Speaker proclaims confidence as a great leadership characteristic

Ry’N Good

MC201/Staff Writer

At Jackson State University’s annual Leadership Symposium, students gathered inside of the Student Center Ballroom on Oct. 16 to obtain advice on how to be an effective leader.

Logan Rena, professional speaker, self-love coach and author, led the symposium for the night. She encouraged all leaders in attendance to embody confidence and how to be prepared to take the world by storm.

Rena stood firmly on knowing who you are, elaborating that if you do not discover who you are personally, you will not be happy in anything you do. She shared a list of words that she reads every day and had the students stand up to read each word aloud; she even shouted out several podcast and books that she listens to and reads daily.

In an effort to help students become more comfortable with meeting new people, Rena came with three exercises that required the attendees to move around and find a stranger. The objective was for students to learn a new characteristic about themselves.

Briana Henderson, a junior business major from Byram, Miss., feels that self-awareness is an essential feature that she learned is essential to having.

“I learned that in order to be great you have to know yourself. The best thing you can do before you leave campus is know who you are. I will learn who I am before I leave this campus, so I can be successful in my career. I left with the upmost confidence,” said Henderson.

Rena also spoke about the importance of surrounding yourself with positive and like-minded people.

“Having people who are in different majors or different careers in your circle keeps you extremely open minded and has you always learning something new. It keeps you in a growth mindset and will always have you striving to do better, which refers back to those exercises mentioned earlier,” said Rena.

Gloria Brown, a junior biology major from Jackson, Miss., said the event was a great way to self-reflect.

“One of the biggest things I’ve learned from this event was that it is very essential to learn self before anything else. I felt that I left with a sense of wanting to do greater for myself and my community. I feel that was an eye opener and that I needed to do better,” said Brown.

Brown continued, “My thoughts during the whole thing was that I am going to make a difference but the question, ‘What in?’ still stands. I can make money off my passion I just have to narrow it down to what is my true passion. JSU should definitely have these more.”