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- How have the workshops and discussions on leadership this week changed your understanding of what leadership means?
- How might you imagine applying one of the four ways of leading during your summer on campus?
- What is everyone most excited about engaging in as part of their summer research project?
Please answer these questions by creating a post of your own, and also respond to another student's post. In responding to another student’s post, find a student’s post that you find interesting. Scroll down to the bottom of the entry and hit “Leave a comment”. Leave your reply in the box provided.
Remember: you should post your own responses by Thursday evening. You should respond to another student’s response by Friday evening. I look forward to discussing your reflections when we next meet!
Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Director of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, Columbia University
I am a cultural historian by training, and I oversee undergraduate research and fellowships at Columbia. I also have the pleasure of serving as the coordinator of Columbia's Laidlaw program. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about coming to Columbia to pursue research and/or community engagement!
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1. Being able to learn from Pamela Sohn and listening and contributing to the conversations about leadership values, skills, and types have been quite eye-opening for me over the past few days. Although I have been previously exposed to the various skills and values at different levels, given my involvement with leadership and leadership development programs, I must admit that framing things in such a manner was new for me. The four leadership styles, especially of one’s inner compass and also being a leader from behind, are great frameworks that I hope to continue developing, especially when I think about what leadership is. Furthermore, I thought the self-assessments were interesting, and I learned much more about myself and how I view leadership. The assessments also helped me to become cognizant of the areas in which I hope to grow my leadership style and skill set. For example, I want to implement more driver characteristics in group settings in addition to continuing to develop other communication styles, including the one I am most comfortable with.
2. One way I plan to implement the leading within aspect of the Co-Active Leadership Model is by keeping myself accountable and my intentions aligned with the ultimate goal of my project. As this summer we are largely working by ourselves on our projects, I hope to utilize my time efficiently and effectively to be able to produce worthy research for my community, a community in need of a voice in academia. Furthermore, by working on this specific way of leadership, I hope to build myself and my intentionality with ethicality in mind.
3. I am most excited about being able to connect more with the NYC community through this research project, especially NYC’s Afghan population. There are so many beautiful and meaningful narratives of people who migrated to the US, and NYC specifically, because of the hardships they faced in a war-torn country, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to bring these stories to light and give them a platform to share experiences that have shaped my community since the onset of the Soviet-Afghan War.
I definitely agree with your point about how much we learned about ourselves from the self assessments. I also think it was interesting to see, particularly with the values assessment, how we also learned from the choices we didn't make. For example how few people had status as their first value, despite many of us acknowledging how it factored into our college decision and likely would in the future.
Your reflections really stood out to me! I admire how you’re grounding your leadership in intentionality and community impact, especially through storytelling. I’m excited to see how your work uplifts voices that often go unheard!
I agree with what you mentioned about leading from within and about the different social styles! I also found it interesting to see how people adopt leadership in different but necessary ways. My project is also one that I am conducting independently, so, similar to you, the primary form of leadership I will use is leading from within.
I feel similarly to you in that I am looking forward to understanding a topic that I have limited experience with. I feel that it is always a rewarding experience to look back on how your perspective has changed after putting effort into an in-depth project!
1. I appreciated this week's workshops and discussions on leadership as they allowed to expand my personal definition of leadership, enabling me to consider how I will be a leader during my project this summer. Though I had previously been exposed to different forms of leadership, I found Pamela Sohn's conversation on the different forms of leadership to be especially beneficial. Breaking from the simplistic idea that leadership is about being at the forefront of a discussion or conversation, these workshops promoted the idea that leadership can take many different forms, such as being a leader from behind or a being leader from within. I also found the various conflict resolution scenarios we were provided with to be particularly beneficial, as they were extremely relevant in the context of research settings.
2. As much of my project this summer will be conducted independently, I plan on employing the 'Leader from Within' mentality. Keeping myself on task during the day, being organized in how I plan out my research, and being proactive in reaching out to interlocutors and my research supervisor, I will have several daily opportunities to demonstrate my ability to lead from within. It is my hope that my passion for my research project will help to cement my internal leadership abilities this summer.
3. I am most excited for the interviews I plan on conducting this summer as well as to look through Hawaiian archival materials. This is a project I have always wanted to do, but have never been able to dedicate exclusive time towards. As such, I am excited at the opportunity to devote significant time to further exploring endangered languages, specifically 'Ōlelo Hawai'i, and to engage with primary sources on the Hawaiian indigenous language's history and cultural context.
Similar to you, I also hope that the research I conduct this summer will aid me in employing the 'Leader from Within' style of leadership. I definitely agree that keeping ourselves on task and responsible for reaching out to those who can help us will be great opportunities to develop this skill set. I also think it is interesting that you are looking into Hawaiian archival materials, and I am sure exploring them more deeply will be very insightful. Indigenous languages and cultures are so rich, and I hope your research into 'Ōlelo Hawai'i is going to be fruitful.
