some pictures from TLT

over the course of the last few days I have come to such a deeper level of understanding and appreciation for team leaders, as a corps member I had no idea what you guys were doing! The magical balance of looking confident and carefree while juggling the knowledge that you have 50 things to do that were due about a hour ago...

Storms make trees take deeper roots

I haven't had the motivation or energy to update this throughout team leader training (TLT) it's been super hectic. Typical day is 6am-6pm which is just the scheduled trainings, that doesn't include homework, presentations, team bonding, cooking, shopping, basic human needs, etc. It's a super busy time...but glad to report that I feel like I still have my head above water. 

A lot of interesting topics have been introduced, discussed, and reflected upon. My favorites have included the hands of peace training, member management, supervisory skills, and some leadership discussions/videos we took part in during a team building Saturday.

Hands of peace focuses on conflict resolution, team building, active listening, and over all respectful communication. I love it because it isn't the magic class to open up lanes of communication but I believe it was one of the first times team green opened up to one another in a healthy way. I statements although tough to use do come into action a lot more than previously thought. The main point I've taken away in the past week or so is that when I'm upset 9 times out of 10 it isn't the person it's the action. When addressing issues it's important to maintain a separation between the action and the person. The action doesn't define the person. Instead of saying "Sue is disorganized" you look at it from the view point that "Sue struggles with organization" thus changing the tone of "blaming" to a tone of understanding. I think this is such a huge important note to keep in mind, especially when dealing with people from different backgrounds. People don't necessarily have malicious intent and even though we have a common goal we all have different ways of achieving that definition of "success." It's just been a huge factor for me and my relationship building thus far. I hope to maintain this mentality though out the year.

Another concept that was introduced and I think is important to reflect on is the definition of "leading" and the difference between a leader and a manager. I feel like it's such an important topic to reflect on and try to keep in mind when deciding how to approach issues that may arise on my team. It's a concept I'd like to look into more some time...I just find it interesting. I also like the concept of the first follower's role in any situation. To define the first follower it's the first person to agree or support a concept which eventually leads to an influx of "followers" thus a movement is made.
Leadership lessons from dancing guy

Those are just some topics that I've taken away and really appreciate thus far. Members arrive on the tenth of February.  Oak is doing solid, we're growing closer every day! I feel very confident and happy with how everything is going right now.
Except maybe the two feet of snow we have outside right now - that sucks pretty bad but I'm managing via tunnels.