Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success. The community needs YOU to exercise leadership. To be effective in community leadership we must strive to work in a collaborative manner. We need to see the future, engage and develop people, reinvent continuously, value results and relationships, and embody values that foster strong collaboration. -Novato Fire Protection District Chief Heine (LN 2010)
These past few days, I have had the honor of being part of the Leadership Novato 2015 class retreat and our first meeting day known as Novato History Day. As someone who has been in student leadership development and facilitated many student lead teams, being part of the team rather than the advisor is awesome.
I already feel like I will be a better advisor, teacher and leader down the road. I encourage anyone who develops teams to pencil in leadership development time for yourself. You will be surprised what new tips you can learn and relearn. For this particular leadership program, collaboration is a major theme that will be running through the monthly classes. They have already provided us with the leadership assessment DISC which specially focuses on how you work and communicate within a team.
I’m a huge communicator and when I commit to something, I always try to follow through, communicate where I am in the project, listen to where my teammates are, and aim so that all of us can be there. I’m passionate about bringing people together and helping them develop along the way.
The big lesson I learned from the retreat was collaboration takes time. It is key to the success of your team, but you have to be willing to work at. To get to know your teammates. To share how you prefer to work and respect how others like to work. Stay focused on the goal and together you will go far. Thanks to a great leadership program team and Leadership Novato Alumni, Leadership Novato 2015 class has officially kicked off!