Ready. Set. Empower.
Facilitating empowerment courses and practicing empowerment are two, very different things. I can talk all about respecting others' human values and enacting a conflict resolution style that is compassionate to the needs of others without disregarding your needs, and yet fail to incorporate those messages into my daily work with my residence life career. I've managed to incorporate a lot of my Empowerment journey into my parenting style and marriage (just ask my husband who frequently can be overheard saying, "enough with that empowerment stuff!").
But, I am guilty of choosing to be too busy in my day-to-day work to empower staff and to tell them how much I appreciate them. I'm guilty of thinking "we're all working, we're all busy" more often than not. It's what motivated my talk, in just a few weeks at ACUHO-I, on living with intention and action. Too much of intention without action, you're a carrier of false promises. Too much action without intention, you're someone who hastily solves a problem without thinking through outcomes or consequences, or how that problem might affect others.
So, over the next month, I'm noticing the times I'm leading without intention or action. I'm going to try to give it 100% of both. I might not succeed each time, but incremental improvement is still improvement. And, part of this new blog series now until ACUHO-I will include guest bloggers, sharing their opinions and tips on an empowering and authentic leadership style.
Ready? Set? Empower...