Leadership Initiative 2

Angelica Navarro
Elizabeth Velazquez
Mayra Villarreal
Due: 9/29/14
Ethnic Studies 21: Freshman Seminar
MW: 3:00 p.m. 4:15 p.m.

On Wednesday September 24th my Ethnic Studies class was presented with another
Leadership Initiative presentation. This presentation was all about how someone working with a
group has to be able to work well with others and take into consideration what their ideas are.
People in groups have to evaluate their group members and figure out a way to work together
even though not everyones way of completing the task is the same. After doing so, everyone in
the group will be able to join ideas in order to come up with a final solution. The task we were
presented with that day was getting into a group and making a paper airplane that will be able to
fly farther than any other groups paper airplane.
To me however, I found this presentation to be a repetition of guidelines I had learned
from the previous leadership presentation we had. It was the same concept such as understanding
that not everyone in the group will be at my understanding of my idea on a certain topic that we
have to work together. The difference between this presentation and the last was that this one
was more hands on and gave us an example of obstacles we will face when working with a
group. We were put into groups and then we had to make the same paper airplane however the
twist was that every other person had a different objective on the piece of paper they were
handed. At least I believe that was the main idea of the activity. It would have been better if the
directions were explained better because as I looked around the room to the other groups, I
realized that there was confusion among everyone. People were talking over each other and
yelling to one another. The directions werent well said since the beginning. It made the task to
create a paper airplane to be quite disorganized and we didnt realize halfway through the task
that we werent suppose to share the objective we had on the little piece of paper we were
handed to our other group members. The other thing that I didnt like very much about the
presentation was that it seemed like the task we had to do with our group was rushed and as if we

were racing against other groups to see which group could make their paper airplanes first.
However, in the end we learned that we all had a different objective from other people but the
end result was still the same which was trying to see which paper airplane would fly the farthest.
As I mentioned before, I know that being a college student I will have to work with
others multiple times and I will come across other group members that will not have the same
ideas as mine. It is my job and my group members job to reach an equal medium in order to get
the task done, just like how my group and I had to create the same paper airplane. From the first
presentation I learned that everyone is a different type of leader when it comes to being in
groups. That presentation connected with this one by explaining to us how everyone has a
different approach when they are presented with a task and how the people in the group have to
join ideas in order to work together as one.
All in all, I found this presentation to be somewhat helpful to me. It did show me how
everyone became confused when our objectives were different from one another. We were then
able to make all of our paper airplanes the same once the instructions were repeated more clearly
to us. I hope to gain a wider perspective of what everyone else has to say about when working in
a group because I tend to prefer my way of doing things over what other people have to say. I
realize that I wont be able to do that anymore. I have to share and communicate with the
members in my group in order to get whatever task is presented to us done correctly. I also hope
that the next leadership presentation will show us more/different guidelines in regards of being a
better leader.