Morana Lundquist

Seamester
Vela Spring 2023
Leadership Action Plan

I have always had a pretty solid concept of what I though constituted a good leader and what did not.
When I thought of good leaders I pictured people who were confident, competent, understanding, good
planners, and pragmatic people. I thought having a plan and having a deep understanding of whatever the
subject matter was the most important thing. While I still think that this is true, through this class I have
also began to understand that there are many types of leaders, and that all of those leaders are important
for a successful team.

A lot of this class has put emphasis on things like making connections, understanding others, and working
though conflict. Most of the group presentations from the book were on these topics and many of the class
activities were as well. The challenge course was one example of this. In my challenge course group we
didn’t have one specific leader, we all worked together assuming different roles at different points. At
different parts of the challenge course different types of leaders were needed. At the start we needed
someone to make a plan so everyone was on the same page, halfway through the course we needed people
to encourage everyone to keep going and get everyone moving. The whole time we needed people to keep
team moral high and encourage everyone to have a good time. Luckily we had enough different types of
people on the team that we were able to meet all of these needs. Because we were able to have all these
different types of leaders out team functioned very smoothly and we also had a very positive experience.

I think the program itself has also put a lot of emphasis on these concepts, particularly regarding living all
together and working as a team both as a whole boat and in individual watch teams. As the trip has gone
on more and more responsibility has been put on us to make the boat function. From very little things like
us being responsible for reminding people to not put their things in the salon, to bigger things like the
student led passage, we are taking more responsibility and becoming leaders of the boat. For things like
this having one person in charge who is confident, competent, understanding, a good planner, and
pragmatic would work, but it’s not the best option. For us having everyone take their turn standing up and
leading people works better. For things like leaving things in the salon we needed someone who was
direct and responsible to remind everyone, for student watch team leaders we need people who were good
at mobilizing people to do things, for things like student program manger we need someone who is
understanding of what the student body needs and wants. If one type of person was trying to assume all of
these rolls they wouldn’t be nearly as successful as different types of leaders with different skills taking
them on.
I think watching the staff members different leadership techniques has also made me consider the value of
different types of leadership. All of them have different leadership styles, and the value of those types
comes into play in different situation. Tom thinks things out thoroughly and communicates things in a
very clear in confident way, making all of us trust his decision making. Smash is always excited and ready
to get things done so she is good at making us all get moving and get things done as well. By watching all
of them lead I have seen different leadership techniques in action and have gained a better understanding
of why different types are important and how they can be used.

Taking all of these experiences into account I have come to a better understanding of what my personal
leadership philosophy is. My new leadership philosophy still includes things like confidence, competence,
empathy, good planning, and pragmatism. What I think has changes is the emphasis that I’ve put on
empathy and understanding and connecting with other people. As well as the importance of different
types of leaders for different situations. So much of this course has been looking at how we interact with
groups, form connections, and work through issues I think it has made it very clear to me that for teams to
be successful there has to be very strong relationships between leaders and team members.

In order to continue developing my leadership this fall I will be taking another leadership class as part of
my major, I also plan on continuing to take leadership roles. I am going to try and take roles even in
things I’m not 100% confident in to try and push myself out of my comfort zone.

Aside from changing the way I think about leadership and what makes a good leader I think I have
changed and have become a better leader. For starters I think over the course of the trip I became more
understanding to peoples situations and became more patient. It may have been to my detriment, but at
the start of the trip every little thing irritated me (think mugs in the sink), but over the course of the trip I
have accepted that I can’t control every aspect of things and that some people will always do things
differently than I do. I think accepting this has made it easier for me to work with other people and to be
more ok with differences of opinions or the way we do things. It has also made me, I don’t want to say
nicer, but nicer. I think its hard to have positive experiences with people when you are constantly
frustrated with them and trying to get them to act a specific way, so by accepting that people will not
always act the way I think they probably should I am able to have better connections with those people.

I also think I have become more of an extrovert over the course of the trip. At home I am very much an
introvert who needs time alone to recharge. Because there is basically no alone time on the boat I had to
quickly become accustomed to not having alone time or time to recharge in the ways I usually do. I still
wouldn’t say that I am an extrovert, but I am able to go a lot longer around a lot more people before I
need a break. I don’t think you need to be an extrovert to be a leader, but I do think having a higher
tolerance for spending lots of time with people is useful when leading or being part of a team.

Finally, I think this trip has made me more comfortable stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new
things. I am more willing to try new experiences and am less nervous about failing said new experiences.
I think leaders need to be able to step out of their comfort zone and be able to do everything that they are
asking their team to do. By being willing to step out of my comfort zone and try new things I have
become a better leader. I think trying new things also gives you a larger wealth of experiences that you
can draw on when trying to lead a group. By having more life experience to fall back on in tough
situations I will be better equipped to make overall better choices.

Overall I have greatly enjoyed this class. I think it has presented new ideas that I hadn’t spent time
considering before. I liked the discussions that we had and the personality tests that we took. I went into
many of them with preconceived notions of what category I would fall into and was surprised when my
results were not what I expected. I think it offered a way for us to look at leadership in more than just a
textbook format and gave us the opportunity to connect with other students who were the same (or
similar) personality and leadership types to us.