“Leadership is action, not position.” – Donald H. McGannon

The SOAR program is a three-tiered leadership series emphasizing the importance of the Social Change Model while involving the three components of leadership: the individual, the group, and the community.  The program emphasizes the significance of understanding the self and others in an effort to create positive community change.  The curriculum also highlights the prominence of the leadership community and leadership as a process; and not just the leader on an individual basis. 

There are seven critical values in the model of leadership: Congruency, Consciousness of Self, Commitment, Collaboration, Common Purpose, Controversy with Civility, & Citizenship.  These concepts and values fall into three levels within the SOAR curriculum: Emerge, Develop, & Lead. 

LEVEL 1 – EMERGE

The first level of SOAR emphasizes the individual while incorporating the first three values of the leadership model.  Congruency refers to thinking, feeling, and behaving with consistency, authenticity, and honesty towards others.  Consciousness of Self refers to the idea that one should be aware of beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions motivate them to take action.  The last concept covered in the Emerge level is Commitment.  Commitment is the energy and passion that motivates the individual to contribute to the group effort.

LEVEL 2 – DEVELOP

The second tier of the SOAR program emphasizes the importance of the group in terms of Collaboration, Common Purpose, and Controversy with Civility.  Collaboration is to work with others for a common effort.  Collaboration is ultimately the cornerstone value of the group effort as it empowers the self and others through trust and reliance.  The idea of Common Purpose emphasizes the concept of shared endeavors while facilitating the group’s ability to engage in collective analysis of the issues at hand and tasks to be undertaken.  Controversy with Civility recognizes two fundamental viewpoints of any group effort: the idea that differences are inevitable and that those differences must be discussed civilly and openly to ultimately produce new, creative solutions to problems.

LEVEL 3 – LEAD

The third and final tier of the SOAR program involves a social change project and emphasizes the last value within the leadership development model, Citizenship.  Citizenship is the process by which the individual and the collaborative group become connected to the community through leadership development activity.  Through the other values previously established in the first two tiers of the SOAR program the students take part in a social change group project that encompasses all of the skills obtained within SOAR.

This year six upperclassmen students are participating in a partnership with Mount Hope High School’s Peer Mentoring Program.  The SOAR students organized a day long retreat for the students going over important concepts of leadership regarding group dynamics, conflict resolutions, and time management skills.  The year-long project illustrates the importance of Citizenship in real life scenarios and has helped the students participating in Lead apply what they have learned throughout the SOAR program to their social change project as well as to each other and the RWU community.

*Information gathered from The Social Change Model of Leadership Development Guidebook