Megan Holzmeister

LDST 532 Activity Hour Reflection Paper

12/12/19

Over this past several months I have been working hard on completing my various

activity hours for the Leadership Practicum class. At the beginning of the semester I was initially

overwhelmed when I learned that we had to complete so many hours relating to community

service, involvement and field experience and also leadership development. However, once the

semester began I was pleasantly surprised to realize that meeting these goals was not as difficult

as I had imagined and that I had actually found myself enjoying completing them. Leadership

studies has given me the tools to view situations differently and has helped to make my team

experiences more meaningful. Through completing over 75 activity hours this fall, I was able to

practice adaptive leadership by effectively observing, interpreting and intervening in various

systems. After doing so, these are some of the things I wanted to reflect on.

Community service is something that has always been a very familiar concept to me and

in time has become a habit in my life. Growing up attending Catholic schools, I was always

required to complete hundreds of service hours each year. Once I reached college, I was shocked

at the lack of emphasis on community service. For this reason, I decided to get involved with the

Natural Ties club at KU. Natural Ties is a club that matches students with mentally handicapped

individuals in the greater Lawrence community, these individuals are what we call ties. Once a

week, the students take their tie out into the community and participate in a group activity. The

club is unlike any other organization that I have ever been a part of before.

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 I have been involved with Natural Ties for all four of my years here at KU. This past year

I was able to practice adaptive leadership by getting up on the balcony and finding a new

appreciation for the services that the club provides. One thing I have realized from the balcony is

that students don’t often spend much time thinking about the Lawrence community beyond

campus. I love that Natural Ties gives students an opportunity to get to know and interact with

people outside of the University. The club consists of roughly 30 mentally handicapped, adult

individuals who are still heavily reliant on either their parents or their caretakers to survive. The

weekly activities that we do with our ties take around two hours to complete and offer the ties an

experience outside of their regular routines. We treat our ties just like any other individual and

get to know them on a personal level. Aside from giving the ties a fun outlet to interact with

students, the two hours we spend with them is much needed time off for their 24/7 caretakers.

Seeing the looks of gratitude on the caretakers faces when we drop our ties off at home after the

events is one of the most rewarding feelings.

This past semester, I got to meet my tie Danny, who is 47 years old and lives with his

caretaker, Judy. I do not know what mental illness Danny suffers from because we do not ask our

ties this question in order to make them feel as comfortable as possible. In getting to better know

Danny, I have found myself exercising some of the adaptive leadership qualities when I’m with

him. I have observed that Danny is shy at first but as he becomes more familiar with someone he

begins to open up. He has an incredible memory and although he gets mixed up on some of the

information, he can recall most of the important events in his life. Danny’s favorite thing to talk

about is his girlfriend, Anne, who is another tie in the club. From what I have gathered, they only

get to interact at our weekly activities. I have also observed that Danny really enjoys discussing

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different books such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland. A few

times, when we arrived to pick Danny up from his house, we had to go inside and wait for him to

come out. Although his caretaker was kind, there were no photos of Danny anywhere around the

house. From this, I can interpret that Danny does not get to interact with many people outside of

his caretaker and other mentally handicapped roommate. The activities we do with Danny is

something he looks forward to each week. I know that the brief time we spend with him doing

things like decorating cookies, attending cookouts, learning how to square dance and visiting the

farmstead among various other things is making an impact on his life. Knowing and

understanding this is where I chose to skillfully intervene.The first thing I did was get Danny a

book from the library. I gave him the book Harry Potter and I told him to read it so we could

discuss it together. The second thing I did was take some photos of Danny at the events and get

them printed out for him. I surprised him with three photos in a picture frame before Halloween.

One of him and Anne, a second of him and us and a third with him at the farmstead. He loved

this and the next time we went inside his house to pick him up we saw that he had placed the

photos on the living room mantle.

From these experiences with Danny, I have learned that in order to practice adaptive

leadership successfully, you may sometimes need to look outside of your usual surroundings. If I

had not gotten on the balcony and realized that there was a need in the community off campus, I

may not have gotten the chance to meet Danny. By slowing down and truly taking the time to

observe, interpret and intervene in Danny’s life, I was able to bring him joy through small acts

such as the book and the pictures. This taught me that there does not need to be a large problem

in need of a solution in order for me to practice observing, interpreting and intervening through

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adaptive leadership. This new awareness of adaptive leadership that I have found through joining

Natural Ties will always encourage me to look beyond my immediate surroundings and not be

afraid to get to know new people who may be different from myself.

In the second part of my adaptive leadership journey, I spent my time working towards

gaining some much needed field experience and involvement hours throughout the fall semester.

The three main activities that I focused on were my position as Executive Treasurer for the

Advertising Club within the Journalism school, my membership in the scholarship committee

and my title as the chapter historian within my sorority. Each of these positions pushed me to

embrace some of the adaptive leadership skills that I have learned during my time in the minor

program, specifically the KLC Competencies.

The Advertising Club is a club which offers students studying mass communications and

marketing networking opportunities, guidance and support throughout their time at KU. In the

four years that I have been involved I have been able to get to better know my peers and have

learned so much about the industry. I really got into it my junior year when I was invited to

attend the New York City out of state ad crawl with the club. I was shocked at the welcoming

response and outpouring of guidance that the KU alumni gave us while we were visiting. I came

home from the trip with a much better idea of what field I wanted to enter into post graduation

and an inspired feeling to help other students come to this realization too. I was invited to join

the Executive Board for Ad Club at the end of last spring. I saw the position as an opportunity for

me to practice managing self for a variety of reasons.

