melikay's Articles
April 14, 2005 by melikay
This past week was our last two two class periods. I have had an enjoyable semester with my professor. I have learned a lot about leadership and how to take a stand in life. I am usually one of those people who follow what others say, but after taking this class, I feel that I will take more of a stand and step-up to leadership positions. On Monday in class, we had a guest speaker on the phone, Kirk Weisler. He was an excellent motivational speaker. It was intersting to hear how he was so exc...
April 6, 2005 by melikay
With so many great movies out there, where do you start to find a good example of leadership? I decided to work with the movie Dodgeball, and I guess I wasn't the only one in my class to do so! It was one of the top three movies for the class! Our Professor explained how important movies are and the leadership shown in them. I guess he is doing a great job of teaching if the class can take a movie like Dodgeball and explain the leadership shown in it. I thought that this was a good assignmen...
April 1, 2005 by melikay
In class on Wednesday, we watched a movie containing a motivational speaker who showed the benefits of working for some companies. I learned from the film that we have the choice to work in any conditions. There are many options available for any career choice, you just have to look. People do not have to settle for a mediocre everyday job, there are plenty of jobs that will work with you to give you the choices you would like to persue. I liked how some of the companies don't call their em...
March 30, 2005 by melikay
In class on Monday, we worked on a survival activity. We were stranded in the desert with our team and we had to figure out what items were most important to us. The individual scores for our team were a lot better than the group score. I think this is because some people on our team didn't care which order the items were placed in. Some of the members didn't say anything about any of the items or the order we placed them in. We had some people in our group that had logical explination for wh...
March 25, 2005 by melikay
In class on Wednesday, we had the opportunity to watch a clip about 4 different ways to answer a concern by an employee. The first manager was extremely rude, didn't act like he was in the least bit concerned about the problem, and didn't even know the employee's name. The second manager was extremely laid back and didn't seem worried about anything. He just acted like the problem would dissappear and he wouldn't need to do anything. The third manager was really rude to the employee and trie...
March 23, 2005 by melikay
Why do we have 2 ears and only one mouth? According to my professor, it is because listening is twice as important as talking! It is hard to listen to everything that others tell you! Active listening is when you hear what the person tells you and then you repeat it back to them in different words so they know you understand what they were trying to tell you! I listen to what other people say, but I sometimes have a hard time remembering what they said. The example that was given in class was...
March 10, 2005 by melikay
In class yesterday, our professor continued talking about the top five secrets to success. He asked the question, "What do employees want?" If you think about it what is it that really motivates employees to stay at a job? Employees want to know what is in it for them. They need to know how the job is going to benefit their personal lives. In ranking the qualities for what employees want in a career, I was very different from the way supervisors ranked the qualities. Supervisors ranked ful...
March 8, 2005 by melikay
The secrets to leading others... Where do you begin? Our professor has outlined five easy steps to lead others. They are as follows:1. Tell them what you expect.2. Make it doable.3. Reward them.4. Give them feedback.5. When they are done, reward them again.I think that these could be the main five steps to lead others, but there is also a lot more that goes into it. I feel that by doing these steps the followers will be more willing to help you out as a leader and be more motivated. Every lea...
February 24, 2005 by melikay
In class yesterday, we discussed time management. This is a problem that I face everyday! I always feel like there is so much that I am not accomplishing. Since I am a full time student and almost a full time worker (about 30-35 hours a week), it makes it hard to get everything done. I have learned to delegate some chores around the house to my husband so I have more time to study for my classes. It is somewhat difficult for me to have his help because he does some of the chores differently...
February 9, 2005 by melikay
I had an interesting week about leadership and all the opportunities that come with it. I had the opportunity to host the Midwest Career Conference at Purdue University and learned a lot! I learned a lot from the speaker at the conference. Although he may be hard on us, I have a feeling that I will really like him and learn a lot from this class. The speaker had an interesting way of showing us leaders, but it was extremely helpful and memorable. He showed a lot of commercials and clips th...
February 3, 2005 by melikay
This week in class we challenged the people who wanted to take the leadership roles in the class. The two tests they had to pass seemed silly at the time, but they were illustrating a point. The first test was used to see how the person represented him/herself. They were asked the question "Why should I follow you?" and given 30 seconds to answer. Most of the people didn't even tell us their name! Why should we want someone to lead our class if they can't even introduce themself to the cla...
January 19, 2005 by melikay
The first week of class was extremely confusing. The teacher didn't even show up for the first class. Then the second day, he just sat in the back of the classroom and told us that we were avoiding the assignment. I was really confused on what we were supposed to be doing. I was a little upset that we were in a leadership class and the teacher wasn't leading us. I didn't know what to expect considering the first two class periods.