As a student, one of the most important things you can do is to thoughtfully reflect upon your experiences to understand what you've learned about leadership during your time at Northwestern. Working with Career Services, we've designed the Leadership Crucible to help you reflect on these moments and the lessons you learned.
Your Leadership Crucible is a collection of individual stories that illustrate your experiences as a leader. Using the lens of Northwestern's Leadership Assets this application will help you develop your Leadership Crucible one story at a time. The story you write today will be produced as a PDF, which will be sent to you via email so that you may then upload it to NU Portfolio, the tool that University Career Services offers to help you prepare for interviews, jobs, fellowships, and graduate schools.
As you begin, think about leaders who have inspired you. They may be iconic leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Winston Churchill. They may be an influential teacher or coach you've known. They may even be some of your fellow students. Leaders are present in extraordinary situations and in ordinary life.
Throughout your life you will continue to encounter opportunities to lead. The Northwestern community has identified six assets that are a foundation for successful leadership:
- Asking Powerful Questions
- Inspiring Others Through Narrative
- Mobilizing Difference for Performance
- Thriving in Collaborative and Hierarchical Settings
- Navigating and Leading Change
- Overcoming Adversity and Failure
There are three sections in this exercise:
- Reflect on one of your leadership experiences
- Apply one of NU's assets to that experience
- Document your leadership story for your Leadership Crucible.
The flow chart above will show your progress in the Leadership Crucible process, which should take you approximately 45 minutes to complete. Grab some scratch paper to take notes while you brainstorm and click below to begin.
