Rockefeller Leadership Fellow: Charlotte Blatt '18

This series introduces the 2017-2018 Rockefeller Leadership Fellows. Each fellow reflects on why he or she wanted to be a part of the program and what aspects of leadership most interests them.

Throughout my Dartmouth career, I have held various positions and participated in several programs that have allowed me to both demonstrate and learn about leadership. In particular, as President of Dartmouth College Democrats during the 2016 general election, I was at the helm of an organization tasked with helping to turn out the Dartmouth campus and wider Hanover community to vote for Hillary Clinton, Maggie Hassan, and Democrats up and down the ballot. After this experience, I wanted to delve deeper into leadership training to improve my skills at facilitation, public speaking, and organizational management.

Two aspects of leadership that particularly interest me are building “buy-in” and excitement among all team members, as well as developing dispute resolution techniques. I believe that a good leader must provide at least three basic things for all team members: an overall vision for the project or organization, a general structure within which other members of the team should work, and a support system for team members. None of these things can be accomplished if the members of the team do not want to be there in the first place. Furthermore, it will be hard to recruit future volunteers or staff members if your organizational culture does not have buy-in, and it is challenging to head a team that cannot function due to arguments. Generating buy-in and learning dispute resolution skills are key for leadership.

Being a member of the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows Program means having a culminating experience for the leadership roles I have held throughout my time at Dartmouth. I see RLF’s combination of speakers, teamwork exercises, and discussions as an opportunity to reflect on how to improve as a leader before I graduate. In particular, I have enjoyed reflecting along with the other members of the RLF cohort. My favorite aspect of RLF thus far has been bonding with other members. Through getting to know leaders from other fields on campus, I have been able to make many new friends, as well as reflect on how their experiences both inform my own and have differed from my path. I hope to continue to take advantage of this opportunity to get to know these amazing individuals, as well as to hear from speakers who are leaders in their fields about the challenges they have overcome when heading diverse organizations.

Charlotte Blatt is a member of the Class of 2018 at Dartmouth College from Scarsdale, New York, majoring in Government and minoring in French. Charlotte is particularly interested in foreign policy and national security. In the spring of 2016 Charlotte studied abroad in Paris to improve her French proficiency. At Dartmouth, Charlotte has served as President of College Democrats, is a War and Peace Fellow, worked as a Presidential Scholar in the Government Department, and has been a tutor and study group leader for several government courses. She has interned in the office of US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Hillary for America. This summer, Charlotte interned as a research assistant at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. After graduation, Charlotte hopes to attend law school, and eventually to run for public office.  

Edited by Alexandrea Keith '20, Rockefeller Center Student Program Assistant for Communications