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My best friend's mom calls me Amanda the Commanda. So does his dad. I told my mother about this unwanted nickname, expecting consolation,
but she only laughed. I should have anticipated her reaction, because in
some ways I deserve it. I'm one of those people who always have to be in
charge. We're all over the Smith campus, announcing events during dinner,
arranging study groups in class, asking you just what the Student Government
Association needs to do to be noticeable. This past January, I joined 24
other commanding people for the first installment of the Smith Leadership
Program and learned what it means to be a leader at and away from Smith.
The Smith Leadership Program is a two-year workshop, held during two consecutive January Interterms, aimed at taking Smith students who have shown leadership potential and teaching them various aspects of what makes a successful leader. During the first Interterm session, the two weeks are divided into four sections. Fletcher Blanchard, associate professor of sociology at Smith, teaches leadership styles, including teamwork, strategies and how to wield and share influence. Edith Poor, a Smith alumna and communications consultant, shares her experience with oral communication skills. And associate professor Charles Staelin of the economics department tackles problem-solving and how to analyze data. The classes are followed by a project: students are divided into groups of five, presented with a community problem and asked to find a feasible solution. "A cinch," I thought. But I had forgotten to take Smith's high expectations into account. I had spent the fall studying in Maine and thought the leadership program would give me a chance to segue gracefully back into the Smith routine. It would provide stress-free time to enjoy being back at the college and catch up with friends. And, in a mercenary spirit, I thought it would help me out when I finally got around to visiting the Career Development Office. After all, what employer isn't impressed with someone whose résumé says "Leader"? I soon learned the flaws in my thinking. Neglecting to take into account the level of performance expected at Smith, I was even less prepared for how much these expectations would soon be magnified. Simply put, the leadership program is a sort of Smith boot camp, the most crucial of the college's lessons condensed and packaged into a two-week program: how (not what) to think, how to communicate and how to work with others. While the 8 a.m. wake-ups, long nights and meticulous detail-work were tiring, the program was also an affirming time for me, reminding me why I had come to Smith. The women with whom I worked were intelligent, experienced and driven. We were also all accustomed to leading. Early on in the two weeks, the director of the program, Professor Randy Bartlett, joked about how the program needed to recruit followers to be led. I laughed at the time, but soon realized the validity in his statement. For 25 young women all accustomed to leading, having only each other to work with was bound to be frustrating. Despite the group-building activities that we underwent during the first week and a half, the last four days of the program inflicted severe personal and group trials on us. With four days left in the program, we were presented with a problem: what should be the fate of the grounds and buildings of the former Northampton State Hospital? After being split into groups of five, we were given a schedule of interviews with people involved in this very real debate. Our teachers were made available for questioning, but for the most part we were on our own. In my group, the test was not so much coming up with an idea for the solution as working out the details in a group setting, foreseeing complications and fabricating answers, and developing a persuasive presentation. Two days were filled with research, group interviews and brainstorming. There were agreements, disagreements, epiphanies and depressing silences, but the night before the presentations we knew that we had a product in which we could take pride. Our presentation proposed the development of a three-tiered "village" community to be built on the state hospital grounds. Another group focused on zoning, and yet another on the possibility of creating an artists' haven. One group presented possible ways to excite Northampton residents' interest in the site, and the last group of the day talked about what needs to be done before developers even view the site. We all saw the problem in a different light, and the various different strengths of our groups became apparent. What made these presentations exciting was that we had used the knowledge and background specific to each individual and, using our new leadership skills, had succeeded in presenting our knowledge in an engaging and informed manner. We had worked to solve a problem and present a solution in a way that would be feasible to the real world. For me, the most rewarding part of the leadership program was unexpected and can be summed up in one word: "Finally." Finally, I found a reason to invoke my knowledge of utopian literature, English farming villages and Eastern European architecture. Finally, I helped solve a real problem. Finally, I was affirmed in my hope that I can be of some use to society once I graduate from Smith. While many people may say "Of course!" to this, to a person who spends her time studying long-dead writers, these realizations are a relief. What I owe the leadership program is not so much teaching me something I didn't know as allowing me to put to good use what Smith has been teaching me all along. |
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