This was the first full-day Aurora session, officially running from 10-3 but with additional questions running until 3.30.
The session is entitled Identity, Impact and Voice. The pre-work was very much focused on identity (which is something that I’d like to develop) and examples of good practice that we’d seen in our institutions and I was excited to discuss these. Unfortunately there wasn’t much on these topics. It felt like a lot of the pre-work wasn’t relevant to the session, and we weren’t asked to reflect on what we’d prepared.
However there was plenty of helpful advice on presenting yourself well through video and through use of your voice and we were given some brief breakout room opportunities to try good and bad practice. The lead presenter was obviously well experienced in delivering on this sort of training.
Some of the takeaways that I found useful:
- Sometimes you may be leading on something that you hadn’t realised. The presenter gave an example whereby a person who organised a charity run event, didn’t see that she was acting as a leader on it. She brought lots of people onboard to the idea, lead with a vision of it being a family friendly and alcohol free event which she was able to engage others in this idea. She felt that she didn’t do much of the organising of the peripheral parts, but she had actually aligned others with her vision and they had also got behind the event which was leadership.
- Leadership and Management can be seen as different. Generally management is more practical, whilst leadership is more strategic. However vision on strategy needs to be backed up with practical actions or it doesn’t go anywhere.
- Eye contact is important when presenting – but do it carefully. Neurodiverse people can find eye contact distracting or uncomfortable. Online it can be faked through camera positioning, but in person it’s best to find one or two people who return your eye contact and build rapport with them.
- Projection of self worth can be delivered through Stillness / Stance / Speed / Space
- Calm measured voice – taking time to pause for people to absorb what you’re saying
- Purposeful delivery – Not apologetic or too self deprecating – you have a right to speak
- Still and confident in body language – with eye contact
- Managing interruptions – Act as an ally for the interrupted, look away from the interrupter, put own hand up to indicate that you’ve not finished. We should also be conscious of own actions, especially with regard to contributors from minority groups – amplify their voices.
I also enjoyed the guest speaker and I’ve written about some of my reflections on Melanie Eusebe’s talk in a separate post.
Although this session wasn’t quite what I’d expected, there were still some useful ideas to take away. I’m hoping the next session on Core Leadership will develop on some of the less explored ideas a bit more…