Women’s Collective Strengths
Listening to all of the women speak, there were several skills/attributes that came up over and over.
I categorized them under 3 main skills.
- Courage
- Resilience
- Failing/Falling Forward
- Fair
- Integrity
- Flexible
- Confidence
- Reflection
- Curious
- Communication
- Voice
- Vulnerable
- Listening
- Life-Long Learner
- Inspirational
- Connection
- Collaborative
- Empathy
- Compassion
- Self-awareness
- Humble
- Strong identity
- Passionate
Paraphrasing Angela -Confidence comes when practicing my courage muscles
Kathleen -Hone in on my beliefs and back it up with research. Then, find ways to get out there and get that message to world. Present at conferences, blogging, podcasting, whatever it is, get more traction behind it.
Liz, Abeer, Sawsan, Katie, Bridget- all spoke very candidly about the oppression of women’s voice and how we need to use that voice for good and to support one another as women. YES!
Demonstrating Strength
Was reading recently about the personality tests and utilizing those to showcase my skills and strengths. Build on those to make my leader presence more prominent. I have found them extremely important in helping me see how I can take my strengths to the next level. Grow them to help me be more self-aware of my natural tendencies and areas I need to surround myself with people who are different than me to help grow in the areas I need improvement. I really like that idea that emerged from the interviews about creating a team to fill in my areas of growth. This requires diversity and being extremely self-aware!
INFJ (Advocate) – Creative, Insightful, Principled, Passionate, Altruistic
As you can see my F and T are always within 1% of each other. Since becoming a mother I often have Feeling as slightly dominant. Prior to being a mother, it would just as often get Thinking as I would Feeling.
Occasionally, I embody the INTJ (Architect)- Rational, Informed, Independent, Determined, Curious, Versatile
Type 1 (Reformer: Rational Idealistic) – Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
The Big 5 –Empathetic Idealist– Uses insight and creativity to help others. Thinks about how the world could be a better and more beautiful place.
Highest Score- Conscientiousness are: Orderly, Dependable, Determined, Ambitious, Dutiful
2nd Highest Score -People high in Agreeableness are: Accommodating, Helpful, Sympathetic, Selfless, Altruistic
I’ve completed these over the years as I use the Meyers Bring with my students when doing their belief essays. The discussions around these are wonderful and hilarious as they begin to see themselves characterized in print.
They haven’t changed much for me and the top scores remain the same while some of the second highest fluctuate a little. For me, the purpose of these tests is for self-reflection. Most importantly, how can I use my strengths to be the best version of myself? How can I use my areas of growth to be the best version of myself?
One thing that remains apparent, at my core, I care about people , have high expectations along with integrity, and want to improve the world in any way I can. I still need to find out ways to articulate and give specific examples of how I showcase these consistently.
I often have difficult conversations with my students and allow them to have difficult conversations amongst themselves. We spend time discussing how to respectfully disagree and that we don’t agree/disagree with people but with the points made in the discussion. I use content to springboard culturally responsive topics that allow students to understand a unique perspective that can be vastly different than their lives as well as see how humans are all connected.
Peer’s Thoughts
Advocacy
Compassion
Validating Others
Listening
Reflective
Organized
Caring
Trailblazer
Collaborative
It was very interesting to revisit the letters of recommendation to see what others have stated are my strengths. They really do fit me!
Building Skills From Others Experience
I’m hoping my mentor can absolutely be one of the people I can turn to that can help build more skills as a leader. One of my close friends just took a leadership position and I hope we can keep in touch so that I can learn from her journey just starting out. I often find people to follow online that I can learn from. I’ve made it a quest to find any and all women leaders on social media and follow them to learn from their expertise! Now I need to find a way to overcome my perfectionism to post my own research backed thoughts on education.
Growing Up Leadership
My major area of growth for leadership absolutely revolves around data as one of the most important aspect of the job. I know that data is so important because it is the easiest way to communicate something. However, qualitative data is just as valuable and slightly more difficult to communicate than quantitative data when it comes to education. I feel frustrated when the humanity side of education is removed from the equation and students, as well as teachers, are just a number. While this is absolutely my experience in the US, I have seen and heard about it with international schools too.
The other is definitely allowing my perfectionist side to keep me from taking risks and asking for help. I have seen how it negatively impacts my mental health and how I deserve to be at peace with my best. It doesn’t mean I won’t grow or learn. In order to be the best leader, I have to allow other people to shine even if I would have done it differently or if it isn’t perfect. I have been working on this area a lot in the past few years when it comes to creating my lesson plans and being OK if there are some slight mistakes. Asking for help from colleagues during meetings when I don’t quite understand the concept that they are working on.
I don’t really shy away from difficult conversations with anyone but I absolutely want to be be able to communicate in a more clear manner that offers solutions. Looking forwarding to reading all the books on crucial and necessary conversations to improve my skills.
What Is MY Story?
Another area to work on is being vulnerable and trusting others. I haven’t been able to hone in on my story telling skills because I am extremely private. I do not share much about my life with many people. When I am vulnerable, I feel weak and exposed. I also have HUGE confirmation bias around trusting others when they behave in, large or small, untrustworthy ways, it reaffirms my belief that I can only depend on myself. I need to work on storytelling and how to be an effect storyteller. I know that will help me make connections with others which is something I value!
In Unexpected Ways to Use Storytelling at Work, Zena states the purpose of stories clearly, “Often people are looking for a vision and direction to be clear, tangible, and to see themselves in it. It’s when there’s a void of that, that they feel the most discomfort.”
“Storytelling can be intimidating. But the value is undeniable if you want to spark new ideas, improve communication, and boost morale. To build your storytelling chops, ‘try to tell stories at every turn,’ Brian urges. Whether it’s written word, scrappy video, or audio of your customers voices, bringing emotion into the meeting room will help you make a more compelling case.
‘Stories are how we share experiences and how we connect as human beings,’ Brian says. They help us keep real people’s needs at the center of business and bring more creativity into our every day.”
Wow! I had never really thought about storytelling being such a vital role in boosting moral. It’s even what I teach in Language & Literature and how another’s story can allow for us to become better at relationships and personal growth.
It absolutely makes sense that storytelling is a way to connect with one another. I was internally saying “YES!” throughout the entire article because the storytelling gives the humanity to the numbers. This is what I have been missing with data. It is through that medium that inspiration can happen and people can see the vision. I would need to work on my storytelling. I think I will start with Khan Academy’s Pixar in A Box!
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