my peers final project

I read Tracie Akiona's final paper first, and I was really inspired by her passion and dedication to the project she put together. She was under a lot of stress, almost gave up, but still chose to lead her students and not take the easy way out. She showed true leadership by putting the whole project together, thinking of others needs, apologizing for past mistakes, and showing an example to others throughout the whole event. I really admired her passion for what her service learning project was all about, and how she managed her stress and negativity, put it aside for the greater good. I hope that because of this course we can all now be great leaders in whatever projects we lead, and we can be strong like Tracie demonstrated, even when it gets hard. I liked her project the best because it truly showed the good and the bad of what it takes to be a leader, but that in the end it was all worth it!

Final Paper!

Final Reflection Paper

For my final project for the course I chose to do a group project with Rebekah Bernard and Chenoa Castro. We are all Psychology majors and Communication minors/ double majors, who because of our course work at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, have come to discover the importance of combining both practices together. Psychology and Communications are so interconnected to each other that we chose to dedicate our project to teaching that importance to a group of Psychology students here at the University. Our project was combined of a speech, powerpoint and handout. The presentation was about an hour long that was presented to psychology counseling and practicum students.
Overall our presentation consisted of information relating Psychology to Communications such as nonverbal and verbal communication when talking to our clients, how we speak to our clients, what can make them comfortable or uncomfortable, and building trust with our clients. We also tied in a lot of what we learned from the 8th Habit book. We brought up what the 8th habit was, how to live by it, how to become a leader in Psychology for yourself and your client, how to inspire your client to find their voice, and we provided many examples from the book that related to our topic. We also did role playing examples of a bad communication with a client and a good, and also we did the exercise from the book about looking at a picture that has two different images, and comparing what you see to what someone else sees, so that our group understood that we all have different perceptions and how we can communicate those perceptions better for ourselves and the client. Overall the group we presented to was very interested in what we had to say, and I even had one student who called me afterward to say what a great speech and topic it was.
I thought that the group I had for the project was phenomenal to work with. We all had a lot in common, we all understood each others role in our project and did everything on time and I believe it was an overall success. I feel like we made an impact on those who we presented to, maybe even inspired some of them to look into Communications as a nice addition to their Psychology career. I think we all could take something away from our project that will impact how we use our leadership roles on a daily basis and how we can impact something we are passionate about.
What I learned from all of this is that I can be a great leader, I can be inspired, and I can set goals for myself and achieve them when I put in the effort and practice to get there. I feel like I made an impact in someones life with the our project and that really makes me feel accomplished, inspired, and that feeling that I can make a difference. I also learned that working with others who are just as inspired as you are can make an even stronger team. I felt like Rebekah, Chenoa, and I all were on the same page and really had an overall goal with our project and I feel we achieved it and were great leaders working together to obtain that same goal. I feel that I now know what it is I need to do in order to be a better leader for my peers, for my coworkers, for my family, and for my friends. I now know how to set a goal for myself and how to find my inspiration, and what steps I have to take to reach those goals.
As for my mission that I set at the beginning of this course I said that "My mission is to become the best person I can be so I can achieve my life goals, and to do that by using all the knowledge and skills I have learned and developed over my life. And then to share those things I have learned with the people around me, so they too can turn themselves into whom they want to become."
After learning from the book and videos, learning about other leaders, the class discussions and all the knowledge shared as a class, I feel that I have come a long way to getting closer to my mission that I set before. After our final project I do feel that I have become a better person because I shared with others what I knew and what I believed in, I feel that I was part of something important, I feel that I have shared skills and knowledge that I did develop over my learning career, and overall I did something that built my goal and possibly built someone else's as well.
I also want to say that after this class is done, I am going to keep on with my goals and keep up on inspiring others and inspiring myself to live our dreams and to find that voice inside. Now that I am graduating, in 3 weeks, I am passionate about going on with my career and moving forward, but still keeping a connection with everything I have learned and gained from others while in college. I think that this was the perfect last course for me to take before graduating because it helped settle any insecurities I had with not being ready for the real world, and now I know that I have the knowledge, passion, and success to be ready to take it all on.
I also have a new goal that I have recently set for myself which is to find my passion within my field so I can figure out what direction I want to go into for my career. I have yet to decide what exactly it is I want to do so I am going to go soul searching, experimenting, and learning what it is I want to end up in for a career. To accomplish that I am going to read into all the areas I am thinking about, make contact with those who are in that field and gain their knowledge on the subject, and to really think about what one will help me make an impact for my life and for others. I have yet to find that spark, but I am going on a search to find it.

