The Leadership Challenge – Encourage the Heart

As I close out this series on “The Leadership Challenge,” I realize just how grateful I am for the support our club members have shown to me and to all the club leaders throughout this club year. I could easily make this blog post 30 pages long if I were to list out everything club members have done in support of our mission. But I won’t do that.

Instead, let me say, from the bottom of my heart, how much I appreciate the contributions of your hearts. You have donated money and presents. You have invited friends to join; you have invited friends to our fundraisers, you have invited friends to be our speakers and models. You have prepared food and washed dishes. You have sorted clothing and toys. You have wrapped gifts. You have emailed, telephoned, and visited. You have made crafts with the JO&A girls; you have shared a skill with the Horizonte girls. You have had new ideas and made them reality. You have celebrated together a year of amazing accomplishments.

And you have been leaders. Not all leadership comes from position. Much of your leadership has come from seeing a need and filling it.

Our leadership matters – because we matter. As we go forward, let’s continue to focus on what matters. Encourage the heart – because your gratitude matters.

The Leadership Challenge – Enable Others to Act

I like to think of this concept with an emphasis on the word “enable” – in a good sense. Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to be an enabler. Not when enabling means giving a committee a responsibility and then ensuring that they have everything they need to succeed – no more and no less.

No more – because that would be taking away their creativity and their ability to make a project their own. But certainly no less or they may struggle, may not enjoy the project, and may not have the growth experience the individual members are seeking.

This is harder than it sounds. As we seek to collaborate in our committees, it is often a lot more work to teach a member what she needs to know so she can successfully take on a responsibility. It’s much easier to just do it ourselves. (Guilty as charged.) But teach her we must – our success and growth as a club depends on it. Our ability to succeed as a club depends on our ability to foster collaboration and strengthen each other as we accomplish our mission – improving the lives of women and girls.

By enabling others to act, we give them the gift of our trust and our confidence in their ability to succeed – both for themselves and for the club. Enable others to act – because your gift matters.

The Leadership Challenge – Challenge the Process

It’s true – great leaders have been known to “rock the boat.” Great leaders search for opportunities, experiment, and take risks.

At the SIA convention I had the opportunity to chat with a wonderful woman from Raleigh, North Carolina. Her club was so passionate about sex trafficking of women and children that they took the risk of engaging first responders, law enforcement, human services and legal services to bring the topic to light. They produced a training video for law enforcement and held a public screening of a documentary on girls who had been trafficked. Not exactly the picture you get when you hear of a woman’s club in the South; but these women followed their passion and successfully brought the issue into the living rooms of Raleigh.

And while it’s not been on quite as grand a scale, our club has seized opportunities, led from within. Capitalizing on the fact that we live in the “Scrapbooking Capital of the World,” Pat organized our first ever “Crop ‘til it Stops” event, raising over $1,000 for the UDVC LINKLine. Acknowledging that women’s heart health is one of Soroptimists focus areas, Lisa encouraged us to support the Heart Walk, where we were the second highest fundraiser of the community teams. We’ve never had an International Women’s Day luncheon before – but that’s not stopping us from inviting women all over Salt Lake and beyond to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

Challenging the process doesn’t mean giving up time-honored traditions – unless they really should be given up. Let’s continue to challenge the process – because our actions matter.

The Leadership Challenge – Inspire a Shared Vision

Inspire a shared vision – this one should be easy. After all, we’re Soroptimists. Our vision is a better world for women and girls.

OK – so what does this look like? I’m sure if I asked five Soroptimists this question, I’d get five different answers – all valid. A world where there is no intimate partner violence. A world where there is no poverty. A world where all girls have access to education. A world where women have equal opportunities for employment. A world where human trafficking does not exist.

Worldwide, Soroptimists are doing great things toward achieving the better world we all envision. As club leaders, we need to define our part of this grand vision and focus our club around achieving it. Visioning is not my strongest point. I look to Gaby for this. Those of us who will serve on her board next year will find her to be not only visionary, but able to envision the path that will take us to the next level.

What is your vision for our club? I challenge you to inspire a shared vision – because your voice matters.