Today was the first day of what I believe is going to be an incredible two-year journey for me. I attended the first day of a three day summer institute for the Houston A+ Challenge New Visions in Leadership Academy (2006 Cohort). This summer institute is a kick-off to a two-year academy that will include monthly cohort meetings, retreats, and deep reflective learning around leadership.
I’ve known several people who have been members of earlier academy cohorts and I’ve witnessed incredible growth in those people as they moved through this academy. I’m very excited about this opportunity, and from what I’ve experienced on this first day, I believe this is going to be the “right thing” at precisely the “right moment” for me.
The past two years for me have been difficult professionally. I’ve seen the dissolution (due to various causes) of a powerfully productive/effective leadership team, and have felt as if I was in a holding pattern with regard to progress on specific issues on my campus (again, due to various causes). Over the past several months I became painfully aware of the negative effect of these experiences on me professionally and spiritually. I believe the experiences and personal learning/growth that will occur as I am involved in this academy will help me heal more quickly and I feel very hopeful about the near future.
Our focus for this first day was on the Stages of Team Development. We first reviewed what those stages are and then were assigned to our cohort group — the group of people with whom we will meet with and work closely with over the next couple of years.
We then went through a series of three indoor activities similar to a ropes course in order to experience and discuss team dynamics within a safe setting. I’ve been on a ropes course before, however, the debriefing that occurred today took me into much deeper learning around the concepts of team development. I became much more aware of what made us successful and unsuccessful with each activity, and was able to easily transfer that knowledge to how it applied to recent experiences with teams on my campus.
One interesting take-away that I got from the day related to the issue of serving as a leader. Everyone involved in this cohort is currently in some sort of leadership position on their own campus. We are all very experienced as being leaders and taking charge in most situtations. This created some interesting moments as we formed cohorts and worked together to solve problems in the activities because as a group we never discussed who would act as team leader — different people stepped up to take the lead at different moments. The act of NOT serving as a leader in every situation felt strange to me, but at the end of the day I realized that it also felt a little refreshing to not be the group leader. I did not expect to have that feeling.
If today is an indication of what the next two years will bring, then I can feel nothing but great excitement over this experience. I feel very comfortable with the people in my cohort and I look forward to learning and developing leadership skills with this group.
Technorati Tag: New Visions Leadership Academy
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