Devin's Leadership Philosophy

 Every individual has a different leadership philosophy created based on their life experiences. Although some forms of leaderships may be more effective than others, everybody has their own beliefs and practices. I believe every good leader must have these six qualities.

Be Proactive: One of the most important traits of a good leader is to be proactive. I have learned this year that a leader must be able to predict problems before they happen, and take action to prevent the issues from ever happening again. Also, a leader must have the ability to attack an obstacle, instead of responding to it after the fact. I believe people must make things happen and not wait for things to come to them. As the great Michael Jordan once said,"some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen, and others make it happen." In my opinion, a leader must be able to "make it happen". 

Think win-win: Normally, people think about succeeding in the terms of someone else failing. When someone thinks win-win they have a frame of mind that seeks mutual benefit in all interactions. It is important for a leader to have this attitude because instead of feeling as if someone must fail, they believe everyone can succeed. When the leader of a company believes everyone can succeed, there is less negative competition, and more working together to strive for your goals. When everyone is working together, the company can produce the highest quality product, resulting in more money for the business. 

Listen: Another significant quality of a leader is to listen effectively. In class, we did many activities working in large groups. In those large groups there were many different voices and opinions to be heard, and I noticed that many people were not open to others ideas. In my opinion, a leader has to be able to listen to what others have to say and apply it. If a leader is close-minded and doesn't listen to their employees, they are not properly utilizing the resources available to them. Also, listening is important because when someone is telling you something important, you don't want to make them repeat it and look disinterested. 

Adaptability: Adaptability is another important trait of a leader. In a leadership position, you can be faced with all different types of challenges. A good leader is able to adapt to each individual obstacle and find the best way to overcome it. Leaders need to be able to change the way they think and talk to best suit an individual situation. I believe the best way to judge a leader is to see how they manage change, and how they adjust to new situations. 

Democratic: The best kind of leaders are democratic. Democratic leaders use the help of their employees when making decisions and promotes the interests of all employees. Instead of making all the decisions, a democratic leader utilizes the help of everyone, and creates an open environment where everybody can share their opinions. I believe that a democratic environment creates a better workplace, which creates happier employees, hence increasing the quality of the product and the amount of money you make. 

Sharpen the saw: Finally, I believe that sharpening the saw is an important quality for all leaders. Even at the highest levels of management, it is necessary to remain fresh and renew yourself. By sharpening the saw, you are allowing yourself to relax and grow as a person. Leaders can often times burn themselves out, so it is extremely important to take a step back and get back on your "A" game. I've learned that working too much is a negative, and can hinder your performance, making it even more important to take some time for yourself. 

Noelle's Leadership Philosophy

        Before taking this class I thought being a leader meant getting people to listen to you. I thought being a leader meant focusing all on your followers, hoping they would respect and listen to you. After I took this class I learned it took much more to be a leader. I learned what it meant to be a good leader, and what kind of leader I want to be.
       There are many styles a leader can be. There are many different ways they can lead and make decisions. For example there are three decision making styles a leader can be which are autocratic leader, democratic leader and a free-rein leader. Although all these styles have their own strengths and weaknesses not a single one is perfect. Throughout this semester I've been trying to figure which certain styles I am. As we started wrapping up our last units I've realized I don't need to have just one defined style. I don't need to be just one type of leader. I can, and will, be all different kinds of leaders because different situations may call for different actions to be taken. Throughout this semester I've come up with my own standards of what kind of leader I want to be:

