I can’t even deny I was SO excited to enter into the Leadership Niagara program and completely humbled by receiving the Niagara Community Foundations’ bursary so I could attend the program. I had no idea what I was in for but I knew that whatever it was, I wanted to be part of it.

To begin with, one of the things that started this eye-opening experience was one of the questions in the application process to enter into the program. Why are you personally motivated to explore community leadership? I said:  

I want to explore community leadership because I want to find ways to help the community using my skill-set and knowledge while working with others to tackle issues facing our Niagara community. I want to become someone who can inspire and motivate others to find their form of leadership and teach them how to use it towards bettering our community. I want to explore the kind of leadership I can own, that is beneficial to the Niagara community as a whole.

Although I was taken aback by this question, I quickly realized that the Niagara Leadership Summit for Women was one of the first places I learned that leadership didn’t just mean a title. It didn’t mean you had to be the President, CEO, Executive Director, or manager to be a leader. But although I knew this to some extent, I didn’t realize how much I would learn about what leadership really means. Who could be a leader and how.

Looking around the room on the first day of class, everyone came from different backgrounds, positions, workplaces, and titles. As we met each other, we all had various reasons for being a part of the 2019 cohort but they all stemmed from someone believing in the person. Someone wanted to give them a chance to learn how to be a better leader in a place where they would be able to give back.

I could go into detail about how much I loved the program and what I learned from each learning day because it was a jammed-packed amazing program that I wish everyone had a chance to participate in. But that’s not necessary. I want to touch on a few of the things that stood out to me about leadership:

• The importance of reflection. We always had a chance to reflect on our learnings throughout the learning days. When we started, I found it frustrating. Why do I need to write down what I learned from the day? Would I ever really need to do this in the future? Do successful people really do this? These questions were answered pretty quickly as every leader that spoke to us always mentioned how important it is for them to take time to reflect on things. Why? Because that’s how you learn and grow. Wow is that ever true. I didn’t realize at the time just how important reflecting on things can change your perspective, your goals, and your future and I see the benefits of it almost every day.

 

• Diversity and Inclusion are important. Although I already knew this, the importance of including everyone at the table really hit home during our privilege workshop. Let’s face it, many of us are born with some kind of privilege. It’s really important to acknowledge it and then learn from other people’s perspectives. Although it may take longer to make decisions, the decisions you make will be better informed. I was applauding when Jeffrey Sinclair gave the example of how important it was to have people with lived-experience at the table when deciding how best to tackle homelessness and poverty. Because how can we all make decisions for people when we don’t even understand what it’s like to be in their shoes? I could go on about this for a long time, so I will cap it with…inclusion and diversity in all aspects is incredibly important and should never be overlooked.

 

• Leadership isn’t just something to talk about, it’s something to demonstrate. It doesn’t necessarily mean being the leader all of the time. Sometimes it means demonstrating how you can follow someone else’s lead and listen. Sometimes it’s being the person who asks for someone else’s input before giving your own. Sometimes it means recognizing who is the expert in the situation and it may not be you. Sometimes it means just simply listening. But it always means motivating others.

 

• Recognizing your defaults and making a choice of how you handle situations. There are a few ways that we were shown how this works. One is that your energy is extremely important. It doesn’t mean you always have to be positive but the way you handle stressful situations can have a huge influence on others. As a leader you have to acknowledge this and then make the choice of how you want to influence others. The second is your default of handling situations whether they are positive or negative situations- you need to find a balance in your default reactions focusing on stability and change.

 

• The value of thanking people. This was a huge learning for me as I found it can truly make or break a person’s experience if they feel they are not valued. It doesn’t take much to say or send a simple thank you but it can make all of the difference and it does matter if it’s timely.

 

• You are always a leader. It doesn’t matter what you are doing and who you are with, you have the chance to influence people. As a leader you should do that positively, authentically, and intentionally. Being a leader isn’t something that just shuts off, so you have to choose how you want to be a leader. There are simple ways to influence people – by smiling at the cashier in the grocery store, by saying hi to the person sitting on the park bench as you walk by, by waving to the person who lets you merge while you’re driving, by thanking someone who gave you directions or answered a question, by taking a minute before you respond in a negative situation. There are so many ways you influence people every day, make sure you’re influencing people with intent.

 

Another question they asked in the application process was: In your view, what’s the most important attribute of a leader? My response, and I still stand by it:

One of the most important attributes of a leader is passion because if a leader isn’t passionate then it is difficult to motivate others, and represent something full-heartedly. When someone is authentic, they are able to inspire others with that energy and focus on the task at hand.

