seemed to be invaded, because they would now have to look at women in another perspective; other than, wives, mothers, daughters, etc.

One aspect of leading any gender that is neutral is that a leader must keep the attention of its followers, once she/he has gotten their attention. This will never change whether one is leading a group of men, women, adolescents, toddlers, etc. Thus, a leader must listen to its constituents in order to know what they expect, which will in turn, help the leader lead its followers appropriately, if the leader carries out the tasks asked of her/him.

Reflection 1

In my first few days in Fickes Residence Hall I felt a little out of place, because the only people I had ever saw were some of the girls that I knew from the World Ready Women's bus trip, and I still did not honestly know them. Thus, when I acknowledged that situation they were not very open to me, because they already had each other as their comfort zone, and did not allow anyone else to come between their comfort.

Then, the next day, my room mate moved in and I felt better about interacting with other people because I was able to have someone by my side that also wanted to get to know the people in the building. We are one the few room mates that are like best friends, and not enemies like the others. It is ironic to me because we both had no idea who our room mate would be, being that her original room mate was a friend that backed out at the last minute and I registered late, not being able to fill out a survey for a good match.

As the weeks passed and everyone became settled in their classes and such, I began to notice the cliques and those who were not here for education. It seemed to me that the upper classmen were much nicer than the sophmores. I am thinking this had to do with the fact that they felt they had already went through the same things we did a year earlier and that we would learn "the ropes" on our own. I was very thankful for my R.A. Lila Robinson, because she showed my our floor where we should go for everything. She also, taught us that time management is a necessity once you start college, because everyone's schedule is so different and it is hard to find time to get things done when you have many things "on your plate."