So, we are having this class called "Leadership Skills" every morning. I figure that it's about time I tell you a little bit about it. After our morning Plenary, we break off into smaller classes. It seems like the class I am attending is made up of sisters who are new to the union game. Some of them are young, like me, but others are not as young, though this is their first union conference or they have only been a union member or officer for a short time.
At the beginning of our class we made some goals for what we wanted to learn as part of our leadership skills experience. The list included: learning how to motivate union members, understanding how to communicate more effectively, and developing networking skills.
Our first assignment outside of class was to fill out a questionnaire about our local union using information from our contract and by-laws. Then today in class, we mapped out our union structure to demonstrate both our knowledge of our union and also the differences between the various unions represented by other sisters in the class. Many of the positions and officers were the same, but how they came into office, their duties, and how they related to other positions in the structural tree differed for each case ever so slightly. The sisters in my class were able to ask one another questions to discuss those differences in more depth.
One of the purposes of this class is to encourage our sisters to seek out leadership and involvement opportunities in their unions. The first step toward taking those courses of action is recognizing where those opportunities lie. So, that was one of our first activities: thinking about where we can get involved. Some of the ideas were small and other ideas were rather large, but they were all great places to get started.
While the material is leadership oriented, the class members personalize the experience for one another. So, it feels like more than a leadership skills class. It feels like a motivational movement.
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