A521.9.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

As I move forward into my future I will use what I learned throughout my leadership degree as well as personal experiences along the way to help navigate how I will lead and what kind of leader I will be. In chapter 12 of The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling Stephen Denning discusses several dimensions on becoming an interactive leader. The three dimensions I connected with the most were: The interactive leader works with the world rather than against it, interactive leadership builds on personal integrity and authenticity and the interactive leader doesn’t depend on the possession of hierarchical authority. Each of these dimensions manifests with my personality and style in different ways and I plan on applying them to my future organization when I become a leader one day.

The first dimension I connected with of Denning’s was the interactive leader works with the world rather than against it. This is about reading the world and letting the world do some of the work for me, rather than the use of manipulation and control as this can result in a noncompliant environment which in return will require more work for me as the leader. When I become a leader I will use my ability to tune into my fellow coworkers and get on the same page with them. I am a firm believer in the power of attraction and that positive attracts positive and negative will attract negative, and with that I hold true to the same beliefs when leading. If I want to be in a successful productive environment I need to be upbeat, positive and optimistic. If I can channel this positive energy to accomplish my overall objectives I feel that I will have a more efficient organization. This applies to Denning’s description because as an uplifting leader I will use my positive influence to encourage people to work with me and believe in me from every level of the organization.

The second dimension is an interactive leadership builds on personal integrity and authenticity. For me, this means being able to communicate effectively who I am and what I stand for with others and allowing them to accept me for who I am. More specifically this dimension resonates with me by “doing onto others as you would want them to do to you”. I live by this motto every day. If I want to be heard I will listen, if I want to change something I will make it happen and accept change as it is the inevitable. People will trust me because I will be open, honest and true to my word. As I develop solid relationships based off of my authenticity I will start to receive the same treatment in return. I want to be a transformational leader that can inspire others to identify within me as their leader and create their own objectives within my organization and strive to go the distance along side of me neither behind nor in front of me, and I will reciprocate the same in return for their loyalty.

The third dimension is the interactive leader doesn’t depend on the possession of hierarchical authority. I do not believe in following a strict pecking order. For me, from personal experience upper management does not always know every solution. Sometimes they get stuck in the ‘zoomed in’ mode and forget to ‘zoom out’ and look at the whole picture. A more relaxed hierarchical system seems to me to be more effective than a micromanaged organization. In order to grow and prosper successfully an organization needs boundaries, however too many boundaries and not enough freedom dims the mind and creativity becomes extinct. I plan to have an open door policy for anyone to come in and tell me their thoughts and concerns. Each employee plays a vital role in the organization and having one area start to decline in productivity will create a hiccup throughout the overall chain of operations, and that is why it is important to treat everyone as equals. Every individual will have the ability to voice their ideas and work collectively to accomplish difficult tasks. Having input from all levels of an organization allows a company to remain effective, as all the kinks will be worked out as they arise.

Each of these dimensions Denning’s discusses is very important in developing the kind of leader I will strive to be one day. Learning to work with the world rather than as a force against it, building personal integrity and authenticity and finally leading regardless of hierarchical authority all manifested deeply with whom I am today and who I plan to be tomorrow. As I move forward on my journey to becoming a successful individual I will reflect on personal experiences and my lesson I learned along my way to become an interactive transformational leader.

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Dicipline of Buisiness Narrative (Revised and updated edition). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons/Jossey-Bass

A521.8.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

In chapter 14 of Messages, McKay, Davis and Fanning finally go over a topic I take pride in ‘Making Contact’. I am very good at making contact because I am just very comfortable talking to anyone and everyone. I am usually the first to initiate a conversation with someone new. I find myself drawn to the withdrawn and or shy; sometimes it feels like my sole purpose of attending an event is to help others feel more comfortable. I originally was pursuing to a career to become a psychologist because of my ability to listen to others and make them feel comfortable enough to disclose their personal information that normally wouldn’t happen in an average encounter.

 For example in December of 2011 I was 8 months pregnant at my doctor’s office undergoing my glucose screening when I ran into an older woman in the parking lot. I stopped to open the door for her and she was so grateful since walking with a walker made this very difficult for her. As I opened the door I asked how her day was going thus far and she responded with a not so happy response. Next I asked her if she was ok since seeing her facial expression and uneasiness and that is when she began to disclose her personal information about herself. I found out that she was undergoing a physical and her seeing me brought memories of when she was pregnant many years ago, however she lost her baby due to complications and was unable to get pregnant again. When hearing this I instantly felt a sense of sorrow for her loss and she could feel it too. She smiled at me and told me she was ok. In the five minutes of meeting her over a simple hello she was able to engage with me on a deeper level and in that moment we were able to share a connection. As she walked inside I could tell she felt better talking about a painful memory even though I was a complete stranger and she appreciated my concern for her.

