How to Steer the Ship and Keep Everyone from Falling Off
On July 17, the Scholar Alumni Society Board had our virtual summer board call that included our new members. The purpose of this call was to introduce the full board to the goals and process of how the board operates. That included some high level goals of the board as well as my vision for the board during my time as President. Being in the role of president, I believed it to be important that I have a strong sense of vision to be able to provide direction to the board in order to gauge direction. The process we took was very much confined between Natalie, Sean, and myself as we defined the vision and then we shared it with the executive committee to opine on the development.
On the day of the meeting, Carol raised the question on how were the goals and vision determined and why they had not been vetted with the broader board sooner. This is where I made my first mistake. Mistake number one: the phrasing I used to present the vision was a dictation rather than a collaborative request.
Mistake Two: I did not pivot gracefully enough and ended up sitting on my heals after Carol pointed our mistake one.
This is a struggle for me because I have two undesirable paths. 1. Come off as an Agro-Angry Black Woman or 2. Come off as a weak, unconfident woman. Of the two, I followed the second but I would choose the first as to not lose respect for my position of authority.
Where I could improve:
Planning on what to say before saying it. Saying more with less words.
What I will do next time:
Ask sooner, I remember carrying a lot of weight thinking that i needed to have all the answers up front and make them from scratch
Practice what im going to say
Ask for help earlier
What I plan on doing leading up to “next time to build good habits”
Carol mentioned that she runs these types of board frequently, it would be helpful to learn how a board similar to ours has operated to understand the truer purpose of our roles as leaders of the organization
This was a painful experience for me, and I still feel a bit of shame of how it was executed. However, that drives me to slow down my thoughts and be more intentional of why I am taking on all the works and reminds me to look outside myself to see if I am putting more on myself than is necessary. It also reminds me that, as a leader you cant appease everyone and I will need to stand my ground when necessary.