Professional Development - Strategic Leadership
This week I spent some time on the Harvard campus taking a professional development class in Strategic Leadership. It was an interesting experience, so I thought I would share some of the takeaways from the two days.
The 32 participants in the class represented many different countries and cultures - we had participants from the U.S., Europe, Asia , Africa and Latin America. They spanned many different industries - the Military, Education, BioTech, and Government. The networking event the first evening afforded us an opportunity to meet the diverse array of people from all different countries and industries (there was also another class being held with another 25 students from all over the world). I let many of the participants know that we had community members in their respective areas and described what Mozilla was all about. Some of the participants were quite excited about the fact they got to meet someone that works for a company that makes the browser they use on a daily basis. They were also interested to learn about how community contributions help drive the Mozilla project.
In addition to reviewing some case studies, the content on the first day explored the realms of leadership - including the psychological dimensions and emotional dimensions and styles. Day 2 we took a deep dive into decision making - using emotional intelligence as a foundation and exploring the challenges of decision making.
The great thing about these types of courses is they leave ample time for reflection. You actually get to think about your style, and learn about yourself and your leadership styles and how you apply them to different situations in your life. And since the case studies are taken from real life situations, taking the time to think about how you would have handled the situation is definitely a good process to go through.
Both the recent TRIBE class I took and this one helped me gather some tools that I should be able to use when I working with both my co-workers and community members. The important thing to remember is that it is a process - although you won't see changes overnight, if you employ some of the tools they outline, you may be able to hone your leadership skills as time passes.
