My Reflection blog this week is to review my individual self-awareness since the beginning my journey into the Masters of Science in Leadership Degree (MSLD). Self-awareness is something I do continuously, and is different depending on the role that I am currently entertaining.
My journey as an adult student has been very variable around my other roles such as a veteran, parent, employee, and spouse that brought on their own set of challenges toward my personal goal to complete a formal college degree. In this blog I will share my overall challenges to obtain a degree from early into my high school educational journey to twenty-five years later to where we are today.
From early on as a high school student, I had an epiphany that I really wanted to go to college. This was a big idea considering neither of my parents went past the eighth grade, and were high school drop outs. When I was a junior in high school at age of 17, an army recruiter came to our school and provide a benefits package that included college reimbursement, and I could leave immediately and attend basic training during my junior and senior year of high school. I was excited, and the self-awareness for me was using my cognitive style of “gather and process Information” (p.61) to make a decision based on education, and a pure opportunity. I also used the concept of “orientation toward change” or using skills to “deal with change” (p.62) in my environment. This was my opportunity to make a decision for me, and it was all based on getting a formal education. (Whetton, 2011)
After joining the Army National Guard, attending basic training, and finishing high school, I started my first journey in high school. During my first year in college, life choices took over and I became a wife and a mother. I dropped out of college after 40 college credits as it was too much to struggle, and I did a self-awareness and basically accepted that my personal priorities needed to come first. At this point in my educational journey, my only improvement was related to the military and my job, which I was a drill instructor for a boot camp for high school dropouts. I did this job for about five years, and I felt like a true hypocrite. In this role I was a leader, telling young troubled kids that they needed to finish college as it was vital for their future, and here I was a quitter and was not leading by example. Some of the cadets were allowed to take collegiate level courses once they completed their GED, and I had another epiphany and asked if I could drive the cadets and take a class right along with them, which our management agreed.
After completing six years in the Army National Guard, my part time job, I realized the job skills of a heavy equipment operator was really not my forte and I was wasting my time on something I would never do in the civilian job. So I did a comparison of where I was with job and education, and transferred to the Air Force National Guard (ANG). This move in my career enhanced the original goals of completing my college degree. The ANG is designed totally different that focused on formal education as a required element to obtain certain levels of leadership/ promotion. Promotions meant new roles and financial increases, which are both motivators.
It was not until I was 30 years old did I realize once again, I was becoming extremely complacent and making excuses for not finishing a formal degree. At this time I had a new husband, our four daughters, and realized I was not making a very good example in my home. We moved across the country to Georgia, where my husband was working for Lockheed Martin and it was an easy transition due to his military back ground and that master’s degree completion. I was able to also get a job at Lockheed Martin, but it was an administrative secretary, and it was pointed out again that I did not have a formal degree. It was at this point I realized that I was not even valuing my own personal value, which is our “core of dynamic behaviors” and was making excuses for myself, versing holding my own self accountable. I also preached it, but did not walk the walk of those I lead. I jumped on the educational completion band wagon, completing four degrees in 11 years. The 11 year journey increased my confidence of completion and reinforced the core leadership skills that I have today.
The MSLD program is my second journey toward a Master’s degree. This degree required a deep self-awareness as I had a choice to obtain a second master’s degree or seek a doctoral. I embraced Emotional intelligence (EI) by using relationships, by accident. My company had developed a leader coalition for professional development. In this coalition, my team had an opportunity to interview several key leaders in executive management to understand their educational journey to get them where they are in their leadership role. What I learned by working through these relationship is many executive leaders had multiple diverse master degrees. Their experiences made me realize that obtaining a second masters degree is one option that will set me up, competitively, within the industry that I work. Formal education is something that I have control off in my journey. I know I have plenty of time and opportunity to gain a doctorate degree to teach someday, which was not a priority since I currently full-fill that niche already by teaching Microsoft office and management courses.
As a mom of four grown daughters, I also had to self-evaluate how I personally push education from a parental standpoint. It is so easy to just directly say “do it” and “stop making excuses”, but I quickly realized that was not a motivator. One of our daughters, who is somewhat a rebel, has reminded me continuously that she is not going to do it like me. I used to take that statement and internalize as I did something bad. It was hard to hear, especially since I felt like I made sacrifices by trying to balance all my own personal improvement events and their extra-curricular activities. When I started to evaluate her reply, I personally immediately made an assumption that her comment was negative. One day I asked her why she made those comments about education. She elated that she meant she was going to go to college first, prior to having a family and that professional career. Her basic point to me is she didn’t want to have to work as hard as I did to obtain a goal, especially if she didn’t have to. Point of this reflection is as leaders we like to make assumptions about others, and it’s easy for others to make assumptions about me. As parents we want our children to be successful and push them to not work so hard to get to their finish line, even if their journey is not like ours. (Whetton, 2011)
Self-Awareness is something I have internalized since I started my educational journey as a high school student. I made excuses and did not lead by example, and the only thing I did know is that I cannot be like my parents. I believe that self-awareness reinforces accountability and demonstrates quality of a good leader. I hope you enjoy my journey as a student as my overall struggle and lack of confidence effected my abilities over time to provide a good self-awareness that provided deliverable results.