Although I still stand by this and think passion is an incredibly important attribute of a leader I also really want to point out that so is compassion. Throughout this course and this year of learning, I’ve found that being compassionate towards everyone will always make you a better, more genuine leader.

 

Arienne Good is a recent Leadership Niagara graduate and the Fundraiser for the YW

My first lesson in listening

My earliest memory of the power of someone simply listening goes back to when I was 11. It was my first encounter with death and grief. My grandpa had just told me rather bluntly that my great-grandma had died, and he had awkwardly shuffled the sad little girl in his arms over to his sister, who we still referred to as the “West German” great-aunt, even though the Wall had fallen a decade ago.  I wasn’t very close to her and yet, it was her whose arms I found myself in in that very first encounter with grief. It was her, who simply held me and let me bawl the way only kids can. She didn’t say a word, she didn’t move. She sat there like my rock and listened to my tears. I don’t know if this lasted for two minutes or for an hour, but I know that I learned something that day. Many things were said to me in the hours and days that followed. Most of it made me angry or sad or both. It was my great-aunt’s silent listening, silent support, that was the only thing that I remember truly giving me comfort.

The recent come-back of listening

I haven’t thought about those moments all those years ago in a long time. Ironically, although probably not ironically at all, it is grief that recently made me think about listening once again.

My friend Jennifer and I have been friends for almost twenty years. I have lived a lot more of my life with Jennifer in it than without her. We have lived parallel lives for a long time, both of us Germans who fell for North-American guys, who now share a life and families with them on this side of the pond. Imagine our excitement when we recently realized that we were both expecting with almost the exact same due date. It wasn’t until around week 14 that we genuinely let ourselves get excited – we had made it past the most nervous time of a pregnancy after all, right? Right? Well, statistically speaking, sure. When the time came for our 16 week check-ups, Jennifer’s was on a Thursday and mine was on the following Tuesday. When Jenny went in, they could not find the baby’s heartbeat. Her little girl’s heart had stopped beating about a week earlier. In the very same moments of me listening to my baby’s heartbeat only a few days later, Jennifer was giving birth to her dead daughter.

When she finally messaged me that she was ready to talk, I gathered all of my courage and picked up the phone. She was strong and amazing, and all fears about what I should say or not say disappeared. She didn’t want me to talk, didn’t need me to talk. Jennifer needed me to simply listen. She just wanted to share with someone what they had gone through, and too many people had been afraid to ask.

Listening, I realized, can make all the difference.

The facets of listening

So what does this have to do with leadership? As I started to think about the power of listening, I realized that all good leadership comes with the ability to listen. When we talk about “leaders”, we talk about people who are intentional about affecting positive change. That can be a manager or CEO, but it can also be a mom, an activist, a neighbour. So here is my hypothesis if you will – to affect positive change, we must first be able to listen. But it’s not that easy, is it? It’s not a black-and-white scenario.

Because as it turns out, once you start thinking about listening, there is so much more to it. When I really started putting my mind to it, I thought about the many times I haven’t listened to my kids or my husband because I was too busy preparing a meal, or doing dishes, or answering a friend’s message. I thought about the times I did listen to them. The time my daughter told me about her first date, the countless times my son retold every detail of a chapter he had read or a movie he had watched, the first time my husband told me about his dad. I thought about the amazing manager who just listened after a tough meeting. I thought about the not so amazing manager, who failed to listen when I most needed it. I thought about the time when I was 19 and my girlfriend’s mom died. I thought about being a coward, who didn’t have it in her to pick up the phone, too scared to listen. I thought about the times listening brought me great joy, and the times it brought me pain. I thought about how much I appreciate some of the closest people in my life, simply because they have an incredible ability to listen. I thought about the many times I was looking for someone to listen, and got advice instead. I thought about the times I just didn’t have it in me to listen. The phone calls I haven’t answered because I had nothing left to give. It can’t just be an expectation, can it? Sometimes, it is just too hard for the other person to listen. Or too close to home, or just a little bit too much on that day, in that moment. And that’s ok, too.

So my challenge for you is simple:

I dare you to listen.

I encourage you to take an hour or a day or a week to think about the ways you listen. The people, who are good listeners in your life. The times you were that silent rock for someone else, and the times you perhaps could have done better. What role has listening played in your life and in your leadership journey?

Challenge yourself to listen, because you might just like what you hear.

 

Franziska Emslie is the YW’s Community and Public Relations Coordinator