Leadership (LEAD)
The ACPA & NASPA Leadership (LEAD) competency is an overarching term that is set to outline one’s understanding, training, skills, knowledge of attributes of a leader with or without positional authority (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). There is a distinctive difference between being a leader and the act of displaying leadership, the LEAD competency outcomes address this difference and to progress through the different proficiencies, it is a necessity for a student affairs professional to make this distinction. The outcomes are organized into four subcategories of education, training, development, and engagement: each category with a different target fundamental of leadership (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). To master the LEAD competency means for one to have a comprehensive understanding of how they show up when put into role that distinguished them as a leader, with or without authority, and to also understand how leadership processes work towards goals and missions to further the enhancement of their community and constituents. As student affairs professionals work through the LEAD competency, they will be tasked with self-reflection centered on leadership styles, personal values, lived experiences, and then applying that to their overall praxis as a practitioner is higher education.
After thoroughly going through the outcomes of the LEAD competency, I am firm in my belief that I am currently at the foundational proficiency level. Although, I do believe that I have mastered majority of the outcomes, specifically, the education and engagement subcategories are the two which require further development to progress towards full mastery of the LEAD competency foundational level. As each outcome was specific to one’s specific functional area and institution, I felt that there was a lot of growth that I have to do on my part as a new student and professional at Buffalo State University in order to be able to meet some of the LEAD outcomes. I have been developing my overall leadership style and identity for several years through a student leader lens, so being a newly established professional in student affairs through my graduate assistantship in residence life, I definitely have some reflecting and growth to do adjusting and applying the framework I built as a seasoned student leader to my current transition into becoming a well-informed student affairs professional.
Through the completion of HEA 650: Assessment in Higher Education, I was a part of the facilitation group leading a focus group amongst student affairs professionals to answer questions about where they saw the future of student affairs and higher education going. During this conversation, a common theme was brought up several times: community building resources are essential to student affairs success and the current direction of support within student affairs was not meeting the need for these resources. Reflecting upon the conversations we had, our research indicated that community building is not only a fundamental value of student affairs, but it also serves as an anchor within higher education. When I am program planning for my graduate assistantship, I think back to this conversation as it helps to keep my work student-focused and ensure that community building efforts are at the forefront of our initiatives in residence life (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). At the end of my coursework of HEA 616: American Higher Education, Dr. Diaz had us participate in a self-reflection activity, although brief, I believe that it has impacted the way I carry myself through the student affairs world and my perspective on how I want my work to impact others. This activity had us think about what we want our praxis to be, breaking it down into three parts: what we view the higher education system to be, what our approach is to contribute to this system, and which associated method embodies this approach. I had the opportunity to engage in a reflection about my personal values, beliefs, histories, and perspectives to envision how I want to show up as a leader and what leadership qualities are necessary to achieve these goals that prove relevant to my mastery another outcome from the LEAD competency (ACPA & NASPA, 2015).
To continue my growth within this competency area, it is important for me to engage with not only all the outcomes from the LEAD competency, but to directly focus on scenarios and opportunities that would target the outcomes that I have the least amount of mastery for. An example of one outcome that I will be focusing on is, “Identify institutional traditions, mores, and organizational structures (e.g., hierarchy, networks, governing groups, technological resources, nature of power, policies, goals, agendas and resource allocation processes) and how they influence others to act in the organization” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015). This is something that I have been working on since arriving at Buffalo State University eight months ago, so the systems beyond those that directly affect residence life are a little beyond me now. I intend to engage with more institutional and state opportunities to get familiar with the hierarchies and institutional context that would further help to inform the work I do. Courses that I look forward to engaging with that would further the development of these outcome areas would definitely be Strategic Planning and Budgeting and furthering my work in the current class I am taking, Student Affairs Administration to provide more context regarding structures and methods that I may connect to Buffalo State’s structure and methods to strengthen my understanding of its functional workings.
References
American College Personnel Association & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. (2015). ACPA/NASPA professional competency areas for student affairs educators. Washington, DC: Authors. Retrieved from: https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/ACPA_NASPA_Professional_Competencies_FINAL.pdf