**Indulge me again as I talk about
deep introspective things,
Junior League and how I seem to relate everything to
blogging**
Last week I had yet another Junior League meeting and I was really excited. This year I've been invited to participate in our league's "Women to Watch" program. And while that title sounds important yet somewhat ominous (we WILL be watching you!) I am honored to be receiving some extra
grooming training for when they ask me to fill a leadership role.
Now mind you, I have no aspirations to be some Hilly-esque League President. That makes me want to pass out just thinking about it. But knowing that I do like to be as active as possible in groups which I am affiliated with, that no doubt leads to being asked to volunteer for things all the time. I would like to take on more responsibility in a few years when I *maybe* have a little more free time. And I'd also like to kind of know what I'm doing.
Aside from gaining knowledge through the material, we will also gain practical advice from our 3 leaders. They are Sustainers, i.e., members "retired" from active roles in the league. They are all fun-loving, wine-drinking former Presidents of our League with tons of insight, horror stories, lessons learned. They started the program several years ago when they realized that some of the women filling key leadership positions really didn't have any idea what they were doing.
I'll take this moment to shamelessly plug the Junior League. From the mission it is "an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism,
developing the potential of women and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of
trained volunteers." I've learned that this group can be attractive to many kinds of women. Some like me are seeking to stay connected and continue to develop my skills while taking a break from the work force to raise children. For others they can receive training that may not be available to them otherwise. For some it's simply social and for some it's simply volunteer work.
For our first session we took a fun survey to identify our personality strengths in terms of your "animal." If you're curious you can take find the test
here. I was not surprised by my results- I'm reserved, predictable, problem solver, analytical... Math major up and down and a "beaver" by animal classification. With training and self-reflection it is ones hope to become more balanced among the animals. Then we talked about "appreciative leadership." How you need to understand the type of people you are leading--their personalities and what motivates them.
And this is where everything started to connect for me. While it seems pretty lame to relate these lessons back to blogging, blogging is one of the bigger "relationships" in my life right now. Parenting at this point is not too affected by my boys' personalities (one of our leaders mentioned how challenging it is to parent a child with a very different personality than you...time will tell on that one) and on most days I think I understand Mr. Banker and what motivates him.
I'm definitely an "affiliation" motivated person. One who loves notes, socializing and personal interaction. Others are motivated by "achievement," having responsibilities designated to them and achieving goals, or "power," having opportunities to teach others with responsibility and authority.
Yesterday Melissa
posted about trying to treat others the way you would want to be treated, after she had a rough week where she felt unappreciated and run over. I realized a while back (and this training only strengthened that thought) that when you get to know someone well you will know how THEY want to be treated, which is often very different from how you want to be treated! You will know little things like what might be a good gift for them to bigger things such as how you could completely ruin their day by not returning their call or not asking their opinion.
This helps me relate better to bloggers. I'll try to keep in mind that maybe not everyone is mostly motivated by affiliation like me. If I choose to comment on their blog I need to know that I may never get a response from them. They may not blog to socialize like I do, but instead they may use it as an "achievement" like gaining a certain number of "followers" or page views, or for "power" to influence others through product reviews or sharing recipes or fashion ideas. I'm sure at times it can be for each of these things. It doesn't mean that they don't like me and I shouldn't get my feelings hurt.
As one of our leaders put it, sometimes you just have to remember "She's not me." When working with anyone, it's easy to point out how they do it wrong or that your way is better. You know what I mean. Of course you don't have to be best friends with everyone on your committee or every blogger, but you can at least respect their opinion and who they are. Thinking about their personality and what motivates them can make working with them a little easier. Maybe. Hopefully.
I guess you could classify this as a power motivated post...my hope to share a little bit of what I learned with y'all. And if you made it this far with my run on sentences and lack of pictures, thank you.
