Communicate Effectively and Purposefully

1. Listens actively using strategies like maintaining eye contact, having an open mind, restating, observing body language, and asking clarifying questions.

2. Communicates with honesty ensuring truthfulness, sincerity, and directness. 

Lead with Character

1. Makes an effort to be self-aware and identify their personality traits, skills, core values, beliefs, and attitudes, and how these factors influence their actions and emotions. 

Embrace a Growth Mindset

1. Demonstrates confidence in their abilities to learn and succeed, willingness to endure difficulties and failures, and assertiveness to state opinions in conversation. 

2. Engages in reflection, both thinking ahead to anticipate outcomes and consequences of choices and thinking back to draw conclusions from what happened.

Year 2: The “Leadership in Focus” Conference, geared towards sophomore FFA members, is a day-long training focused on building leadership capacity in students. Through the guidance of a trained facilitator, students will deepen their understanding and develop skills in the following competencies: 

Lead with Character

1. Demonstrates integrity by ensuring there is consistency between values, words, and actions, and showing willingness to do the right thing even when difficult.

2. Understands their character is a product of their values and choices, and that they are responsible for their actions and decisions which may impact their community, relationships, employer, etc. 

Build Healthy Relationships

1. Seeks to establish and grow healthy, positive relationships with teachers, mentors, and peers to build trust and respect, have support and companionship, and receive input and advice. 

2. Demonstrates social awareness by seeking to understand the feelings and intents of others, understanding how the unique backgrounds and experiences of others impacts their perspectives and responses, and perceiving how others react to their statements. 

3. Makes effort to demonstrate traits of maintaining positive relationships like: empathy, remorse, forgiveness, reliability, loyalty, and respect. 

Embrace a Growth Mindset

1. Seeks to learn from experiences and has a positive perception of mistakes, understanding, and applying the concept of failing forward. 

2. Engages in reflection, both thinking ahead to anticipate outcomes and consequences of choices, and thinking back to draw conclusions from what happened.