Somebody's trying to make a leader out of me
I experienced two leadership opportunities over the past couple of days.
At work, my boss is going to be out of the office through much of next week. Meanwhile, we have some work that needs to be finished up before we move into a release phase of a project. We are having a contractor do some of the work, but she's still new and will need help along the way. There's also some politics involved with when the work was assigned and if some of the work even needs to be done. So, I get to head up the communication side. I am the point person to get status information out to the right people and decide what parts need to be completed and what parts can wait. So, it should be interesting to see how things go early next week. I don't think it will be too bad, but there will be a couple decisions that have to be made.
The other opportunity came this morning in Taekwondo. I have decided to train to become an instructor. I have been attending the Certified Instructor Training classes and learning the things I need to become an instructor in martial arts. This includes learning the forms (series of moves), how to interact with a class, how to be comfortable up in front of the class, and the motivational skills that are expected in martial arts training. During the course of the training we get up in front of the others in the instructor class and practice either doing a warm-up exercise, taking the class through a form, or one of the motivational exercises. So far, that's been the only experience I had leading a class. Well, this morning we got to class and two of the instructors were there, but one was tied up helping the previous class finish up and the other one was working with a new family that is joining our school. So, the instructor asked me to step up and warm-up our class. Yikes! Am I ready for this. Especially since the rest of the family is in the class?
It went well, since it was my first time I basically used the warm-up our instructor uses. I went through the different exercises and noticed it got easier as it went along. All in all, it was a great experience! One of those experiences where I can feel like "Yes I can!" do this and get up in front of the class. I look forward to additional chances to warm up the class. As I do more I can get more comfortable with being up in front and I can start adding my own personality to warming-up and eventually to running a whole 45 minute class.
At work, my boss is going to be out of the office through much of next week. Meanwhile, we have some work that needs to be finished up before we move into a release phase of a project. We are having a contractor do some of the work, but she's still new and will need help along the way. There's also some politics involved with when the work was assigned and if some of the work even needs to be done. So, I get to head up the communication side. I am the point person to get status information out to the right people and decide what parts need to be completed and what parts can wait. So, it should be interesting to see how things go early next week. I don't think it will be too bad, but there will be a couple decisions that have to be made.
The other opportunity came this morning in Taekwondo. I have decided to train to become an instructor. I have been attending the Certified Instructor Training classes and learning the things I need to become an instructor in martial arts. This includes learning the forms (series of moves), how to interact with a class, how to be comfortable up in front of the class, and the motivational skills that are expected in martial arts training. During the course of the training we get up in front of the others in the instructor class and practice either doing a warm-up exercise, taking the class through a form, or one of the motivational exercises. So far, that's been the only experience I had leading a class. Well, this morning we got to class and two of the instructors were there, but one was tied up helping the previous class finish up and the other one was working with a new family that is joining our school. So, the instructor asked me to step up and warm-up our class. Yikes! Am I ready for this. Especially since the rest of the family is in the class?
It went well, since it was my first time I basically used the warm-up our instructor uses. I went through the different exercises and noticed it got easier as it went along. All in all, it was a great experience! One of those experiences where I can feel like "Yes I can!" do this and get up in front of the class. I look forward to additional chances to warm up the class. As I do more I can get more comfortable with being up in front and I can start adding my own personality to warming-up and eventually to running a whole 45 minute class.