Theoretical Framework
In addition to adopting the Social Change Model of Leadership Development (Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2017), student leaders and staff from the Center for Student Leadership & Civic Global Engagement and the Office of Campus Life and Student Engagement have developed a set of competencies for student organizations. These competencies serve as a foundation for our work, enabling our team to design timely, personalized, and innovative programs that give our Sharks an edge in leadership and team development. The model, outlined in the following section, provides an overview of these competencies and is intended to guide students as they grow and strengthen their organizations.
Individual Student Leader Core Competencies
The Center for Student Leadership and Global Engagement and other offices within the Division of Student Affairs have adopted these competencies for student leaders as they participate in programs and serve as student leaders.
- Recognize the importance of understanding oneself.
- Identify individual personality traits, values, strengths, and abilities.
- Develop connections between self-awareness and the environment.
- Define congruence (practicing what you preach) and how to achieve it in life and leadership.
- Identify obstacles to congruence and how they can be overcome.
- Understand the role congruence plays in group dynamics in order to empower others to be congruent.
- Understand how commitment works within emerging leaders, relates to and interacts with the other C’s of the SCM, specific consciousness of self, and congruence.
- Build commitment within the group, in the process of learning the relationships between individual commitments and collaborative commitment and how the intensity and duration of collaborative commitment to share a goal improve the effectiveness of social change.
- Define collaboration and identify its characteristics.
- Use effective strategies for promoting collaboration and teamwork.
- Understand the effectiveness of diversity in a group.
- Understand the three components of common purpose.
- Engage others within a group to generate shared visions, aims, and values.
- Identify or develop a common purpose within the groups they are a part of.
- Understand the difference between conflict and controversy.
- Engage in meaningful dialogue and include it in the process of controversy.
- Feel comfortable voicing one’s opinion and take into consideration the opinions of others.
- Define citizenship and understand an individual's role in larger communities.
- Critically analyze communities in which students are a part through the lens of citizenship.
- Understand the difference between single-order change and second-order or transformative change.
- Discern varying approaches to change and explore resistance to change.
- Recognize the strength in working with groups who want to affect change.
- Identify the problem or social issue, help members clarify values, research important knowledge and knowledge gaps, and enact accountability.
- Establish parameters for initiative.
- Clarify values of the group members and identify unique talents that contribute to the identified change.
- Recruitment - Identify and facilitate strategies to increase organization membership.
- Retain membership- Identify reasons why students remain or leave an organization.
- Recognition of members- Understand the importance of recognition and identify how your members like to be recognized.
- Transition- Strong organizations have a plan for the future. Identify and create transition plans for future leadership in your organization.