LeaderShape, Day One: Building Community

Note: This Spring Break, I served as a small group facilitator on LeaderShape, a six-day immersive leadership experience for college students. This was my first time working with a LeaderShape experience, so I wanted to record and process my reflections and learning here on my blog.

LeaderShape is BIG about its verbiage; I'm learning a whole new lens and language this week as I'm facilitating this awesome experience. Day Zero was a faculty training day, and we (as a team of colleagues) worked on both understanding the curriculum so we can share it with our participants and on setting goals to stretch ourselves for the week. (See my Day Zero post here.)

Day One, the day that our student participants arrive, is a day that is all about Building Community. This is practiced in several ways - we share the mission of LeaderShape with our participants so they're all on the same page with us; we do TONS of icebreakers and teambuilders so we can start getting to know the whole LeaderShape community; and we break into our Family Clusters for the first time.

The Family Cluster (a.k.a. a small breakout group) are the discussion group that the participants work with for the duration of the Institute. Clusters can run anywhere from 8-15 people, and the groups serve as sounding boards, support networks, and a tight-knit group of people with whom the participants can interact, learn, and grow.

I am absolutely in awe of my family cluster. Freshmen through fifth-year seniors; domestic and international students; students who are privileged and students who have overcome (and are still overcoming) INSANE life obstacles... I've got the whole gamut. I won't go into detail about the things they already shared with me on NIGHT ONE, but I do want to applaud their bravery, authenticity, and vulnerability. These people went DEEP with me and with each other, and I don't think I can thank them enough for sharing their stories with me. I cannot WAIT to see where we are on Day Six versus Day One (although I am, of course, trying to live in the moment!), and I cannot wait to continue to learn from these amazing students.

My Cluster chose the name "Divergent" as our Family name, after the bestselling book/just-released film. For those of you who are unaware, Divergent is about a young woman who makes life choices centered around the discovery that she is more than who her society told her she is. That sums up my Cluster to a "T" - despite their backgrounds; despite the world trying to beat them down, each day they are trying to choose to be more than who they seem to be. 

LeaderShape is going to be a pretty special experience.