Christopher D. Valentino

Leadership

 

Leadership has been a core component of my CSP experience, and I have engaged in several experiences that have allowed me to develop both my own leadership capacity as well promote leadership development among students and colleagues.  As I look to leave BGSU, I have developed my leadership competency to a proficient level by co-teaching the Leaders-in-Residence workshop series, serving as a Graduate Hall Director for two dramatically different residential communities, and by researching and presenting on authentic leadership at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrator’s (NASPA) 2015 Conference in New Orleans.  

 

I co-facilitated a section of the Leaders in Residence (LIR) workshop series during the 2013 and 2014 fall semesters.  As a LIR facilitator I assisted a small group of first-year students in developing their leadership skills over the course of a seven week workshop series based around Kouzes and Posner’s five leadership practices (2014).  Throughout the workshop series I challenged my students to refine their own style of leadership through a series of interactive activities designed to build their capacities for communication, conflict management, and positive social change.  

 

As a Graduate Hall Director I directly supervise resident advisors, desk clerks, and a student desk manager.  As a supervisor I have to hold my students accountable to their responsibilities and I regularly have conversations regarding substandard performances.  In these conversations, I work with the student to understand the underlying performance issue and develop an action plan to resolve the situation.  I approach these conversations from a transformational leadership perspective, as I want to inspire and empower my students to perform to the best of their abilities for their own career development.  In my spring 2015 evaluation, one of my students stated that: “Chris has pushed me to grow professionally, personally, and academically. I think that his best asset in being a supervisor is that he gives guidance and pushes without being overbearing…Chris knows how to balance independence and trying to help his [resident advisors] develop.”

 

During the 2015 NASPA conference I presented a session on authentic leadership with John Rios, Matt Cooney, and Dr. Ken Borland.  During the development of the program session I was forced to examine my own leadership style and reflect upon my own authenticity in my role as a Gradate Hall Director.  Throughout this process I discovered that I was what the literature base calls a “true-to-selfer” (Ibarra, 2015).  Ibarra (2015) suggests that someone who is a “true-to-selfer” is one who stays true to their own values, ideals, and commitments at the expense of their ability to adapt to new situations and incongruent environments.  This revelation has prompted me to try to align my actions with my values in a more intentional fashion.  For example, I chose my next institution, University of California, Irvine School of Law, based on an alignment between the schools’ espoused and lived values and my own.

 

As I look to my future career as a legal advocate for higher education, I know I can continue to develop my leadership competency by continuing to refine my ability to advocate for change in organizational settings as well my ability to develop policies and procedures that provide leadership opportunities for all individuals within an organization.