Jennifer Panehal Module 14

In chapter 15, the title alone made it sound like an amazing chapter! The quote on the top of page 294 was also very inspirational..."Service is the rent we pay for living in this world of ours". That should be true for everyone! Why don't we all give some sort of helping hand in our everyday lives??!! This chapter also really reminded me of the movie and aspect of "paying it forward". When I go to help someone, and it inspires them to help someone else, then that persons goes on to help another, and the chain of events just goes on and on. Can you imagine a world like that? It would be amazing!
I thought it was a solid last chapter and final word for us all as up in coming leaders to know and take in for our future leadership roles! The first paragraph in the conclusion of the chapter really summed up for me exactly what it is I need to do in order to achieve my goals, be a great leader, inspire others, find my voice, and to come to the realization that being a leader is a choice not a position...

Jennifer Panehal Module 13

What I learned from Chapter 14 was that there is a sweet spot! There are also 3 types of greatness one can have, personal, leadership, and organizational. Personal greatness comes when we find our voice. Leadership greatness is when we inspire others to find their voice. Organizational greatness combines leadership and work into driving the organization. So the sweet spot in all this is that when these three "greatness" combine. When they combine that is what the 8th habit is all about! It is about finding your own voice, being a leader and helping another find theirs, and then bringing all of that into a organization so that everyone can feel the passion and inspiration. The book then went into the 4 steps you can take to close the gap between those aspects, so make it work faster, better, and harder. The one I thought was really inspiring and fairly easy to do was #2 with the score board. It is so easy to make a scoreboard! And it can impact how we work with one another and how we go about our daily goals and it puts us in our place knowing where we are at and what else we need to do better. So I thought it was a great idea, and at my own work I am implementing a scoreboard for my team!

Jennifer Panehal Module 12

My favorite part of the chapter was the part about Modeling, Pathfinding, Aligning, and Empowerment. What was really inspiring about this was it is based around trusting one another. Trust then builds us to find who we are inside, our voice, and it gives us passion to then empower others. The chapter then goes into how to empower in the workplace such as managers, and how to have a win-win situation which is extremely important, but something we rarely see happen in our jobs. I would love to work in a place filled with passion, empowerment, and where we all have the same goal and plan to get there! The section on plan, evaluate, do, and then serve represents how we as leaders can spread the empowerment from now only our work place, but to the people around us who we want to empower, and who we want to share our passion towards a goal with. The figure on page 265 about the difference between a manager and a leader once again demonstrates how different one is treated when trying to control vs. trying to create passion in another.
In our final project for the class we used some of the examples from this chapter in our speech about how Communications is important in the field of Psychology. It really tied it all together because as a Psychologist, it is important for your client to feel empowered and motivated by you, not managed and controlled!

Jennifer Panehal Quick Clips

After watching the quick clips, I felt that the ones that I could use towards my final project were to break the project into manageable pieces so that I am not saving everything for last, I learned from the meeting planning clip that we should be prepared for what we are to talk about and have a goal, the interdependence model was also a good model for myself to become a successful leader so I can lead others but also use their ideas to help myself.
The contribution statement clip was also insightful so that we can find our motivation and make our input be meaningful to ourselves and our peers. I really liked how the clips related to each habit from the original book of 7 habits, it helped put a action to each step we take to become a well rounded, highly effective person!
I thought that the clips really did put ideas for myself into perspective so I have a goal for my final project as to what I want it to be and how it can affect others to lead and become better for themselves. I now know that my leadership goals have a purpose and what steps I can take to achieve them.

action steps

So my action steps for our final project are to:
*Touch base with my team members on what information we want to share for the presentation and make a updated outline.
* Then I am going to make the powerpoint so my team members can be prepared for the presentation.