These types of occurrences happen to me often, and that is why I have taken it upon myself to improve the way I communicate with others. In the text the author’s point out many important guidelines that I feel are very effective. Body language is extremely important while communicating. A person can fake a lot of the things they say or do, but body language is a secret language that is hard to fake. If you act uninterested by having your arms folded or looking away the other person will pick this up and feel a sense of rejection. It is very important to have good posture, make eye contact, smile and move towards the other person. These simple gestures make the contact between you and the other person more genuine. I find icebreakers are the easiest way to “break the ice”. If I am ever stuck in a line somewhere such as the DMV I will make a point to converse with someone because it makes the experience more pleasant as the wait times are normally lengthy. If I see a woman I will do a quick scan and find something I like such as her shoes. I will look at her directly and say to her that I like them and the conversation goes from there.

 Once I get a stranger to converse with me I maintain active listening and empathize in any way I can. If they are stressing about something I try to make a joke to lighten the mood. I do anything I can to extend an olive branch and show I am interested in what they have to say. If they self disclose I self disclose back and if I cannot provide a decent example I try and put myself in their shoes and make an educated response.

These different tactics have proven to be very effective in my personal life. I am working on dealing with my rejection better as there are many times people just don’t feel the need to engage with me all the time. Sometimes this leaves me feeling hurt or embarrassed. I made a list of the negative feelings associated with my rejection and two of the main feelings I feel are that I am annoying or stupid. I have replaced these thoughts with positive ones. If I feel stupid I realize I simply forgot the point I was trying to make and I remind myself they have had that happen to them before. If I feel annoying I tell myself that if they are not interested that’s ok and I need to be ok with it too. I will continue to make contact with anyone and everyone throughout the rest of my life regardless of a chance of feeling rejection. I would rather engage with people than feel lonely in a crowd.    

A521.7.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

Working in the restaurant industry through college taught me a lot about life. I learned the true value of a dollar when not getting tipped on a party of forty people, taking up my whole section all night and finishing up that night detailing a nasty wait station all while making less than minimum wage. Then I learned how giving great customer service can earn me a 100% tip. I learned that in order to become successful in life you have to put your time in working for it and that’s exactly what I did. I worked forty plus hours while in four to five college courses every semester, which was at that time in my life the hardest thing I had ever done before. Working there taught me that I was never going to settle making less than minimum wage for the rest of my life; I was going to continue busting my butt to get through college so I could make something of myself. Being who I am, an over achiever, I knew just going through the motions while working there wasn’t enough so I looked for ways to better myself within the job I was working.

While most girls worked their shifts and went home I decided to develop my skills and look beyond my normal duties. When I was hired as a server I had no experience and was thrown out on to the floor to serve on my own after only two days of training. I had no knowledge on how to serve other than the shadowing I did during those two days. I learned the hard way the dos and don’ts of serving. In my pondering to make my job a more meaningful and useful experience I decided to go to my manager and talk about developing a better training system as two days of shadowing didn’t teach me anything. He agreed it was a good idea and told me to present him with a rough draft of what we needed to be in the restaurant’s manual.

I started brainstorming through all my memories of my first few days on my own as a server. I remembered all of the common questions customers would ask me. I reflected on the different menu options and substitutes we were allowed to do although not listed on the menu. I jotted down specific techniques and tips in completing side work efficiently. I also wrote down some helpful tips I felt needed to be relayed to newly trained servers that I wish I would have known. For example I believe it is extremely important to be in tune to all of your customers needs and check on them often in order to prevent them from doing without. I also feel very strongly about drinks running dry so I added in a personal example of how frustrating I feel when I don’t have a drink when I’m still eating to allow them to identify things they could relate too.  

Once all of my notes were compiled I presented to my manager my plan of action in training all new girls better. I advised that in having better trained girls we not only made the customer’s experience so much better, but it kept them coming back for more. When I developed the manual I hit a lot of main points and then elaborated on the importance of customer service. My section was always the most requested every weekend. People at one point were on a list to sit with me which was an amazing feeling! I had great relationships with many of my reoccurring customers and through getting to know them better I was able to network professionally. I developed a lot of great contacts that have been very beneficial now that I am in my current career.