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader" John Quincy Adams

Begin with the end in mind (goal setter): Tony Robbins explained on Ted talks how to be a goal setter. He told us the first step is to slow down and think of all the things that went well in the past year and why they went well. Then, secondly, think of all the bad things that happened last year and why they ended up as bad as they did. Then, he told us to set our goal. Set goals to make sure positive things happen in the next year. And lastly set up a ritual that would allow you to achieve these goals. You have to see the big picture, have a goal and become motivated to achieve that goal.
Think Win Win: Thinking win win is the mindset that you and I will both win. It's not me, it's not you, it's both of us, With win win you will create a positive environment with you and others. If you're always winning and you're followers are always losing, they will ultimately end up leaving. When you turn situations in win-lose or lose-win you turn everything into a competition. Rather than working against each other, you should work together and have a win-win situation making everyone happy.
Communication: You hear many people say communication is key. Well they're right. Without communication your subordinates will not know what they're trying to achieve and what's the most efficient way to achieve it. In the communication unit I learned many listening skills as well as sending skills. You have to communicate impersonally (with memos and letters) to get the word out quickly as well as communicate interpersonally (face-to-face) in order to be personal and get feedback. I've learned to be aware of who your receivers are and the environment you're in so they fully understand you. With having multiple communication skills it will allow your ideas to be heard and spread. It will allow your goals to be heard by all your followers so they know exactly what and who they're working for. It will also make things more efficient because good communication skills will allow you to tell them exactly how to do things to make your goal be achievable.
Be Confident: I believe this is the second most important trait in a leader. Brene Brown mentioned that we try to perfect everything, we try to pretend nothing's our fault and we pretend our actions don't have consequences. We need to let ourselves be seen, the bad, the good, and no pretending to be something you're not. She told us that we need to believe we're enough. Also in the 7 habits we learned about our personal bank accounts. We learned we must fix ourselves first. You cannot run a business if you don't have a connection with your followers, and to do that is to give them something to believe in. I believe you should give them a strong, respectable, confident, worthy leader to believe in and then you're business will do just fine. And even if you're not so confident in something, just fake it until you make it.
Be Proactive: This is the most important trait in a leader. You must be proactive. You will not earn anything by sitting around hoping a miracle will happen. As said in 7 Habits, proactive people are the drivers of their lives, not the passengers. Although there are many things you cannot control, you can control how you react to the situation. Being proactive will allow you to get things done and continue towards your goal. A leader is not a leader if they're reactive, they become a follower. A leader is and will always be proactive because if they truly want something they will go and get it.

"If you think you can, or can't do a thing, you're right." Henry Ford

Daniel Hu's Leadership Philosophy

I believe that a leadership philosophy can't be right or wrong, but it can be proven to be effective or ineffective where it is applied. Before this class, my philosophy was really vague, but through this class, I have been able to take a lot of knowledge and craft it into a leadership philosophy. I believe that in order to be an effective leader a leader has to incorporate these elements into his leadership.

• Lead by example and understand where you are going
• As cliche as it sounds, this is perhaps the most important aspect of a leader. If you are no better than your followers, then are you really a leader? While I knew this before, this class has enhanced my knowledge on what this means and how a person can lead by example. People will only follow those that they can trust. In order to develop this trust, a leader has to show his followers that he can set goals and achieve them. A good leader sets goals and shares them with his followers so that they understand what they are working towards, this way, there will be motivation to work.
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens taught us some of the basic prerequisites to leading by example. A chapter that I thought were especially important to leading by example was the Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood chapter. This chapters highlights a key concepts:
• Understand what you are leading and what you have to do to lead before leading
• My personal leadership philosophy is that you have an interest in what you are doing, and have an interest in the people you are leading, because if you do, then you will understand what you are doing, and therefore have an easier time to get other people to understand you. If I was working at a technology company in Silicon Valley and managing a team, my first priority would be to make sure that I am fluent in the work that they do, and that I get to know my followers personally. This way, I would be seen as a capable and understanding person that others could look up to.
• Understand who you are leading
• Knowing who your followers are and what they expect of you is extremely important. We learned different leadership styles in the management unit, which I applied to my leadership philosophy. For example, if I was the manager of a marketing team, I would understand that a free reign style leadership would probably be the best form of leadership since the area of marketing and the people in it would respond the best to a free flowing environment. However, if I was a general manager at a retail store, the best way to lead would be by using a democratic approach because there needs to be a level of professional management, but in order to make sure that workers are satisfied, they would need to be heard.
• Communication
• Communication is essential to a good leader because without it, followers wouldn't have any idea what they are supposed to do, or what they are trying to achieve. I learned in this class during the communications unit that in order to be an effective communicator, knowing the receiver and constructing the message with them in mind are some of the top priorities when sending a message. This ties back to my point on understanding who you are leading since if you understand who you are leading, then you will have an easier time communicating to them. With these communication skills that I learned. I believe that by being an effective communicator, you can show respect by recognizing barriers to communication and avoiding them, and that you can often convince people to follow your ideas. I believe that with good communication skills, I would be able to motivate, teach, and boost the creativity of the people I lead.
• Overall, my leadership philosophy is based on common understanding between the leader and the followers so that everyone always knows who everyone else is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it together. By using this leadership philosophy, I believe that anybody can get to know and lead almost anyone.

