From Student to President: Reflecting on My Leadership Journey with the Solar Chapter at the University of Washington
Through this experience, I realized this is a good start for my generation to raise awareness on how imbalanced Indonesia is in infrastructures, especially for necessities and education. It has also taught me the importance of sustainability and eco-friendly materials in building the water system. As I am studying supply chain and information systems, I want to use the knowledge to work in a non-profit organization, work with more female leaders, and work for a company that is sustainable and aware of environmental and climate change as well. I want to create a difference in the humanities, no matter where and what I do at the end of the day.
Tasks Accomplished
1. Managed and oversaw a $20,000 water project in Golo Ketak to help villagers access clean water.
2. Raised $5000 from our fundraising events and a sponsor within the first three months.
3. Worked with other Indonesian communities to raise awareness by attending their events by selling merchandise, Indonesian food, and many other.
4. Made a more organized system for future members by making standard operating procedure.
5. Have made the new team to be more engaging by having a team bonding event.
Leadership Competencies Gained
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Responding to Ambiguity
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As the president, I am responsible for making important decisions for my team, which requires excellence and the ability to respond to ambiguity. One such instance was during a marketing team meeting where we faced a challenge in creating a new Instagram account to increase engagement and raise awareness in the Seattle community. While the team was enthusiastic, the headquarters had strict rules regarding fonts and color palettes. After a thorough debate, I had to make a decision that would accommodate both sides. I proposed a trial period for the new account, allowing my team to try their creative ideas within certain boundaries. This decision was received well and made both sides happy, resulting in learning something new for the marketing team. This experience reinforced my belief that effective decision-making requires balancing both excellence and the ability to respond to ambiguity.
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Supervision
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My prominent role is to oversee and supervise when my team needs guidance in their tasks or when a problem arises. When I started, it was hard to do so because we were all peers of the same age, so it created this uncomfortableness around each other, mainly when I delegated tasks. After a couple months of trial on how I want to lead as a leader and learn from my mentors, I have realized how important it is to delegate tasks, so my team has a sense of clarity about what they need to achieve and do. After doing so, I can see from the results that the team has been going to more meetings and has gone from inertia to active. Another thing that has also helped clarify tasks by having standard operating procedures.
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Service
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Serving the community by listening to what the community needs are one of the most important things that I learn is very important. Frequently, we love to assume how things are, but it could and most of the times are different from how the community feels. In this case, I served my Indonesian community by helping achieve the water project while maintaining communications and relationships throughout the project. Another thing is when it comes to the community; my team is also my community and foundation on why we can be successful and achieve our goals. I try to listen to everyone’s opinion and include everyone in the conversation by asking their views personally, sometimes outside meetings, and have a quarterly one-on-one meeting to check in on the workload and situations and how they feel about the project. This also gives me feedback on how to make meetings more effective and better.
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Receiving feedback
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A trait of a good leader is receiving feedback and learning from it. I acknowledged that this is also an essential step in an organization to give and receive feedbacks. It creates a safe environment for the team to do so without worrying about the consequence. Besides that, we have grown as a team and are doing our best to make our organization strive for better. By doing so, I know my team's concerns by receiving feedback. An example of this was when we had a one-on-one meeting, someone mentioned how I tend to be distracted in a meeting and focus too much on one topic and end up taking a lot of time to decide and discuss other vital arrangements already on the agenda. From then on, I asked one of my peers to let me know when I tend to do this to remind me constantly, and I checked and estimated how long I wanted to talk about a specific topic.
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Self-development
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Going into this role, I want to learn so many new things for myself and my community. It was a challenge for me to get out of my comfort zone and want to be a better version of myself. Indeed, I have grown so much by meeting new people from everywhere, solving problems with creative ideas, and learning how to bring people together. There are always many things to develop, whether hard or soft skills. I am grateful to have stepped out of my comfort zone to do this. It has improved my character and created other opportunities for myself and others to develop a change in their community through Solar Chapter.
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Organizational Behavior
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With many events hosted during fundraising, one of the main things is to organize the event and the team. I used a lot of resources on the internet, such as When2meet, Motion, Google Workspace, and many others, to organize schedules and people. It's also helpful to have regular check-ins and updates to ensure that everything is running smoothly and that there are no roadblocks that need to be addressed. Good communication is also crucial. Utilizing tools like Zoom, Google Workspace, and WhatsApp can help to stay in touch with your team, share updates, and answer any questions that may arise.
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Others’ Contributions
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As a leader, trusting your peers and team by giving them tasks, responsibilities, and roles will make them feel a sense of ownership and commitment. When team members are given responsibilities, they feel valued and trusted, which can help increase their motivation and engagement. It also allows them to use their skills and abilities to contribute to the success of the event or project. Ensuring that each team member is comfortable and capable of handling their assigned responsibilities is essential. Providing clear expectations and guidelines, along with ongoing support and communication, can help ensure everyone is on the same page and that the event runs smoothly. Division in the team has worked wonderfully in the group I have led so far.
Lessons Learned and Future Oriented Statement
I learned how to build and keep relationships with people and how important time management is. Additionally, I have learned that a good leader is to speak up while embracing others’ opinions. I try to learn how to be a better inclusive leader while still managing and being able to guide when my team needs me to step up. These will be great additions for anywhere I will end up working. I also dream about doing my own business, so combining tacit and explicit knowledge from these experiences would give me a strong start. I will also know how to lead and make a great team while ensuring everyone is represented and listened to as part of an anti-racist leader.