When I found out that I was being offered the position of treasurer, I will admit I was

initially a bit confused. It was not necessarily the position that I had expressed interest in and I

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have always struggled with math and finance. However, I saw it as a chance to manage self by

pushing myself to gain experience and practice doing something I had always considered a

weakness. Another way that I was able to manage self, was by taking the time to ensure I was

putting enough energy and focus into the club on top of my prior commitments. I thought this

was important in order to make sure the experience was meaningful for not only the club’s

members, but also for myself. However, after the first Ad Club meeting in August, I quickly

realized there was a situation to be diagnosed. Our involvement rates were lower then they had

been in previous years. This was disappointing for us and I really wanted to show new students

how beneficial the club could be for them. After a couple more meetings, I realized that word of

mouth alone would not get our involvement rates to rise so I decided it was time for me to

intervene skillfully. Collectively, the executive officers called a meeting and discussed plans to

draw more attention to our club. We created a low level social media plan, scheduled times to

speak with Journalism classes and emphasized free pizza at all of our meetings. It was exciting

for us to see several more people sign up for our first KC Ad Crawl and even more people

express interest in the club.

With a relatively high level of involvement in the Ad Club around mid October, I really

wanted to keep the momentum going. This is when I began to work towards energizing others. I

went out of my way to introduce myself to all of the new members and offered to help some of

the younger classmen explore internship opportunities. I had remembered how meaningful these

efforts where to me when older students offered to help. I believe this method was successful in

energizing several of them because they continue to attend meetings and actively participate in

group discussions. From this experience, I have learned that if you really have a passion for what

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you are doing and want to inspire those around you, adaptive leadership can help you accomplish

these goals. Had I not had the KLC competencies helping to guide my decision making process,

we may not have been able to have had as much success as we did with Ad Club this past

semester. I will continue to implement this new awareness next semester by encouraging

members to apply for the out of state ad crawl and pushing them to explore different

opportunities in advertising. I will also continue to keep in mind the effectiveness of the KLC

competencies while continuing to navigate my adaptive leadership journey as an executive

member of the Ad Club.

Additionally, in my sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, I was able to practice shifting from the

balcony to the dance floor when using adaptive leadership in my roles on the scholarship

committee and as chapter historian. In the scholarship committee, I volunteer my time for one

hour each week to help edit and review my sister’s essays. Looking at my sister’s academic

needs from the perspective of the balcony, I noticed that writing did not come as easily to some

of them as it did for me. After diagnosing this situation, I decided to address this need by shifting

to the dance floor, intervening skillfully and offering to help them to address their literary needs.

In doing so I was able to energize a number of my sorority sisters by teaching them some basic

writing skills and helping them to achieve higher scores on their written assignments.

Furthermore, I attend chapter each week and actively participate as the chapter Historian.

Although, this is a rather insignificant position in comparison to some others, I take pride in

using adaptive leadership to assist with the maintenance of the house and embracing the

traditions of Gamma Phi Beta.

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 Though these experiences, I have learned that shifting between the dance floor and the

balcony can be very beneficial in addressing needs within a large group. I have also learned that

adaptive leadership means working together as a team to achieve success. Each member of the

team brings a different skill to the table so they can come together and reach the end goal. In

these examples the end goal is either the passing of an essay or a well functioning chapter house.

Moving forward I will implement this new awareness by reminding myself that adaptive

leadership goals cannot be reached alone and by encouraging myself and others to practice

shifting from the dance floor to the balcony in all situations.

The third and final need for activity hours was regarding practice in leadership

development. Thankfully, I found that KU offers numerous different opportunities that would

allow me to achieve this. I attended two lectures, both of which offered me the chance to

observe, interpret and intervene. The first lecture was called “Women Making and Breaking the

Law,” and was put on in honor of the Centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment, otherwise

known as women’s right to vote. The second lecture was when congresswoman Sharice Davids

visited the Dole center to discuss her position and how she got there. Through both of these

lectures, I was able to observe and learn about the strength of women. I learned the stories of

numerous women throughout history who have had an impact on our legal system. From these, I

interpreted that despite the odds, I am capable of achieving anything I set my mind to. I realized

that working hard for something you believe in may bear consequences, but it can also have

many rewards. I intervened by taking this fresh knowledge and inspiration out into the world

with me and applying it to my leadership experiences.

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 Through these lectures I concluded that nothing is impossible and that change through

adaptive leadership can be executed by anyone. I will take this new awareness with me as I enter

the professional world and begin to face challenges which I may not always be able to control.

I also spent several hours practicing leadership development by attending the career fair

and having advising meetings with my career counselor. Engaging in these activities requires a

fair amount of practice using the KLC competencies. First I managed self by preparing myself

for future opportunities and opening myself up to change. In the past, I have struggled doing this.

I then diagnosed the situation by setting goals that are practical and achievable. Through

listening and taking guidance from those who have succeeded before me I intervened skillfully

within the career space. Finally, I was able to energize others by reaching out to new contacts and

conversing with my peers about how to reach improvement. Throughout this process I learned

that it is okay to ask others who are more experienced for guidance. I will carry this with me as I

go out into the professional world and continue on my leadership journey.

In conclusion, I found these various different activity hours to be a really motivational

and fulfilling experience. I am glad I got to practice and exercise so many of the skills that we

always discuss in class. I was able to learn something new about not only myself, but also

adaptive leadership process through each event.