Grace's Leadership Philosophy

Think Tank Leadership Impact Project

Think Tank-

For our project in Management and Leadership, our goal was to develop product ideas that target teen’s needs and leave a lasting impact on the teen community.  First, our group came up with a number of problems that teens face in everyday life.  Then, we cut down the list into eight final ideas.  Next, the group split up into three separate groups and took one idea for their own to research and perfect.  The ideas chosen were: 

• a website with recommendations for classes,

• a schedule pen,

• a vending machine

• an app that told students if there were any parking spots available at the school.  

Schedule Pen-  Our group’s idea was to create a product that would aid high school student’s in an everyday way.  The actual idea was a pen that would have a paper pennant inside that could be pulled out of the pen.  The pennant would have the late arrival and assembly bell schedules, as well as a normal schedule. Colored a nice green for GBN school spirit

Recommendations-  Our section of the think tank found a need for a website that helps kids decide what classes they are going to enroll in. This site would allow students to rate and review classes that are offered at Glenbrook North. Currently at GBN the only way of knowing what kind of class you're signing up for is by word of mouth, the student handbook, and your counselor. Making this website would help students know the type of class they are signing up for and allows them to use their best judgment to decide if a course will suit them well. For our project in Management and Leadership, our goal was to develop  a product ideas that targets teens and execute our plan by creating a website from a pre made page site like Wix. com or Squarespace.com. These websites vary in price from $5-25 a month and would give us a set template to design our page with. We would advertise our site by word of mouth around the school, hand out flyers around the Northshore area, and use the radio. The reason why this would be different from ratemyteachers.com would be because we would try to make this more community oriented. On this website we could offer study material specific to classes that would make people want to use it regularly. We would make money with advertisements. For more information click here

Parking Space- A typical problem we found throughout students in GBN (typically upperclassmen) was that they wouldn't know which parking lot is filled. We came up the idea to create an app that shows GBN students how many spots are left available in each lot around GBN. This would solve the problem of students wasting time instead of getting to class. We researched how I passes worked seeing if it would relate to this product. We found out that they worked with putting RFID trackers on the car and having them go under and RFID scanner that would transmit data. We were planning on doing that so we would need to find out how much and where we can get RFID trackers, scanners and mounts to hold the scanners. The problems we ran into were that we couldn't find a way to tell which spots were available or tell when cars left the parking lot. Another problem was the price, we couldn't find a way to make a profit after spending a couple thousand dollars on RFID chips and readers so it wouldn't be profitable. Also we didn't have enough knowledge on how everything worked and what systems we would need. The final problem we found is that this product would cause teens to look at their phones when they should be focused on driving. So this product ultimately did not work. For more information about this innovative idea click here

Vending Machine- We thought of a common problem that many people forget important necessities while going to the beach. To fix that problem this section of the entrepreneur group pursued the idea of a vending machine that would be installed on beach property containing products that are commonly forgotten such as sunscreen, sunglasses, water toys, etc. We researched how much a vending machine would cost (with shipping and handling), how many items it would hold, where would we get the supplies, and how much we would sell the supplies for. Some of the problems that we encountered is that we were unable to install a vending machine on the Lake Shore Drive beach because they had an existing contract with the beach vendors prohibiting us to install another one. We also couldn't install onto Glencoe beach because we would have to fill out an application and wouldn't know if we were able to until 2015 October. However the lady we talked to on the phone said it was a very good idea, we would just need to fill out an app. We also wouldn't know how profitable it would've been because we couldn't figure out the average attendance at Glencoe beach. So all in all the plan did not work. For more information click here

To learn more about the Think Tanks project click here

Increase School Spirit II

School Spirit

As our Leadership Impact Project, we decided to increase school spirit at Glenbrook North High School. By continuing the previous semester’s project, and adding in our own ideas, we wanted to make a lasting impact on the GBN community for years to come.

Before implementing an action plan, we conducted research to identify the consensus of the GBN students regarding school spirit. We used a survey gathered by the last group, as well as our own surveys to gather information. We found that students generally felt that spirit was not reaching its full potential. Younger students seemed to be reluctant to participate in dress up days because very few people participate. Our group felt that in order to get people involved, we needed to advertise school spirit.

