NSSLHA President

I serve as the president of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) at Minnesota State University, Mankato. NSSLHA is a national student-led organization for students studying communication sciences and disorders. The goal of the organization is to support students in this field by providing resources and guidance to learn more about the profession and prepare for graduate school or a future career.

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This organization is made up of general members as well as an executive board. The general members’ roles include attending meetings and socials and completing volunteer hours. Members benefit from being involved in NSSLHA as many graduate schools and professionals value seeing future speech pathologists involved in this organization. The club is also a great way to meet other students in the major. Each member is valued and brings their own unique perspective to the organization. We all have different strengths that when combined create an impactful group. As we combine our volunteer experiences together, we hope to make a positive impact on our campus and community.

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The executive board puts in the behind-the-scenes work to ensure that the club runs smoothly and that members feel included. The roles include president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, social officer, public relations officer, and College of Allied Health and Nursing representative. Similar to the general member body, each board member brings their own unique perspective to the table that helps us make plans for the club. We each use our strengths to benefit the group as a whole. This has taught me that there are different roles on a team for a reason. When we each serve in a role that aligns with our strengths, we are able to accomplish goals as a group.

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As president of this organization, I oversee our executive board and all the decisions that we make regarding the organization. I lead monthly meetings for our executive board to meet and plan upcoming events. I prepare our agenda for these meetings and lead the discussions. Through this, I have learned how to incorporate each member of the team into the discussion. I try to take a participative leadership approach, leaving plenty of room for open communication. This is an important part of leadership because each member who contributes should feel  they are valued and have a voice. I have found that emphasizing the importance of each board member helps us feel more united in leadership and more like a team.

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One of my regular duties includes scheduling and organizing large group meetings. I am normally a week-to-week planner, so creating the schedule for the semester was new to me. However, I learned that planning things out in the long term is very beneficial, especially when leading a large group. It would have been difficult to coordinate meeting times that worked for the majority if we hadn’t announced the schedule at the beginning of the semester. After planning like this, it is something that I am trying to adapt to my own personal schedule. I hope to plan more in advance in all areas of my life.

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In addition to creating a schedule, I am also in charge of planning the content for each meeting. I tried to tailor the content to meet the needs of students in the organization. For example, we have students going into both speech pathology and audiology. When selecting topics for meetings, I always try to include information about both fields. The organization is also open to students of any year in school. This creates a wide range of topics to address. Seniors would likely want to cover topics such as applying to graduate school or a job. On the other hand, freshmen or sophomores may want to learn more about the profession and figure out if they want to continue in the field. Some interests overlap, but some are specific to specialty or age. To try and adapt to all needs, I planned a mixture of topics to be covered at meetings. This also promoted an inclusive environment for all members. Again, I believe promoting inclusivity is important as a leader. This was one way I strived to meet the goal of creating an inclusive environment.

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I was also in charge of leading the meetings. At first, I felt anxious about doing this because I normally get nervous talking in front of large groups of people. I was genuinely surprised though, that during the first meeting, I did not feel overwhelmed or anxious. It felt natural to be speaking in front of the group, and I was comfortable because I prepared the slides in advance and knew what I would be talking about. Again, in this situation, I incorporated other board members. Rather than reading all the slides myself, I asked board members to come up to the front and read slides associated with their position. This made the presentation more interesting while involving more board members. I gained confidence in my leadership abilities and speaking in front of large groups through this position.

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Each month, we also have a social event where we get together, usually in the evening, and have a low-key social time. One idea that the previous president handed down to me was dividing the social events among board members to plan them. This way, we only had to worry about coordinating one of the social events rather than everyone trying to plan each social event and contribute equally. Again, this ensures that all board members feel involved and that they contribute. This taught me more about delegation and learning from others who are more experienced than me. The wisdom that the previous president shared with me helped me be a more efficient leader.

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Leading in this position has taught me how to receive constructive feedback. After my first semester as president, I created a survey to get feedback from members on what they enjoyed about the semester and areas of improvement. Reading this feedback gave us an opportunity to celebrate our strengths, identify areas to work on, and create plans to act on them. We reviewed the responses to the survey as a group and incorporated the feedback into our planning for the following semester. One change that I would make in the future is clearly stating the confidentiality of the survey. One question implied that it was anonymous, but I never clearly stated that the survey was anonymous. This may have held them back from responding fully and honestly. Despite this, we received several helpful responses. In the future, I will be sure to state when a feedback survey is anonymous. This will help all members of the group feel that they can honestly share their feedback and contribute to the future of the organization.

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I also received feedback from our chapter vice president, who filled out my leadership evaluation form. I received nearly all positive feedback, which was very encouraging to hear. She reassured me that the open communication I was trying to practice was effective. She also commented on my organization and dependability. It was very uplifting to receive this positive feedback. One area for growth that she mentioned was not taking on too many roles at once. This is something that I have always struggled with, and it becomes especially apparent when I am in a positon of leadership. It is also something that I am actively working on. For example, this semester, I stepped back from two leadership roles so that I could better serve in the other roles that I am in. I have already begun to see the benefits of this, such as feeling more present where I am at.

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After receiving feedback, I practiced transformational leadership. One piece of feedback we received during the semester was that some audiology students were feeling left out since we tend to focus on speech pathology. Through collaboration with a professor, we decided to create a new board member position to serve as an audiology representative. This situation helped me learn the importance of making sure each member of the group has the resources they need to thrive and feel included. We also created a DEI position to promote equity among minorities in our major, but I overlooked the minority of audiology students in our major. Prior to this, when I thought of equity, I only thought about ethnic and cultural differences. This taught me that there is a need for equity in many other areas beyond these categories. In a team, there will always be minorities. Differences will vary among each group, and as a leader, it is my duty to recognize minorities and support them by offering them the resources they need to succeed. If I claim to lead and demonstrate equity, I cannot simply do so among minorities of my choosing; rather, my goal as a leader is to treat all minorities with equity.

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As mentioned before, leading in this role helped me understand the importance of delegation. As a student-athlete with several other commitments including a part-time job, I have a very busy schedule. This was one of my main concerns when stepping into this leadership role. Each board member has a defined role, which is written in our constitution. However, there are some tasks that do not necessarily fall under one position. I received another great piece of advice from the previous president. She shared that delegating tasks is the most efficient way to get things done while also distributing power more evenly. After being president for a while now, I have found this to be true. Distributing the workload increases quality because each member can put more focus and attention into each of their tasks. It also takes the pressure off one person who might otherwise do most of the work.

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Being president of NSSLHA has taught me more about my own leadership styles and how to adapt my strengths to different groups. This position taught me specifically about transformational and participative leadership. Leadership tools such as delegation, organization, and responding to feedback are all important aspects of leadership that I have learned more about. These will benefit me in future leadership positions that I take on in my community, graduate school, and my future career.