I wanted to bring up from Chapter 13 the Service & Meaning on page 264. As I have said before I work at a big company and see manager and employee issues on a daily basis, but this one model really stuck out to me because its showing that it is in our own hands to make our jobs a better place. That we control our motivation or our non-motivation. The Plan, Do, Evaluate model was also interesting because it makes more sense to be a constant cycle rather than a moving up a scale. We constantly are learning and gaining and that can change our plans, our attitudes, and our overall surroundings which we must evaluate, plan and do, over and over again.
Also the paragraph on page 265 was really interesting to me saying that duty, love, and meaning are the highest sources of human motivation and are the qualities of a leader, but when we are "managing" people it reduces us to our lowest instincts. So in other words, being a leader can bring out the best of us, it gets us excited, motivated, and we give it all our commitment, but when we are managing people, it is like babysitting and we are not being at our best attitude or selves.
On the top of page 265 it says that only 45% of the respondents of their example company say they feel they are recognized and appreciated. I thought that number was high because the result at my own company is 20% :(
So I plan to be more of a leader rather then a manager in work, with my peers, and in everyday life! It is important to spread that to everyone I know, to set an example and to motivate others so they feel they can motivate themselves and be leaders of their own.

Jennifer Panehal-Global Oneness Post

I chose the video, Living Service, from the Global Oneness Project Video Library. I chose the video because of the little boy in the picture with the flower, and I wanted to know more I guess...
The video was about the poverty and living conditions in a slum of India, and how as a Indian culture they still hold their values and want to make better living conditions by helping one another. The main focus in Indian philosophy is to connect the people as one, and to serve one another and become closer in that aspect. That relates a lot to what we are talking about in our leadership theories in that teaching one person can lead to them teaching, and so on, almost like a paying it forward. Leadership is all about bringing your group together and leading them to their goal. In the video their goal was to teacher others to serve and become kind and helpful to each other to survive their situation.
The video also encompasses that the focus was on spirituality not on religion. They wanted to share and spread compassion and love, not so much religious rules,etc. They focus on service and help, which brings compassion and care, which eventually spreads through the people they help, which in turn inspires them to serve, share, and help. I thought it was an amazing show of leadership and what a way to live, although they are in probably the worst living experience one can have, they still make a way to survive as a community and for everyone to truly "live" through the compassion and care of those around them, being as one.

Jennifer Panehal-Hope in the Dark

I chose to write about Alphonso Lingis from our book (pg 107). He is an American Philosopher and Writer who was born November 23, 1933, and grew up outside of Chicago on a farm, and is now a retired Professor from Penn State. He is known for many works about the history of philosophy and traveling the world and translating complex writings from other countries. He also is known for his lectures as being captivating and almost giving a performance when he speaks. For example he dresses in costume and face paint and does his speeches to music. He then turned from Philosophy and translating to writing works of his own, and now has more than several books that have been published. He says he gets his inspiration from traveling and researching ancient civilizations. He is considered a leader because of his communication with his students and readers by moving them, making them think outside the box, and introducing them to a new experience with his lectures and books. He is one of the only Western Philosophers who studies and writes about other civilizations and ancient cultures in depth. One of his lines from his book Love Junkies: "Love is awakened only by chance. It flares up at the merest coincidence. . . . Nothing is more contrary to love than to exercise the reckoning mind so as to exclude adverse chances...Shit happens."

project proposal revision

On April 6th, at about 5:30pm in UCB 112, a group consisting of Chenoa Castro, Jennifer Panehal, and Rebekah Bernard will present a 45 minute discussion on the vital importance of communication in the practice of psychology. A rough outline of our presentation is:

I. Introduction of Topic
a. How communication is so important to psychology
b. Bring in the Covey Book as a prop for the topic
c. Give goal for the topic to our group
1. Suggest the 8th Habit is a useful tool in attending to clients

II. Share some insight into how psychology and communication interconnect
a. Why it's important
b. How we can practice uniting both disciplines
1. Nonverbal and verbal communication
2. Group and individual communication
3. Multicultural communication
4. Building trust
c. Integrating the practices together
1. How can someone learn about this?
2. How it can make a difference?
d. Ask group of attendees to share their thought

