Leap of faith to lead
At the beginning of 2018 I took a leap of faith when I was offered to be in the chair role of STEM community initiatives for a regional career development chapter. Women’s Energy Network is a nationwide career development organization in the energy sector committed to educate, retain and recruit young women as well as develop and support current professional women in the industry. WENOK’s chapter is the second largest chapter after Houston and has over 900 active members across multiple companies.
Before I dive into the list of tips, I would like to give additional background on the community project and my role. Bare with me for a minute or skip directly to the list.
At that time, I was a consistent STEM volunteer for almost a year. An opportunity for a STEM chair position was presented at the beginning of this year. I was extremely nervous when Director of Community Initiatives, who is on Board of our chapter, scheduled a phone call with me to see if I was interested in that leadership opportunity. To tell the truth, I was not sure if I was prepared for it.
The goal for 2018–2019 was to establish a brand new program in the community, create curriculum, find expert volunteers and partner with the local agency to facilitate lessons at one of the public schools in Oklahoma City. I was not sure if we’d be able to recruit enough volunteers or how I would lead efforts.
So here I come, newly appointed chair of the STEM community initiatives. Over that year I have learned so much about my personal leadership style and on the path of finding more. As promised, I want to share some of tips that I have accumulated for myself and found extremely helpful.
1. Follow your passion. We hear a lot that it is important to find your passion. It can be misleading as we try to find certain industry or career path. Passion can be applied in multiple ways at any industry, or community. If your passion is to mentor, start a mentoring group within your company for example. For me it was STEM education and ability to empower young women to pursue their careers in STEM. If you do something you truly care about you will make it work despite all obstacles along the way. People around will notice your honesty. At the end it is worth fighting for what matters to you and to not give up on your dreams.
2. Establish clear communication. Make sure to provide all necessary information. Be prompt with replying to emails and be flexible to explain additional details. Everyone has different ways of communication. It is important to be able to utilize it all when needed-phone calls, conference calls, Facetime, one-on-one, group meetings, emails, etc. Learn how to use communication tools effectively. Also, I have realized that it is important to communicate the progress.
3. Find right people. It is important to find people who share your passion and vision. The pivotal point for the program was when one of truly great engineers who is a supervisor joined the program to lead our committee efforts. It is also good to have doers on your team to move the progress forward.
One of my favorite quotes from African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Remember that to achieve great things you cannot do it all alone. You need people to go on that journey with you. You also need right people on that journey.
4. Develop relationships. It is important to treat everyone with respect and to listen. I would send hand written “thank you” cards to all of our volunteers who helped with the program. Show and express gratitude every time you can. Be there for them and have everyone’s back. Make sure to understand that it is not only about you but about people involved. Create a sense of ownership for each individual on the team by pointing out specific skills they have that contributed to the overall success of the program.
5. Be optimistic. At times it feels like giving up or not knowing how it’ll work out. That is a good time to remind yourself why you are doing it. It will take some work for any project to make it successful. You just have to visualize the outcome and the reason you started it in the first place. Be a cheerleader for everyone and talk about the impact. As my dad used to say, “if it was easy anyone would do it.” It can get hard at times but your vision should be a driving force for everyone involved.
6. Create an execution plan. Last but not least, it is important to have a big picture execution plan that can be broken down into smaller tasks (daily, monthly, yearly, etc). Thinking about all details at once can be extremely overwhelming and stressful. Stay on track with smaller daily tasks as it’ll bring success to the overall end goal. Set time aside to brainstorm weekly and write down those priorities. Then, act on those tasks. Staying organized is a key.
The success of the STEM program exceeded all my expectations. In a short six month period we have twenty volunteers on the team, fifteen 8th grade girls we mentor and have already delivered seven successful STEM lessons. As I am wrapping up the year and reflect on that journey I am extremely thankful for all those relationships I was able to develop along the way. I know it is impossible to achieve it all by yourself and requires an enormous effort from each individual on the team.
The support of women along the way was outpouring and I am forever grateful for it all. It is only by lifting each other we can move forward one step at a time. If you could remember one thing from my blog, remember-do not be afraid to take onto the new leadership opportunities. “Carpe diem”, or seize the day!
Thank you for reading my blog! Cheers to new courageous you-Maria.
