Shedding Light | not heat

I’ve been guiding and advising future leaders for many years, as a mentor and overall advocate, and my advice hasn’t changed much in that time. My concept of good leadership is informed by being a woman in a male-dominated field, a person of color in a primarily white-dominated world, and a general faith in the power of a good-hearted group of people.

But more importantly than all of that… my concept of good leadership is modeled on every servant leader I’ve seen in my life. I was raised in public libraries filled with volunteer after-school programs, and community theater spaces run by people filled with passion. My entire life I’ve seen the world transformed by people who wanted nothing more than something better for the people who came after them.

And I take all of that lived experience into my leadership practice every day.

As a high school student, I was regularly told to follow my passion. It’s the advice many teens are given specifically related to career aspirations, elective selection, and future college applications. Find what you’re passionate about and focus on that. It’s a trope that lines up beautifully with “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life”.

As I’ve progressed in my career, and taken on mentorship of those who will come after me, I’ve learned how perilous that advice can be.

Unknown Unknowns

When you receive the advice to follow your passion early in your life or your career, you have so many things you haven’t encountered yet. In my case, I was passionate about music. In part, I was passionate about it because I naturally excelled at music and I greatly disliked doing things I was bad at.

I focused intently on music with the ultimate end goal of “being famous*” since that’s what most musicians we know of are: famous. I didn’t realize that there were other parts of music that we going to be more appealing to me. Things like learning how to work in an ensemble, and how to guide an ensemble. Or the semantic language of music and its deep ties to math.

Passion Paradox

And while we’re on the subject of things we’re naturally good at, let’s talk about what makes you passionate. In order to enjoy a task, it’s important to have some level of mastery. So few people find joy in being bad at stuff (which is separate from enjoying new experiences). When we tell inexperienced people to follow their passions, we run the risk of cutting off the opportunity to grow their skills.

Consider lexicography.

This is one of those jobs that would make absolute sense for someone with a voracious love of reading, writing, and the ever-evolving nature of language. You might not suggest to any teen who loved reading that they “pursue professional reading” since there just aren’t that many job opportunities. Exposure to related work and fields is paramount to discovering those nuanced parts of what drives a passion.

Network Disadvantage

Not that this suggestion is perfect. I am aware that exposing your student to a broad spectrum of vocations isn’t possible for everyone. Take Your Child to Work Day gives them insight into your work world, which is of course helpful. Having a network that helps or encourages internships or job-shadowing is definitely a matter of privilege.

My best suggestion for broadening your knowledge without a network is to get a mentor. In my limited experience, it’s not been hard to get someone who is willing to mentor you. What is hard is being easy to mentor (and making the best use of everyone’s time).

Examined Pursuits

As with so many things, my recommendations boil down to “going in with your eyes open”. If you want to be famous, and you’ve learned all the many ways you can be in an industry without being the improbable star, yet still want to strive toward stardom then great. You have every right and you’re probably going to be amazing!

Just make sure that you take the time to know more about the entire landscape before you start.

* I have not, in case you missed it, gone on to be a famous musician. I work in technology.

From time to time I have the pleasure of introducing the concept of ex officio to groups I work with. It’s normally a concept reserved for non-profit boards, but I’ve found that its value goes far beyond that.

In the most basic terms, it refers to a position that participates in research, discussions, and overall analysis but has no voting power. In my experience, it’s held by former voting board members or close advisors.

“What’s this,” you say? “A board member who fights but never gets any power of voice?”

Not exactly.

As I said to my friend Helen today, I have infinite empathy, trust, and use for this type of voice in organizations.

The Strength to Move Forward

Good leaders know that one of their key responsibilities is to future-proof their organization. That means making sure you know who should take up the reins after you, and who could take them up after that person. It means knowing that new ideas are how you stay relevant. It means knowing that having institutional knowledge isn’t the same as having visionary excellence.

There’s power in the ability to look the future of your cause (or company, or church) in the eye and say “I’ll help you remember what got us here, but it’s up to you to get us there.”

The Wisdom to Look Back

I’ve served in an ex officio capacity on a number of occasions. I bring over a decade of knowledge in non-profit service, leadership, and marketing to the table (among some other skills) and I have seen a lot of teams through growth and change. I am always delighted to offer that knowledge as a resource, without limits. A group mentor for learning leaders.

These learning leaders (regardless of their age) have asked you to do this so they can learn from the mistakes of others. Or so they can always have a concept of their roadmap by deciding where to go while also connecting to where they came from. Or so they don’t suffer through a solved problem.

Probably a little bit of each, if we’re honest.

The Space for Lasting Change

When you have a clear-eyed group of leaders and a selfless set of advisors, you can make more confident plans for future visions. You can forecast how a program will be received. You can gauge how long it takes your organization to embrace a new direction.

Most importantly, though, you set everything up for success and get to help train a new generation of powerful, life-changing voices.

