From
the moment I heard about the Emerging Leaders Program, I was hopeful that it
would equip me with the tools to become a more effective leader in the public
sector. The first session of the program featured
Margaret Crotty as the guest speaker. Margaret
is the Executive Director of Partnership with Children, the Program Leader for
Emerging Leaders, and a board member of Princeton AlumniCorps. I was blown away, her passion is contagious. Margaret embodied what I think of as a great
leader - a passion for fulfilling the mission of an
organization with the ability to motivate various stakeholders.
The
first session also gave us the opportunity to review the results of our
Myers-Briggs assessments. For the first
time, I felt like I had been given a vocabulary to describe my work style. For example, I am a strong “J” meaning that I
have a preference for working on clearly structured and well organized tasks.
This comes through in meetings in that I verbalize ideas that have been
thoroughly thought through. I also tend
to use an orderly step-by-step approach when engaging in public speaking. This
was a huge insight for me. One of my
goals is to become a more assertive and authoritative public speaker. My substantive knowledge of issues is
occasionally belied by my modest manner of speaking. The Meyers-Briggs assessment helped me to see
that being overly structured when I speak may cause me to be less flexible in
situations when I am receiving push back.
As such, I need to be more flexible so that I can be a more nimble and
authoritative speaker.
I
was in awe after the first session in that I learned so much and was also humbled
by the talents of the other Emerging Leader participants.
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