1. This week’s workshops and discussions helped me realize that leadership doesn’t always have to be about being the loudest voice or the most visible person in the room. It can be subtle, supportive, and intentional. I used to think being a leader meant taking charge, but now I understand that listening, making space for others, and knowing when to step back are just as important. Leadership can look very different based on the situation. The people involved and that flexibility is part of what makes it effective.
2. This summer, I see myself using the “leading from behind” approach during my research. I’ll be working closely with a team and a mentor, so rather than trying to take control, I want to support the people around me and ask thoughtful questions. In a lab setting, especially one I am still learning my way around, it makes more sense to listen, observe, and contribute carefully rather than trying to immediately lead up front.
3. What I am most excited about is being able to dive into questions that don’t have clear answers yet. There’s something really motivating about contributing to research that could shift how we understand memory or the brain. For me personally, I’m looking forward to working with Purkinje cell activity and seeing how these patterns might link to learning and recall. It’s exciting to think that what we find could help connect the dots between movement, memory, and deeper brain functions.
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment about leading from behind. In the lab setting, and especially as younger members, the ability to ask questions and focus on learning rather than results has repeatedly emphasized. I find the piece about asking thoughtful questions to be especially insightful as asking those questions both takes contemplation and humility.
1.) I found hearing from Pamela John on the varying values of leadership and my accompanying conversation with fellow scholars to be quite enlightening. While leadership is something that I have had to ponder throughout my life––and especially in essays––it has frequently been presented to me as an inexplicable force uniform across all levels. However, prompted by Pamela's presentation, fellow scholars (Alex and Mica) and I began to explore how levels of abstraction increase drastically as one reaches higher and higher positions in a hierarchical structure, and how this abstraction can eventually reach levels which can be harmful. I found that thinking about how leadership is altered at various levels to be particularly important as we are all just entering these hierarchical structures, and being aware of this potential pitfall of leadership this early allows us to actively grapple with it long before it can be a problem in our own leadership.
2.) I will try to apply leading from behind this summer by constantly setting an example of hard work in the lab setting. In doing so I hope to both make progress myself and serve as a source of motivation for other lab members. As such a young member of the lab, it does not make sense for me to lead from the front, but in leading from behind I hope to not just further the research project I am working on, but also other members research.
3.) For me I am most excited to see not just the results of the project but all the new unknown areas that my work this summer makes me aware of. In the field of neuroscience, there are so many questions that are still unknown and interrelated, and in working on this summers project, I hope to be able to not just answer my original question, but to become aware of future question that are yet to even be asked. It is this very adaptability and potential that excites me most about the field of neuroscience and to continue doing research in the field.
Completely agree with your view of leadership as something that has been presented in the form of essays, but not really something that has been presented as a non-uniform and hierarchical force before. Through these valuable group discussions, I think that I have learned to challenge this belief, and considered how to implement it in my own life.
1. From this week's lectures and modules, I learned about the four paradigms of leadership. Rather than a traditional hierarchical and linear model, these emphasised a more collaborative and effective form of leadership, through which one could encourage and nurture others, rather than lead in a ego-centric manner. I had never thought about leadership as something that did not necessarily involve leading from the front, so to speak, but nonetheless, through these lectures, I was able to learn a more dynamic and balanced vision of a collaborative leadership.
2. I would apply the idea of leading from within in my research project. As a self-guided project, I believe that I will be able to more effectively learn and write by being self-aware about what my aims for this project are; being curious and inquisitive about my field of study; and ultimately, by living with integrity according to my own purpose and values.
3. I am most excited to be able to learn more about the philosophy which has guided not only Agamben, but influenced much of modern thought. While by no means a comprehensive dive into those like Arendt or Foucault, nonetheless, I am eager to contextualise my historical studies by looking into the paradigms and ideologies that defined the catastrophes of the 20th century, and which still continue to affect the world today.
I really liked how you brought up the idea of non ego-centric leadership. I think social media tends to promote the “great person” theory, where a single leader is portrayed as the face and driving force of an entire organization (e.g Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman…). It’s refreshing to be reminded that effective leadership can be shared, collaborative, and not always about being front and center.
1) What stuck with me most from the sessions was Pamela’s point that leadership doesn’t have to follow one fixed model throughout a project. Instead, it should adapt depending on the situation. Sometimes stepping up to lead from the front when direction is needed, and other times stepping back to let others take the spotlight. That really shifted my understanding. I used to think of leadership as a constant role, but now I see it more as a fluid and responsive process.
2) This summer, I see myself leading from within. Since I’ll be working mostly independently, I’ll be in charge of setting my own schedule and deadlines. I want to use this time to build a system that helps me stay productive while also protecting my mental well-being. It’s a chance to figure out how I work best.
3)I’m most excited to dive deep into the research and hopefully uncover something new. I’m especially looking forward to testing and learning different frameworks that can improve the accuracy and efficiency of LLMs. The idea of pushing the boundaries of what we know is what really drives me.