A521.6.3.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

The Financial Aid Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide is a rather small department consisting of a Director, Manager, Manager of Direct Loans and Verification, Manager of State Grants and Scholarships, International Counselor, Online Counselor, Western Region Counselor, Central Region Counselor and I am the Eastern Region Counselor. We all work together as a team with one objective: to award students the financial aid needed to attend ERAU. There are roughly 6,000 students receiving financial aid for the 2012-2013 academic year and only five counselors handling their requests and that is why it is very important we all work together as a team.

We have a lot of similarities to that of a high-performance team as we all are connected; yet we work interdependently on our specific regions assigned. I feel as though we all are voluntary members as we chose to apply for our positions and invest a lot of time in learning all of the processes and procedures of the financial aid. Financial aid requires us to adjust our performance to the different needs of each individual we deal with. Sometimes we are just packaging their account for the academic year, where other times we are reviewing their personal information because they were selected for a process called verification.

As our team develops over the passing months and years we have grown together and became dependent upon one another. When a counselor is out we all re-group and pick up the counselors work responsibilities. I personally have experienced this type of commitment. While I was out on maternity leave for 12 weeks my fellow team members all collaborated to complete all of my tasks. One team member answered all my emails, while another called all of my students. Every member chipped in to make sure that while I was out my students were taken care of and reassured me to enjoy my time away as they were going to take care of everything. When I returned I only had present day emails, calls and tickets. I was completely caught up because of their willingness to take care of me, as I would do for them. Our relationship with one another is deeper than just as co-workers, we are a family unit working together towards accomplishing our team’s objective to give students financial aid.

We are connected through our shared passion and dedication in growing as a department and as individuals. We all act as each other’s cheerleaders. If one of us fails we all fail with them. We care for one another and want to see everyone succeed at one point or another. Recently our manager of Direct Loans and Verification received an award for ‘going above and beyond’ her normal call of duty. We were all at our annual awards ceremony when she was announced and in front of all Worldwide Headquarters our department was screaming and clapping because of how proud we were for her. We all felt like her award was a demonstration of “our’ accomplishments. She represents us and we all experienced ‘mirror neurons’ as she accepted her award with tears in her eyes. We are a team that lives by the motto “one team one dream”. Our Western Region counselor developed it and since he announced it we all have it written on our dry erase boards to remind us daily.

According to Denning there are four ways in which we as humans work together: Work Groups, Teams, Community and Networks. Each type of relationship has different benefits and challenges which in my opinion can be predicted by the type of project you are working on, different personalities associated with the project and environments they are encountered in.

In my past I have participated within a working group where each of us were assigned our own specific task and reported directly to the supervisor. When I was in high school I was forced to get a part-time job to pay for my own gas and cell phone bill so I applied at a doctors office. I was a jack of all trades meaning I did whatever they needed me to that day I wasn’t really in charge of only completing one task. The positive of working within this working group was I was given my responsibility that day and then left alone to complete it. I wasn’t forced to interact with anyone unless I needed assistance. The challenge of being so independent was that I was very lonely. I felt like the hours would go by slower than molasses dripping from a tree. I hated my job and couldn’t wait to quit.

My current place of employment gives me the opportunity to work as a team and I really enjoy it. We are all very different in our interests and hobbies, however we all share common values such as being helpful, supportive and strive to go above and beyond the normal call of duty. We are more of a family unit, which is the biggest challenge for me. We are so tight knit that we tend to bicker about the stupidest things like a family would. On a positive note we can usually read when one of our team members is having a bad day and re-adjust how we behave towards them for that day.

As a financial aid counselor I am not only apart of the financial aid team I am apart of the ERAU community in that we are a pretty close group of individuals all working towards ERAU goal in recruiting, retaining and graduating our students. As an employee I am able to be around people with common interests such as furthering my education. Employees I work around are currently pursuing their master degree and this is very motivating to me. I feel like since I have started working here I fit in better with my co-workers than I do with my friends at home because at ERAU we all are working towards bettering our students and ourselves. The challenge of being apart of this community is that I develop deep connections with my co-workers but as we all evolve into better employees comes more opportunities to grow and many employees go on and receive better jobs. It is hard when co-workers leave because I am forced to develop new bonds with the new hires.

A network I am apart of would be Facebook. I use Facebook to network and stay in touch with family and friends or potential resources. Although Facebook is a fun sight for many it is also a superficial way of communicating with no deep connection. This type of relationship is a great way to stay up-to-date with what’s going in the world, but it is also serves as a useless way for people to portray a pretend version of themselves. Networking can be beneficial in that you can stay in touch with resources for future opportunities, however if used inappropriately it can also be very harmful to ones self imagine.

For me I would prefer to work as a member of a team within a community like I do now at ERAU.