III. The 8th Habit
a. Pass out handout
b. Share some ideas found in Covey book
c. Share why it relates to our topic

IV. Examples
a. Do a role-play
1. Psychology without communication
2. Psychology with communication
3. Using the 8th Habit
b. Give various useful examples (s/a with supervisors, grant writing, family, clients etc.)
c. Ask questions

V. Conclusion
a. Overview of what we talked about
b. Re-state our goal and extend invitation to consciously practice the 8th Habit

We are meeting several times via internet and in person to give this outline greater detail and planning. After the presentation is complete, we will also submit a more detailed synopsis of our presentation and what we each did to contribute to its success. Chenoa and Rebekah will be giving the presentation in person and Jennifer (who is on the mainland) will contribute with outlines, research, handouts, and papers. In addition, we plan to document our personal experiences. We may ask those who view our presentation to fill out a response survey, though this is still in the planning process. Any feedback/suggestions you may have regarding our project would be greatly appreciated!

Assignment #2 update!

So back in assignment #2 I chose to use my voice in my job to be a leader for my coworkers at work, and to help them find their voices to make our workplace a better place. So far all has been going well. I have been talking with all of my coworkers about what they want out of their jobs, what they have been wanting to change, and how we can all work together to get there. I have been trying to stay positive, and setting examples, so that they can follow and then pass that along to another person. I also practiced the learn as you teach because when telling them about how we can change the bad in our work into good by making changes in our everyday activities, I found that I understood it better and could find it easier to use and follow myself. I also held a meeting at my work a little differently than we normally do. I tried to make it positive, not criticizing, put a game in it so that my coworkers could relate to each other and communicate on a more fun level, and I taught them to share amongst each other things they would like to see change, and how to make a goal and plan for us to get there. I feel like since then everyone at work as tried to make an effort to be more positive, to communicate better with each other and express what they are needing, and by setting an example one of our goals has been met every week since then, which we were struggling badly in before! So I think we are making great progress!

Appendix #3 assignment

Although it may be a short quote, it definitely has a big impact and meaning.
"Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right".
(pg 360 in Covey's book)
This quote really stuck out to me because I could relate to it a lot! In my experience I have a job where we have 6 different managers, and I am the only assistant manager. So in my job I am closest to the employees, while the managers run things... A lot of the time I feel like I am a leader for my associates because I am their voice, I am their way to get them heard, and I care for their treatment and fairness at work. While the managers just tend to make sure rules aren't being broken and paperwork is correct 100%. So I can truly see the difference between a leader and a manager. Managers are equally as important, but may not possess what it takes to be a leader at the same time. I am solely there to represent what the associates need and what the customers are asking from us, and I am there to help and guide them. Managers are there to make sure we are all doing our jobs and making the company a success. I almost see it as a people oriented or organization oriented kind of thing. Leaders are focused on their people, their followers, and their autonomy, where as managers will focus on more tangible or numerical things. So there is a difference between a manager and a leader, and there is no saying that one cannot be both at the same time. I do think a leader can possess manager skills and a manager can possess leadership skills, but there is a difference. I think in society people do think a manager is a leader, but that is not always the case!

appendix #2 assignment

I chose to do the leader that I chose for the earlier assignment, Eleanor Roosevelt, for this assignment, because I learned so much about her from reading up on her. The leadership theory I felt she was closest to from Covey's appendix was on page 356 and titled Aspirational and Visionary Leadership. This theory encompasses that a leader will have a vision for their followers and to motivate their followers aspirations and passions to get them where they need to be. The leader uses motivation and goals to get followers into action and to make a change together.
I felt that this related to Eleanor Roosevelt as a leader because she motivated her people to make a change, she had them working together as one to make a movement for women, those in poverty, and fairness for them both. She did not use power or management as a leadership tool, she used her passion and her values to make a lasting impact. She made a new environment for those who needed a change, and brought them together to work towards a common goal of unity and fair treatment. She never stopped even after her role as first lady did. She kept to her vision even after that job came to an end, which showed her dedication to her followers. Eleanor Roosevelt definitely had the passion as a leader to relate to this theory of Aspirational and Visionary Leadership.

project proposal

Since we are all psychology majors and have similar interests/goals in the helping profession, Chenoa Castro, Jennifer Panehal and I have decided to team up. We have decided to do something along the lines of: “Develop an effective public or professional presentation about some aspect of leadership. Share it with the class for feedback and then deliver your presentation to a group in your community. Write a paper reflecting on what you have learned.”

