International Students in a Leadership Position
With a new year often comes new goals you want to achieve and new skills you want to develop!
If one of the skills you want to develop is leadership, then read on!
Why It’s Important to Develop Leadership Skills
As an Asian student studying in the U.S., leadership skills are vital, especially if you have a desire to stay in the U.S. to build a successful career and life.
In the U.S., Asians are known to be hardworking and generally demonstrate great subject matter expertise in the workplace. However, when climbing the corporate ladder, there’s often a “bamboo ceiling” for Asians after mid-level management, and it’s quite rare to see Asians in higher leadership positions in American companies or organizations. Read my blog - What You Need to Learn to Succeed in North America as a Leader.
Being a leader requires you to develop many skills. Below are some key skills that will help you become an effective leader:
Visibility: Many international students from Asia don’t feel comfortable with being visible. The first step to building leadership skills requires you to get used to being in the spotlight.
Proactivity: This is the ability to take initiative rather than wait to be assigned tasks or projects. It’s about the ability to identify what’s needed in a group or an organization and come up with a plan to execute it.
Communication: This is the ability to understand and articulate different types of information, such as ideas, feelings, and events, in ways that make it easy for others to understand and achieve the results intended.
Decision-making: This is when you’re able to assess all available information, identify strengths and weakness of each option, and make a good choice.
Organizing: Being able to use your resources efficiently and effectively for future learning, problem-solving, and task completion.
Strategic thinking: People who think strategically are able to see the big picture, set goals, decide what actions are needed, and help group members achieve those goals.
Risk management: This is the ability to think about what could possibly go wrong, deciding how likely and/or catastrophic that would be, and taking action to avoid the problem or its consequences.
Resiliency: People who are resilient have the ability to bounce back quickly from setbacks. They learn from their failures and use them to help them make better decisions next time around.
Culture Management: Being a leader doesn’t necessarily mean you always take the central stage. Instead, it often calls for the ability to cultivate an environment where people can contribute and collaborate at their full potential.
Emotional Intelligence: This is being able to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and neutralize conflict.
Being a student is an ideal time to be developing leadership skills! Why? Because students often have many school volunteer opportunities where they can develop leadership skills. Plus, when working in a voluntary position, there are usually more room to learn and make mistakes that lead to smaller consequences, compared to a paid job setting where the cost of mistakes can be greater!
“The best way to start developing your leadership skills is by getting involved!”
Volunteer at an Established Organization
Volunteering in an established organization is a great place to start developing leadership skills. You can learn from others that are part of the organization, choose how you want to get involved, and volunteer your time according to your schedule.
You can also look for opportunities to get involved on campus.
Go online or to the office of (international) student affairs and see what’s being posted. Are there organizations looking for skills in your field of study that will also allow you to develop leadership skills? Approach your program director and professors; let them know your intention to develop your leadership skills. They might keep an eye out for suitable opportunities for you!
If you can’t find anything that suits your needs or interests you, there is another option.
Create Your Own Opportunity
When I was an international student, knowing how much I felt isolated, an American professor encouraged me to start and grow a community for international students at my school.
I didn’t expect that suggestion from her. Actually I felt quite challenged by the idea! I’d never organized any groups before and what if I couldn’t find anyone interested in joining me?! That would make me look really bad!
One of the things I learned later on was that it’s okay if people say no or if not many people show up at an event I organize.
Through the process of organizing events in professional settings, I learned many important leadership skills, such as feeling more comfortable to be visible among a group of people, articulating my thoughts and communicating effectively in high-stakes situations, being the person to challenge “groupthink“, and fostering a group culture that encourages collaboration and diversity—these skills often brought me new professional opportunities.
I also developed resiliency and the ability to redirect my thoughts when things didn’t turn out the way I wanted. When few people showed up at an event, it was easy to think that somehow it was my fault—that it was because of me that the event wasn’t a success. But I learned that there are often things going on in other people’s lives that I’m not aware of and it’s not a reflection on me. Instead, I learned to be proud of myself for having the courage to take a chance to lead and grow from each experience.
Consider creating your own opportunity.
Can you lead your own project within an existing organization?
Do you see a need that you can fill by starting your own group at your school and growing it?
Regardless of whether you choose to work within an established organization, lead your own project, or start a group, choose to grow yourself! Developing leadership skills will be invaluable to you as you grow professionally and personally.
Is Fear Holding You Back from Developing Leadership Skills?
Remember, you can always schedule a call with me to see how I can help you overcome your concerns and grow your leadership skills strategically!
About The Author
Many years ago I came to the U.S. from Taiwan and studied in a field that rarely accepted “fresh off the boat” international students from non-English speaking countries. I’m Dr. Vivi Hua, Psy.D. and I help international students navigate the cross-cultural aspects of their experience in the U.S., so they can succeed academically and socially and build a life and career that they desire!