Tips for the First-Time Ex Officio

• Set aside the notion of “Only One Right Way” – Consider the possibility of “A Few Clearly Wrong Ways” and many ways that are basically right.
• Present facts both positive and negative – A good resource tries to be balanced and this is no exception.
• Don’t lobby – This isn’t the time to make carbon copies, it’s the time to uncover shared foundations. See item one.
• Offer perspective proactively – There are so many unknowns. That’s why you’re there, to shine lights on mysterious spaces.
• Refrain from “I told you so” – We all get it wrong sometimes. Shaming people forces inaction, not correction.
• Practice tender discipline – Challenge people to do more than they are comfortable with, but work with what they have.

I’m a longtime organizer of local events, from happy hours to educational gatherings, and nothing makes me happier than seeing a crowd making connections and learning new things. As an unapologetic extrovert, I find every event I attend invigorating and joyful.

But I know that the world also has introverts and shy, but friendly people. For those people, things like Meetups are scary.

Meetups are great in theory. They gather people together based on nothing more than proximity and a shared interest with the sole intention of making friends out of strangers. It can be an ideal alternative for anyone who dislikes the advice “join a church” or “meet people at the gym”.

The hard part is making yourself attend these group events so you can meet people in real life.

1. Bring along a friend. They don’t have to use or know about WordPress. Friends for moral support are welcome at all events.
2. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ll hear, a lot, that WordPress is easy. I’m here to dispel that rumor – it’s the easiest of CMSs, all of which are hard. WordPress is the easiest difficult tool you’ll use to manage your content, so don’t worry when you get things wrong sometimes.
3. Ask specific questions if you’ve got them. Once you have become an expert in anything, it’s hard to know what non-experts need to know. If you’re new, bravely ask your questions even if you think they are dumb.
   
4. If WordPress is new to you, then take notes. You’ll need them later.
5. If WordPress isn’t new to you, then be prepared to hear new things. Flint sharpens flint.
6. Don’t let highly-skilled people scare you. WordPress was and always will be a brilliant blogging platform. Embrace it. Everyone started at zero. If you find a person who was born knowing WordPress, you let me know straight away!
7. Be brave enough to come back.

And I’d like to share my personal WP Meetup manifesto:

1. I will always greet you so you know you’re in the right place.
2. I will not condescend to you when I’m explaining things.
3. I will make room for vulnerability; admitting you don’t know something is hard.
4. I will make sure you’re invited to the table.
5. I will shed light, not heat.

As we head into the final quarter of the calendar year, many organizations are looking toward the future. Sorting out the money, planning the calendar, and identifying the biggest worries are high on most board agendas. And from time to time, every board stops to look at their mission statement, just to make sure they are still headed in the right direction.

One of the boards I serve on is doing exactly that. There are discussions of who we are, what purpose we serve, and where we fit in the local landscape. We discussed what we want to be in the future, what we tell people about ourselves, and why we want to be part of the organization. And, of course, we discussed who we believe our audience to be.

Who We Speak To

The question of who your audience is versus who you want them to be is never an easy one. For so many organizations the answer to “who do we want to appeal to” is “we want to appeal to everyone”. And of course who your audience currently is tends to tie right in to who you appeal to naturally. During our conversation of audience, our board president said:

“If you serve, or want to serve, minority groups, then the burden of proof lies with you. Not with the people you wish were there.”

To clarify that a little, if you want to speak to people who have reason to believe you are not speaking to them, you have to say “and that includes you”. If you are a church that accepts and loves those of all sexual orientations including LGBTQ+ folx, you have to say it. If you are a technology company that accepts and values those of all skin colors and sexes including people of color or women and nonbinary members, you have to say it. If you are a sports league that accepts and invests in those of all levels of ability including rank beginners, you have to say it.

What We Want to Be

All people, as we grow into the wonderful adults we will be, are shaped by those around us. We are formed by the experiences we are afforded (or subject to, depending on your perspective). We trust what we know and sometimes that means we surround ourselves with people who think, act, look, or speak like us.

Trusting in what we know is a basic survival instinct; anyone like us, probably won’t harm us. Stereotyping is a basic coping mechanism; grouping people and things lessens our cognitive load. Putting our faith in people and things that aren’t already like us takes a lot of self-awareness and personal growth… but we don’t continue to grow without it.

With these combined truths, you can see why it is so important to state when you embrace that which is not like you. Because people, when left to our own devices, often won’t.

Where It Takes Us

Very few people or companies will argue that diversity (of thought and demographic) is bad. There is a lot of support for the idea that different view points leads to better outcomes, no matter the project.

The most important thing that it does, though, is help us to share who we are with the people who would love to be here… if only they knew we were here for them. Figure out who you wish you could share your work with, and tell them how much you miss their voice.

Not sure how to get started? Here are a few things you can do today!

1. Look for coded language in your public content.
2. Instead of broad declarations (everyone is welcome), make clear statements (beginners welcome).
3. Amplify people who are having trouble getting heard. 
4. Here are a few more ways to support minority voices.