I joined Student Ambassadors as a freshman in the fall of 2019. As a member of this group, I give tours to prospective students and their families. I also volunteer in the community, participate in social events to bond with group members, and attend bi-weekly chapter meetings. I decided to join Student Ambassadors because I wanted to meet other involved students and felt good about my public speaking skills. I also remembered how much tour guides influenced my view of different campuses while I was touring schools and wanted to make an impact on and create a positive image of MNSU, Mankato.

​

Being a member of Student Ambassadors satisfies Values 1 and 2.

​

As I mentioned, I came into student ambassadors confident in my public speaking skills. This is something I identify as a leadership strength and Student Ambassadors has only improved this strength by allowing me to engage in public speaking opportunities during tours. After taking the StrengthsFinder test during my first year at MNSU, I found two of my leadership strengths to be achiever and activator. While these are great traits to have in some instances, they both revolve around being productive. It can be easy for me to go quickly over information on tours because it is already so familiar to me. In this way, the leadership traits of achiever and activator can cause leadership weaknesses by being too direct and moving from one thing to the next at a rapid pace. At this point, I no longer notice myself going over things too quickly during tours partly due to my experience and comfort level with giving tours for four years.

​

Although this is one small example of leadership strengths and weaknesses, it gives rise to one of my personal leadership values. I think it is extremely important for a leader to recognize when something isn’t working and be able to adjust their leadership style accordingly. In this case, I noticed that I was skimming over unfamiliar topics a bit too quickly for prospective students and families. I adjusted the way I was giving tours by consciously slowing down and frequently asking the group for questions. Student Ambassadors has also formed another personal leadership value of flexibility. Although the tour is somewhat scripted in that we must hit a few main points and locations, a lot of the dialect and actions is left up to the tour guide. For example, a parent question or student’s intended major may influence me to take a certain tour route. Most times, after the tour, I also offer to take families to specific parts of campus that they were interested in but didn’t get to see during the tour. As a leader it is important to be flexible so that the group is getting the most out of the experience as possible.

​

In my future professional groups, I will be conscious to slow down and keep in mind that not everyone is as familiar as I am with the subject matter. I will also pay attention to what leadership styles are or are not working and adjust what I had planned accordingly.