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Members of the South Carolina
Leadership Congress have learned a number of concepts from our
initiative activities. First of all, we have learned that cultivating
leadership skills is a lifelong process of personal development and
growth. This process should support the development of all human
potential through activities that focus on personal creativity,
exploration, reflection, and collective experience. Second, the group
has learned the importance of respecting and honoring diversity in all
of its many forms. Individuals possess their own unique skills and
talents that they can contribute to an organization. Effective
leadership supports and nurtures the development of human potential
through skills training and activities that engage individuals working
in community to expand awareness and creativity. Third, the group has
learned about the importance of dreaming with the larger community for
a preferred future for our institutions, local communities and the
state. While assumptions should be challenged in order for
institutional change to occur, traditions and histories should still
be honored and valued as part of the greater story. Finally, to quote
one SCLC member, " leadership is caring enough about something to
commit. As a leader, commitment becomes the focus of your
lifestyle."
SCLC members have learned that for
effective leadership and institutional change to occur, individuals
must be committed to empowerment, engagement, and collaboration.
Individuals must feel empowered to act and be supported by their
institutions in doing so. This will enable them to make connections
that will make a difference in their local communities. Second, active
engagement requires the promotion of responsible and honest
communication and defining teamwork as a collective activity where the
merging of individual talents is the key to success. When individuals
feel empowered, they are more likely to be actively engaged in seeking
opportunities and solving problems in their local communities. When
individuals are fully empowered and actively engaged, they can bring
the best of themselves to a partnership or collaboration. Leadership
is about discovering and valuing human potential through shared power.
It is about building a trusted partnership that is greater than the
sum of its individual members -- one that balances the practical with
the theoretical as it engages each of its members in
community-building.
Team members are using the learning
noted in their own personal and professional life. In addition, many
team members are communicating what they have learned to others in
their own respective institutions and in their work with local
communities. At present, the members of SCLC see themselves as core
group of individuals engaged in pilot activities. These activities
will form the foundation for a statewide network and leadership
program that will actively involve the partner institutions of SC
State University, the SC Technical College System, and Clemson
University, in collaboration with local communities and other
organizations throughout the state.
The SCLC members are seeking to
develop and promote activities that:
·
recognize and promote the intrinsic
value and " unexpected" potentials of each individual and
collective community;
·
honor different perspectives and
different ways to approach the whole while still emphasizing
commonalities and shared values;
·
promote shared power and the sharing of
ideas and decision-making;
·
require all participants to be both
learner and teacher simultaneously; and
·
build and instill the trust needed to
create a comfort zone where individuals and organizations feel
supported in their efforts to grow and transform.
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