Brittanie Steele, the BYUSA Executive Vice President, spoke to us last week about communication; being a communications major, I found many of her ideas really interesting.  I could tell that she was an excellent communicator herself, so I enjoyed not only listening to the message she brought us, but watching how she conveyed it to us. 

      One of the most memorable parts of her lecture was when she demonstrated the concept of innovation in our communication.  She had a volunteer come up, and she instructed him to take a can of beans, place his finger on the edge of the table, and smash the can down onto his hand as hard as he could.  She assured him that if he made sure that the exact middle of the can hit his finger, the can would be dented but it wouldn’t hurt his finger at all; she told us she had tried it the night before.  He was hesitant and refused to try it, even with her persuasive words.  After he sat down, she put her finger on the table and slammed the can onto it with a loud “BANG!”  Our jaws all dropped in shock, but the can was indeed dented and her finger unharmed.  “You’ll never forget that communication is hard”, she told us.  This was her example of innovative communication, and it is one I won’t easily forget.

She outlined for us seven characteristics of great communicators:

• Build integrity and trust
• Involve others
• Translate messages to fit your audience
• Take initiative
• Analytical skills
• Innovation
• Positive optimism 

      Since the lecture last Wednesday, I’ve been looking for ways to apply these strategies in my everyday life.  I'm in the Relief Society presidency in my ward, and as part of this calling, I am over the teachers.  After attending stake leadership training on Sunday morning and collaborating with the rest of the presidency, I came up with a whole list of things I needed to communicate to my teachers.  It included instructions for guiding discussions effectively and keeping comments on topic, using positive reinforcement to encourage participation, coordinating with the other teachers, teaching through the Spirit, and a number of other topics.  I realized that not only was I teaching them how to communicate more effectively with the class, but that it was also important that I improve my communication with them.  So I held a meeting with the three of them that night, sought their input, and tried to use positive reinforcement by pointing out what they had done well at in the first lessons they’d taught.  After they left, I created a Google Doc that included everything I’d taught them and allowed them to post their comments and ideas.  I think that through using Brittanie’s seven strategies, I will be able to enhance the teaching within our Relief Society and hopefully help build the girls’ testimonies as a consequence.

      In my communications major, I will be dealing primarily with mass communication rather than interpersonal communication; however, these same approaches to communication will still apply.  I’m interested in advertising, and one of the main goals is to creatively convey your message in a way that your audience will notice and remember.  You also need to gain credibility and trust with your customers, involve your audience by appealing to their senses, and analyze who your audience is and determine how to best fit connect with them. Even though the dynamics in mass communication are a lot different, these goals all go right along with what Brittanie taught us.

      Communication is critical to every aspect of our lives—strong communication skills will bring us success in a variety of venues and enhance our relationships with others.  We need to communicate “powerfully and prolifically” in our leadership positions and church callings, our majors, our families, our sports teams, and even just with our friends and roommates.  I have really put a lot of thought into Brittany’s seven tips, and I’m eager to put them all into practice and improve the way I communicate.

Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to hear from BYU’s student body president—Ryan Greenburg—on the topic of establishing a vision and setting goals to reach it.  I’ve heard a lot of different lessons and lectures on goal setting before, but the idea of having an overarching vision was new to me.  A vision is much more vague than individual goals, but it is really the ideas behind the words that make it strong.  Here is the vision I came up with for myself:

         My vision is to develop and maintain strong relationships with my Heavenly Father, my Savior, and my family, to live in complete accordance with the laws and principles of the gospel, and to continually strive to serve those who I come in contact with.

     When I put my vision into writing and really thought about what’s important to me, I realized that I need to readjust my priorities.  I have always been a competitive athlete, taken the hardest classes in school, and tried to participate in as many extracurricular and social activities as I had time for, and while these aren’t bad things, they also aren’t directly helping me achieve my vision.  My top priorities need to be tied to the gospel, my family, and service because those three things are the most important aspects of my life when I really think about it.

    After establishing a vision, the next step in the process is to come up with goals.  Ryan presented us with a clever way to formulate our goals: the SMART goal method.  The goals we set should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.  You need to be able to identify the purpose and the intended outcome of each goal, and be able to evaluate your progress along the way.  Your goals need to actually be within your reach, otherwise you’ll either become too overwhelmed or you’ll just neglect the goal altogether.  Here are the goals I came up with to help me achieve my vision:

• Study (not just read) my scriptures and pray personally to my Heavenly Father on my knees everyday
• Write in my journal for five minutes daily
• Keep the BYU honor code and encourage others around me to as well
• Attend the temple at least twice a month
• Fulfill all the responsibilities within my church calling with a positive attitude and make an effort to get to know the girls I am serving/serving with
• Talk to each member if my family at least once a week, whether through the phone or Skype

   I’ve always been an avid list-maker and used my planner to keep track of every little thing I do, but I’ve never really set goals for myself.  So that is my new goal: to set goals. :)  I am going to have at least five goals for myself every month that I will post on my wall so that I see them everyday and at the end of the month, I will evaluate myself and possibly adjust these goals.  Hopefully, in doing this, I will be able to refocus and come closer to fulfilling my vision.