What we plan to do: Our plan is to hold a type of ‘conference’ for psychology practicum and counseling students and present how vital communication is in psychology, especially when attending to clients. Through this, we’d propose our learning of Covey’s “8th Habit” as an effective tool.

Why: We feel psychology and communication are incredibly interconnected but are never directly taught how to ‘communicate’ with clients, as well as other members of agencies, through earning our psychology degree. In conjunction with our mission statements, we will assist and guide others, while providing them with resourses and encouragement to enhance their education on being agents of change and lead by setting productive examples.

When: Our tentative plan is either right before or right after spring break; we really want to present this at whatever time works best for the students and their learning. At this time, “when” is fairly flexible.

How: We plan to correlate what we are/have learned and apply “the 8th Habit” as an effective method for attending to clients and being agents of change. We will meet several times in order prepare and plan. On a Tuesday evening in about a month, we will make this presentation. This aspect is still in the brainstorming stage.

What we will need to succeed: We will need cooperation and encouragement from our COM 441 class and instructor, as well as psychology faculty and willing students to participate. We will have to work hard as a team in order to pass along the message we are trying to send. We have presented this to the practicum and counseling psych professor and have gotten general cooperation and excitement for the possibility.

How we will know if we have succeeded: We will know we have succeeded through feedback and participation of psych students and faculty. We will be able to “see” our success in future psych graduates as they work in the community.

Assignment #5 on a speaker

I chose to do Al Gore because he is my favorite speaker. Although he may be a very popular speaker and known global icon for our climate, he just sticks out to me in so many other ways. The second I read the assignment I had him in my head, and hoped he was on the Ted Talks website, and of course he was!
Many of you know Al Gore as a former Vice President of the US, then not long after he became one of the largest spokesman for Global Warming and made the movie "Inconvenient Truth". The speech he gave that I watched was about what we can do as consumers to help in cutting our carbon output. In his speeches he uses a little comedy, his voice is extremely easy to listen to, and he gets to the point and has all the facts there so you can believe every word he's saying. He gives you things you can do to make a difference. The video on his speech I watched was filmed in 2006, right before his movie came out. In his speech, one of his recommendations was to talk about what it is you want to change, to spread the word, get people to get involved, influence them. I thought that really related to my mission statement and to being a leader in general, was to influence the people around me and to get them interested and motivated. Not only did seeing his speech for this assignment help me be better focused on my own mission, but it also got me motivated again on things globally that I used to feel strongly about, but lost sight of a little bit from all the things going on in my life. I am starting to realize that I need to get back to those things I used to be passionate about, because the last 2 years have kind of been very monotone for me. The link to the speech I watched is:
http://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_on_averting_climate_crisis.html

Response to Bernice Puahi Bishop

Although I am not Hawaiian, I was born and raised on the Big Island and to see the Kamehameha schools enrich so many lives of almost everyone I grew up with is amazing. There are so many benefits of that school as an alternative to some of the not so great public schools on the islands. And for a great leader like Bernice Pauahi Bishop to develop something that would touch us all years and years later is very empowering and the works of a great leader. Although Hawaii has changed so much since her time, her values have been intact for that school system. Its also nice to see someone near to home appreciated as a leader that we can all see the effects on a more personable level.

response to Gandhi as a leader

I believe that Gandhi is probably my favorite leader from all the ones we wrote about as a class. His name to me just brings peace and goodness. A quote my dad always told me that kind of relates to our whole class and the Covey Book is "A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes".

response to Dr. Becker on Eleanor Roosevelt

Wow I did not know she was gay! Yes I guess I would need to leave out that part of her birth right, "social appropriateness". Although I believe she did care for the social appropriateness in society in that everyone should be treated equal and have the advantages everyone else did. For example: that women could hold a job just like a man could and that it was appropriate for women to be treated fairly in that aspect.

