IlliniThon

What did you learn about leadership from this team experience?

I learned a great deal of information serving as the External Vice President of Illinithon. One of the most important things I learned about leadership this year in my position is that others will follow what they see. For example, in the beginning of the year I was very busy with my Illinettes schedule and had to miss many events for IlliniThon. Management and I agreed that this was okay because behind the scenes I was still doing a ton of work to uphold my position. But from the other viewpoint, many of the people that I oversee thought that I was just not attending things. This led my team to become less involved which was an issue that needed to be resolved. Once I started showing my commitment outwardly my team followed. It is sort of like a monkey see monkey do idea. I learned the importance of giving what you want to receive back and in this scenario it was outward commitment. I also learned the importance of having a “why” behind my leadership. In IlliniThon we talk a lot about what our why is for being in this club and putting in the effort that we do so I made sure to remind myself constantly of my why to keep me motivated and determined to embrace my role as EVP. 

What was most challenging about this team experience and how did you navigate it?

One of the most challenging things I faced during my time serving as the EVP is that not everyone is motivated by the same things and many people have many priorities. Currently I oversee 4 branches with over 20 people. Every week I am tasking my committees with lots of tasks to keep productivity going and reaching us towards our goal. Throughout the semester especially at times such as midterms or finals I saw a decline of commitment and productivity from my branches. During these times I had to find ways to keep everyone’s spirits high and stay involved with their tasks. What I learned is that some things motivated people more than others so I had to really learn about each person in my branches to determine what would work best for them. Once I was able to learn these things I saw an increase in productivity again. Another challenge I faced was communication. Within IlliniThon there are four vice presidents so at the beginning of the year we faced many difficulties with things not getting communicated to everyone leaving problems to arise. In order to fix this problem we decided it would be beneficial to not leave all of our thoughts and questions till our weekly meeting but instead to share things throughout the week in our group chat to keep everyone in the loop and allow everyone’s opinion to be inputted.