Sixty-five (65) student leaders from twenty-nine (29) student organizations participated in the Skills Development Training Workshop (SDTW): The ABCs of Leadership, organized by the Office of Student Affairs (OSA), held on 20-21 July 2019 at the Alingal Multipurpose Hall and Function Room.
The SDTW is a series of workshops intended to help incoming student leaders by providing them the basic skills needed to manage their respective organizations. Given the transition brought about by the K-12 program, majority of the participants were sophomores elected to the executive positions.
For the morning session of day 1, Rodolfo SB. Virtus Jr., Director of Student Affairs, shared his own experiences in organizing events or activities. He shared tools and modules that would help the students in planning their respective activities. In the latter part of his session, Virtus grouped the students and assigned them specific cases which they would be planning and presenting to a panel for critiquing.
In the afternoon session, John Michael Revilla, a Guidance Counselor from the Senior High School Department, discussed conflict and how to properly resolve it. He simulated activities wherein conflict might arise and how the students would respond to it. Revilla then discussed the levels of conflict and its possible effects and what are the corresponding actions to resolve it.
In the following morning, 21 July, Dr. Alfredo C. Fabay, Vice-President for Higher Education, discussed consensus decision making. He differentiated it from the common decision making methods such as majority voting and one-man rule. He explained that achieving a consensus is a journey that begins with multiple points of view and ends with mutual agreement. Dr. Fabay then divided the participants to several groups in activity to practice consensus decision making. In the said activity, each group was asked to present several improvements that would enable more students to join the Ignatiana Outreach. Each group was able to present improvements which were quite similar with the different groups. All groups then had to arrange their presented ideas and label them properly to have a systematic decision making.
In the last session, Leciel Ramos, a college faculty, differentiated power from leadership. She then discussed the qualities needed by a leader to properly manage his or her respective organization, pointing that authentic service and love must be his or her driving force.
The SDTW is under the Ateneo Leadership Development Program (ALDP), the flagship program of OSA for student leaders and student organizations. It addresses one of ALDP’s areas of growth, Competency Building, by providing seminars and workshops which would help student leaders to develop necessary skills in managing and leading their respective organizations.
written by Leo Caayao
photos by Agnete Noble
