The Spark Leadership Series was one of my first leadership conferences I attended at CMU. Spark is a three-night interactive series focusing on helping you to develop your leadership style and abilities. Through my Spark Leadership Series experience, I was able to meet so many amazing people, as well as learn more about my leadership style and why it is so important to lead in diverse teams while responding to challenges.
During the first night of Spark, we were split into teams. The teams were used when we split from the entirety of the group, so that we were able to have more meaningful conversations and create ideas with each other. The teams were the same throughout the whole series. The focus of the first night was “Creating My Path”. We started in our groups with some team building and icebreakers to get to know and grow more comfortable with each other. We then moved on to discussing our True Colors outcome after taking the True Colors Assessment. This assessment is to provide you with your “true colors” and how they relate to your leadership style. I was very heavily gold, and I think that my results fit me very well. Our last task of the night was starting to talk about our personal leadership development plan.
The second night was focused on “From Me to Us”. We started by going back to our True Colors results, but this time we focused on understanding how other’s colors correlates to how they think or want to perform certain tasks. We also talked about how we can work with others who have differing top strengths/colors than our own. Next, we moved back into our groups and worked on an activity where we created our own RSO based on what we think would be a good idea to add to the campus community. We then moved on to discussing trust and vulnerability. This topic was very beneficial to me as we talked about how they correlate and why they are so important in our lives. We rounded out the night talking about the difference between empathy and sympathy. We participated in an activity within our groups and discussed how to properly use both, and in what situation one is better over the other.
On the third and final night, the focus was on “Creating Change”. The Spark team brought in a group of panelists that spent time talking with us about their leadership journey and tips they found helpful. I enjoyed this part of the conference as we were able to ask questions and learn different perspectives and ideas. Next, we moved into a service activity, where we wrote letters to different organizations. I wrote my letter to an organization for those in nursing homes, who love to receive surprise letters. Finally, we had our closing and a virtual mini “graduation from our Spark Leadership Series experience.
Spark also touched upon all four of the leadership categories that the Leadership Institute focuses on. These categories are Leadership Knowledge and Application, Identity Development, Healthy Relationships, and Social Responsibility. They created and facilitated activities that correlated with all of these categories, which I think were very helpful.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Spark Leadership Series. Although I wasn’t able to attend in person, I still feel as though it was beneficial. I was able to learn so much about my leadership style, how to relate it to others, and how to help lead in many different ways. I believe that the Spark Leadership Series will continue to help me as I navigate different situations and experiences in life. I know that I will always be able to look back at my True Colors for guidance, as well as my recollection of all the activities we did in our small groups.
Samantha McDonald 