I did put my blog on my profile before...I dont know why it wasn't showing up...let me know if it doesn't again. On my end it says that it is on there...its http://comblog2010.blogspot.com/

What I have learned from a classmates about a leader!

I chose to respond to Reese's Mother Teresa essay because she was another inspiring woman in history. She really did lead many people, although she was of a different culture, background and class level than many other leaders we have witnessed. Mother Teresa used her voice for good and to lead others away from the bad and terrible things that were going on around them. Although she was viewed by many as a saint and a savior, she still lived like the people she was helping, and did not turn away from them at anytime. She lived to help others and because of that she is one of the greatest female leaders that ever lived.
The one aspect I really liked about reading all of the leadership essays was that, Coveys' birth rights really did portray across all of the leaders that we wrote about. There was not one leader who did not have one of those qualities, although some may have used them differently, or some had more than another, they still all had something in common.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in New York City. She was a niece to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, and she became first lady to Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, she was also the mother of 6 children. Eleanor Roosevelt was the woman who really made an impact being the first lady, and truly used her position to be a leader and make a difference. Many of her accomplishments include being a humanitarian, civic leader, working for the welfare of youth, women, african americans, and the poor. She also found jobs and opened factories to help out the jobless, including putting women in the work force, and she fought to end child labor. When her job as first lady ended in 1945 because of her husbands death, she still did not stop her duty to help. She became a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, specializing in humanitarian, social, and cultural issues. In 1948, she drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirmed life, liberty, and equality internationally for all people regardless of race, creed or color. Also, she helped in the establishment of the state of Israel and attempted negotiations with the Soviet Union. She was more involved with the help of women's rights and having them treated equally in every aspect. One quote from Eleanor was "A woman is like a tea bag, you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water".
I believe that Eleanor Roosevelt had defiantly found her voice and used it to lead and to help others. In Covey's book, one of the birth rights is the power to choose, and I think that Eleanor Roosevelt chose to use her position as first lady to do good and to become a leader and fight for others rights. She had transformed the "first lady" position into something powerful instead of just the presidents wife. She was labeled as the "first activist first lady", and since then women who later became first lady have for the most part been leaders as well. Eleanor also believed heavily that people had the right to choose and have freedom, so she fought for them almost her whole life.
Another birth right Eleanor Roosevelt had in relation to Covey's book was of moral authority, she cared so much for people and that it was immoral to treat them like slaves, poor, or inhumane. She wanted a world where everyone was treated with equality and had the freedom to do what they wanted. She wanted women to be treated morally in that they could work where they wanted, vote for who they wanted, and be of equal to men, and she wanted the African Americans to be free to do the same. She also wanted children to be free from child labor, and for there to be enough jobs so the poor could earn an income. She cared very much for the morals of others, so she had that quality of moral authority to her.
Lastly I think Eleanor had the emotional intelligence about her because she cared so much for the sake of others. In Covey's book he says words like "social appropriateness", "sensitivity" and "empathy" when describing a character of emotional intelligence, and to me, Eleanor related most to that quality. She had a passion and a caring ability to her that really set her apart from any other first lady, and that is what made her such a great leader. Eleanor Roosevelt died in 1962 at age 78. I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Assignment #2

For assignment #2 I have chose chapter 3, the solution, because in my current job which is at a mega organization, I see (chapter #2) the problem, everyday! And why cant I be the one to start the change and be part of the solution! So I am going to share what I know now from these chapters with my immediate collegues, and I am going to then be learning through teaching, and hopefully they will as well. This also ties into my mission statement I posted last week in that I am going to use what I have learned in life to help change my own life & surroudings for the better, and I think this weeks assignment is my start to that!

Also in the chapter it says to find your voice and to then teach others to find theirs. I think within my own workplace, I can make that happen. I am going to start being a leader in my job by using my voice and using my passion to get there, I am going to help others be leaders as well, so that we are part of the solution in making our work be a better place, instead of being treated like "things". I hope I am able to make an impact over the next month by using Covey's steps.

comm mission statement

My mission is to become the best person I can be so I can achieve my life goals, and to do that by using all the knowledge and skills I have learned and developed over my life. And then to share those things I have learned with the people around me, so they too can turn themselves into whom they want to become.