            This week’s lecture on divine-centered leadership from Brother Cox was eye-opening for me. I’m so inspired by Christ’s example of leadership—he taught through humbly serving others and in doing so, he motivated them to become servant leaders as well. When he washed his disciples’ feet, he taught, “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).  Christ’s every action embodied the principles of outlined in BYU’s publication on divine-centered leadership: his vision was perfectly aligned with His Father’s will, he challenged all unrighteousness, he was a perfect example of “the way, the truth, and the light”, he knew and loved each individual he lead, and he constantly served others.

            Brother Cox emphasized the importance of having pure, divine-centered motives. It’s easy to lose sight of the purpose behind your leadership, or to just tell people how to act and only focus on checking things off your list.  But leadership is more than just another embellishment on your resume.  A genuine leader’s highest priorities are the needs of each individual, no matter how trivial.  And you don’t even need a particular leadership title or position to act as a leader in your everyday life.  There are opportunities everywhere—the trick is learning to recognize them.  Sometimes it just means being a friend to someone. Everybody needs just a little boost, a little reassurance, or a little compassion at some time or another.  But it’s amazing what a little can do.

            This past year, I was faced with an unexpected challenge on my high school basketball team.  We’d been bombarded with young talent, which was great for the team, but it was difficult as a senior to constantly sit the bench.  However, when I turned my perspective around and tried to my put my teammates as a higher priority than myself, I realized that even off the court, I was able to make a significant impact.  I took on new roles on the team—cheering like crazy from the sidelines, keeping everyone motivated, and going all out in practice to make my teammates better.  It was definitely a struggle, but by doing this, I turned what I think would have been a mediocre season into an awesome learning experience.  

            For class on Monday, we participated in a “service project” to apply the concepts of divine-centered leadership.  Our assignment was to find people in the CougarEat and just get to know them.  We walked around for a few minutes, feeling out of place at first, but soon identified a girl sitting alone eating her lunch.  Ashley and I chatted with her for about 15 minutes and it was fulfilling to see how this girl opened up. After the first girl left for class, we found another girl to sit down with who was also sitting alone.  As the conversation went on, she also became more expressive and we lost track of time just talking to her.  It felt good to think that we might have brightened her day even just a little.  And besides, making a new friend can hardly be considered work.  Small service opportunities like these are everywhere, and if we learn to recognize and take advantage of them, they really can help us become more divine-centered leaders and more like our Savior.

What really is a leader?  In junior high, a leader was the kid who had everything, including a free pass out of class anytime.  Someone with all the right connections, all the “cool” friends, and all the confidence in the world.  Leadership to me was associated with popularity and fun.  That was the only reason I signed up for that class!  But in years since, my perception of leadership has entirely evolved.

I actually came to further understand leadership not through any specific leadership classes, but through my involvement in community service organizations.  I am a prime example of a leader (I hope I can call myself that) who was made and not born. I was always slightly shy, hesitant to speak my mind, and afraid to do anything outside the ordinary.  And while I wasn’t completely introverted or awkward, I was so constrained by my fears that it inhibited not only my development as an individual, but my ability to think of others first and recognize their divine attributes and potential.  It wasn’t until I began genuinely immersing myself in service that I was able to break through my own barriers.  I got a tiny glimpse of how Christ sees us—with not just tolerance for others’ flaws and differences, but with a pure and overwhelming love for our strengths as well as our weaknesses. 

So I guess I’ll pose my question again.  What is a leader?  It really has nothing to do with popularity or special privileges; it is all about other people. The ability to reach out to the lonely and the isolated, the ability to highlight our similarities rather than our differences, and the ability to inspire the laziest of slackers all require you to empathize with a wide diversity of individuals.  Leadership requires you to forget your preconceptions and seek to truly understand another’s needs.  It requires you to sometimes make sacrifices that are uncomfortable.  It requires you to lead through example in the roughest of times.  Sometimes it even requires you to humbly step aside and allow others to take the lead.  I know that there are so many different ways to lead and in so many different capacities, but in my eyes, it all boils down to one distinct characteristic: selflessness.