Original Plan

Our original plan called for a wide array of projects and goals. The plan included a "change challenge" during Pride Week, as well as counting students dressing up on spirit days. Also, we wanted to create a Pride Week champion to stir up competition among the classes. We also wanted to use creative advertising techniques such as sidewalk chalk and window painting to promote school spirit. Lastly, we set a goal to get 500 students onto the Spartan Spirit Squad Google+ Community page.

Original Plan: https://docs.google.com/a/glenbrook225.org/document/d/1-nGZlQ2XSmQhDbEZj2b245xeFjbcICWIQKabWehQWNw/edit?usp=sharing

Execution

What we were able to accomplish ended up being vastly different from our original plan. It turned out that other groups were in charge of Spirit Week, so we did not have much room to implement our ideas, especially with the time given. Additionally, our creative advertising did not go as planned because we could not get approval from Dr. Tarjan. Finally, we had to adapt the Google+ Community initiative due to a shift in its use and purpose. In response, we decided to design flyers promoting the Google+ Community, Game of the Week and Green and Gold Fridays. We also designed T-shirts for the Spartan World Tour.

Executed Business Plan:
https://docs.google.com/a/glenbrook225.org/document/d/1WIwJnXBBEWPnV00j3_dyjC-kLoBmu9ZHexMk0ROVYmo/edit?usp=sharing

Definition of Success Criteria

The success of our group cannot be counted, nor can our group’s success immediately be shown. We wanted to create a more spirited place for the future GBN. Because we started so late in the year, it was tough to get many people to change their view on spirit days. Our success will be seen in the years to come. We wanted to spark the GBN community so we can have school spirit increase each year.

Burger Day Marketing and Promotion Team

Burger Day XII A Great Success

Strategic Goal

• Increase attendance and awareness for Burger Day
• Create school spirit and community feel in benefiting a good cause

The Burger Day Marketing and Promotion Team, consisting of students from Glenbrook North High School, headed by Jason Spector, ran the most attended Burger Day in the last four years with nearly 200 high school students from both Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High School attending the event.

One hundred percent of the proceeds from the event went towards benefiting Ronald McDonald Charities in the Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana areas as well as Ronald McDonald House.

Burger Day began as a prank by a group of GBS and GBN athletes who attended middle school together. "One day, after a cross country meet, they decided to come to this (Plaza Del Prado) McDonald's and buy out all of the burgers." The owner then came and asked if they can make this “prank” into an event that raises money for charities.

To raise awareness for the event, our team hung up posters, and posted flyers all around the school. These were placed in areas around the school where many students hang out so it can increase the likelihood of being seen. Morning announcements were made every day the week before the event so everyone in the school can hear the event. Team members also sold Burger Day t-shirts in the ticket booth for $10 each during their lunch and free periods. Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South were able to raise nearly $2500 from t-shirts alone.  Awareness was spread evenly, from upper classmen through SRTs and advocacy classes, to freshmen in peer groups.

One way we marketed for Burger Day was through social media sites such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. We thought social media was an effective way to reach a lot of high school students while not spending any money. The first way we advertised on social media was by creating a pump-up video/commercial on Youtube. Then we transitioned into advertising on facebook by sharing this video on youtube. Finally, about a week before the event we created a Burger Day event on Facebook which not only advertised by sending invites to a ton of people on Facebook, but it also helped give us a head count on how many people are going to show at the even. Overall, social media was a huge factor in marketing for Burger Day.

The Management and Leadership team attempted to reach out to underclassmen because, according to the research, underclassmen knew the least about what Burger Day is. The team found that a good way to reach out to underclassmen was through peer group and advocacy classes. Flyers and posters were hung up in the peer group hallway and peer group leaders talked about the event to freshmen. A team member also talked to advo classes to advertise to sophomores. Although outreach was attempted, only a few underclassmen were seen at the event.

Burger Day took place on April 19, 2015 at McDonalds at Plaza Del Prado and lasted from 12:00 p.m. - 4:00p.m. The community event brought children, adults, and students from the two schools and the surrounding community.

This year’s Burger Day event event raised $35,000, all of which went to benefit Ronald McDonald’s House Charities.

Link to action plan/proposal: here