Eva Newbold: Intentional Leadership

This year when I think about leadership, I’ll be more intentional about how exactly I want to lead. Our leadership training this past week encouraged introspection and intentionality that I will take with me into this next year.  This year I’ll be a leader who takes time to listen and learn about other’s personalities and leadership styles. I’ll then take that knowledge and let it inform how I interact with each person. Our leadership training with Tim Kine focused on ourselves as leaders, our own personalities and leadership styles, and how we interact with others, especially those with different leadership styles or personalities from our own. Learning about how other people perceive the world and how to best reach them through that lens, is something that I will use as I lead RAV’s site leads. 

I will leverage my superpowers in order to continue doing what I do well, while at the same time becoming more aware of my growing edges. I want to be a leader that encourages reflection about other’s own superpowers, their own strengths, as well as growing edges. I want to be a leader that encourages growth and is there as a support whenever my team might need it. I will lead from the front as needed, especially in the beginning when they are first finding their way. I will lead from beside and behind as I let them take the reins and learn to lead on their own. 

Another aspect of the leadership training of the past week that really stuck with me was Jeffery Franco’s discussion about living your truth, living with integrity, and thinking about where your greatest desire intersects with the world’s greatest need. By living my life being true to myself, and modeling that for others, I will grow into a better leader. By learning to not need the validation of others, I can spend more of my energy focusing on the things that matter. This year I hope to model this for my site leads as I continue in this important work. I have chosen to do work with community service and community organizing because I believe that it is important. I chose to be an AmeriCorps VISTA because I wanted to continue my service work. I want to be a leader who inspires others who have also chosen this path and a leader who provides motivation when the work gets hard. Leadership is a journey and it is one that I will continue on for a long time to come. 

Like the first two Cs in the 3 Cs of Raising A Village, I will work to build a sense of community and companionship among my site leads. Our leadership training with Jeffrey really homed in on the importance of relationships and relationship building. In modeling this, I will encourage them to do the same with their DSGs and work with DSGs to create the same with the students they tutor. I will lay clear expectations and provide consistent and clear communication so that we are all always on the same page. 

I will work to build trust among the team and with me by being consistent, modeling the behavior I hope that they will model for their DSGs, building those relationships and providing support and encouragement. As I lead my team, I will work to be thoughtful and empathetic in all that I do. I believe that being intentional with the way that I interact with my team will help build a culture of mutual respect. This culture will be central to the work that we do 

Taking what we learned in our leadership training, based on my site leads’ personalities and leadership styles I will take different approaches based on what works best for them and is easiest for them to understand. If we all find ways to leverage our strengths and lean on each other and work through our weaknesses, we will be a strong high-performing team. 

I want to inspire my team and make them enthusiastic about our mission. I want them to enjoy the work and see the vision of Raising A Village and the Driven 2 Succeed program.