Elayna Dyke

After being an active participant of a Bible Study at the Newman Center, my friend and the leader of the Bible study group asked me if I would want to lead a Bible Study and become a Newman Center Student Leader in the future. I said yes, and the next semester, I actively pursued this opportunity.  My responsibilities included attending weekly events, welcoming people and befriending them, inviting others to take part in activities such as Bible study, and leading a Bible study. After taking Introduction to Honors, I felt confident in using my strengths to be a leader. Although this experience came with difficulties, I was able to change how I directed my group in order to best serve them as a leader. I used my personal leadership philosophies outside of the classroom, which gave me opportunities to reflect and critique the way that I displayed leadership.

 

Bible studies are ways to learn about difficult aspects of scripture in a supportive environment. The environment is supposed to be supportive and empowering to one another, and the goal is to learn from each other about how to be better people and influences to one another. I was inspired by this purpose. The members of my Bible study were all student leaders as well, and they lead Bible studies. I wanted to do something new and exciting, so I decided to do a collaborative planning activity, in which we planned what we would study for the rest of the semester. We talked about the goals for this study, what being in this group meant, and what they wanted to achieve. An overwhelming response was to learn about the scripture as well as to learn about real-life ways to make a difference in others’ lives. It was ineffective, and there were moments of silence that were not productive. We did end up planning an activity that lasted for a few weeks instead of the end of the semester.

 

The next time, I planned something myself rather than making it a group decision. I focused less on the group choosing what they wanted and more on fostering discussion. That plan worked the best, because there was less pressure on the group members to choose topics, and there was more fruitful discussion because they did not choose something that they were familiar with. This was surprising for me, because I felt like an authoritarian leader when I definitively chose a topic, but it was effective for the development of a team. Each week, I had the group members set goals for themselves for themselves that were measurable that they would report back to the study each week. We all discussed suggestions and solutions for one another. The results were overwhelming, because each woman achieved many different goals with the support from the group.

 

After a few weeks, I received a suggestion from a team member who advised that I plan “one-on-one” meetings with each woman. I made time to meet with each woman to discuss plans and goals, as well as have discussions on what they wanted to change and what ideas they had. I was glad to receive the constructive criticism for this group, and I was able to articulate and revise leadership strategies for my group in order to best lead and collaborate with my team.

 

I learned a lot about how to apply my leadership philosophies, and how to act as a leader on a team, because my Bible study was collaborative rather than hierarchical. Collaboration and open minds were absolutely necessary in order for my team and I to achieve our goals, which is something that I refer to whenever I am faced with opportunities to lead others.