Step Up! It's What Leaders Do
A new academic year has begun! I am just getting to that point when the newness of the year is winding down and a routine is starting to form. I still get excited for the beginning of a new year, but this is also a time of quiet concern for me as well. Starting college for first year student is an extremely exciting time, but can also be a time when some students get into situations that become difficult to handle. Each student comes to this new experience with a different story when it comes to handling alcohol, relationships, mental health, etc. etc. etc. and at times students have to suffer major consequences when bad choices are made. I always start each year reflecting on these choices our students need to make and hoping they make the right ones. Not everyone is always going to make the right choice, so in those circumstances; I just hope nobody has to suffer negative repercussions from those choices.
This past summer, a few colleagues and I developed a presentation we gave to all students employees in our division during the training programs that typically happen at the beginning of the year. This presentation was all about bystander intervention, in other words, encouraging students to Step Up and intervene safely in problematic situations. The presentation was adapted from the work done with Athletes at the University of Arizona encouraging them to be the type of leaders that look out for one another.
Our presentation started by asking students to think of a time when they observed a situation that made them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps a situation when they felt someone should do something to either change or stop what was happening. The student leaders we presented to had no problem coming up with a multitude of situations. One person talked about watching someone put something into a drink that was intended for a woman. Others shared stories about fights, sexual assaults, dangerous alcohol consumption, and acts of discrimination. The stories were overwhelming and reinforced the idea that even though we may think these situations will never happen to us, they are still prevalent on any college campus.
Our Step Up Presentation was informed by a survey that was done on our campus as well as nationally at many different universities. Several data points from the survey were encouraging. A high percentage of our students considered themselves leaders and stated they felt it was their responsibility to intervene in problematic situations. Students also reported thinking problematic situations could be avoided if someone did intervene.
Unfortunately, in real situations, people are not as "heroic" as they think they may be. A phenomena known as the bystander effect is a serious threat to stepping up. Simply put, the bystander effect is when people don't step up to intervene in problematic situations because they assume another bystander will take care of it. As you can imagine, if everyone is suffering from the bystander effect, then nobody does anything. Conformity is another serious threat to stepping up. It is only natural to think about the potential personal costs of stepping up to intervene in a situation. If you "call out" negative behavior exhibited by friends, you risk being on the outside of that friendship circle. For many, the potential loss of a friendship circle is too high a cost to pay, so silence wins the day. Group think and conformity are extremely difficult to combat, but hopefully if more people are willing to step up and address negative behavior it will be easier. My friend and colleague Mark in one of our presentations told the group if you can manage to step up just once, the confidence that comes from that will motivate you to keep stepping up and will motivate your friends to follow.
While reading this, if you thought about a situation you witnessed where someone should have stepped up, but didn't, know that there is no judgment coming from me. I have my own stories of not stepping up 100% of the time. The goal of our training was to encourage student leaders to be creative in stepping up to stop behaviors and keep people safe. I was amazed by the creativity some of our students exhibited in stories they shared. The student who saw someone slipping something into a drink that was intended for a women told me something came over him and he decided the best thing to do was the act like he was drunk and fall into the table where the drink was sitting. He didn't start a fight or yell at the person in front of everyone, but he did change the situation and prevented something horrible and life altering from potentially happening.
I realized doing this work on my own campus that often when we talk about leadership, we are often talking philosophically and then helping students find their own ways of implementing the theory. With this, we are asking leaders to take tangible action to look out for their neighbors not because of a high minded theory, but because it is the right thing to do. I hope for those of you reading this, you will consider including bystander intervention into your leadership development programs as a means to not only address alcohol consumption or sexual assault, but also inclusivity and diversity challenges. The idea of making leadership more inclusive starts with ensuring everyone in our communities feels safe in order to make their own unique contributions to our world.
So...what can you do to step up?
This past summer, a few colleagues and I developed a presentation we gave to all students employees in our division during the training programs that typically happen at the beginning of the year. This presentation was all about bystander intervention, in other words, encouraging students to Step Up and intervene safely in problematic situations. The presentation was adapted from the work done with Athletes at the University of Arizona encouraging them to be the type of leaders that look out for one another.
Our presentation started by asking students to think of a time when they observed a situation that made them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps a situation when they felt someone should do something to either change or stop what was happening. The student leaders we presented to had no problem coming up with a multitude of situations. One person talked about watching someone put something into a drink that was intended for a woman. Others shared stories about fights, sexual assaults, dangerous alcohol consumption, and acts of discrimination. The stories were overwhelming and reinforced the idea that even though we may think these situations will never happen to us, they are still prevalent on any college campus.
Our Step Up Presentation was informed by a survey that was done on our campus as well as nationally at many different universities. Several data points from the survey were encouraging. A high percentage of our students considered themselves leaders and stated they felt it was their responsibility to intervene in problematic situations. Students also reported thinking problematic situations could be avoided if someone did intervene.
Unfortunately, in real situations, people are not as "heroic" as they think they may be. A phenomena known as the bystander effect is a serious threat to stepping up. Simply put, the bystander effect is when people don't step up to intervene in problematic situations because they assume another bystander will take care of it. As you can imagine, if everyone is suffering from the bystander effect, then nobody does anything. Conformity is another serious threat to stepping up. It is only natural to think about the potential personal costs of stepping up to intervene in a situation. If you "call out" negative behavior exhibited by friends, you risk being on the outside of that friendship circle. For many, the potential loss of a friendship circle is too high a cost to pay, so silence wins the day. Group think and conformity are extremely difficult to combat, but hopefully if more people are willing to step up and address negative behavior it will be easier. My friend and colleague Mark in one of our presentations told the group if you can manage to step up just once, the confidence that comes from that will motivate you to keep stepping up and will motivate your friends to follow.
While reading this, if you thought about a situation you witnessed where someone should have stepped up, but didn't, know that there is no judgment coming from me. I have my own stories of not stepping up 100% of the time. The goal of our training was to encourage student leaders to be creative in stepping up to stop behaviors and keep people safe. I was amazed by the creativity some of our students exhibited in stories they shared. The student who saw someone slipping something into a drink that was intended for a women told me something came over him and he decided the best thing to do was the act like he was drunk and fall into the table where the drink was sitting. He didn't start a fight or yell at the person in front of everyone, but he did change the situation and prevented something horrible and life altering from potentially happening.
I realized doing this work on my own campus that often when we talk about leadership, we are often talking philosophically and then helping students find their own ways of implementing the theory. With this, we are asking leaders to take tangible action to look out for their neighbors not because of a high minded theory, but because it is the right thing to do. I hope for those of you reading this, you will consider including bystander intervention into your leadership development programs as a means to not only address alcohol consumption or sexual assault, but also inclusivity and diversity challenges. The idea of making leadership more inclusive starts with ensuring everyone in our communities feels safe in order to make their own unique contributions to our world.
So...what can you do to step up?
Comments
Post a Comment