The guest speaker for my first Aurora session – Sally Jackson, said that the best piece of advice she had been given was “Be less available and more visible”. In our brief breakout session afterwards we talked about how this was a very powerful statement and what it might mean on different levels. A piece of Sally’s own advice was how you should try to align your values and beliefs with your actions and your institution’s actions to ensure that you feel authentic. After the session I found myself reflecting on both of these more and how they relate to one another.
Safeguarding your time – Not just ensuring you have the time you need to do your work but also to ensure you’re working on the right things. The things that align with your values and that you want to be visible for, are the ones you should be aiming to achieve.
Less available ≠ unavailable – Our speaker pointed out that she really values helping others but she realised that her open-door policy for her team didn’t allow her to do the work she needed. I will try to consider how I ensure that I’m present for those that need it, without it being detrimental to my own focus and workload.
Leadership = visibility – Discussing the difference between leadership and management one Auroran said “you can follow a leader, but you can’t follow a manager”. It highlighted that leadership often means a more visionary status, although our facilitator rejected that these were inherently different. However what it did raise in my mind was that you can’t be followed if people don’t see you.
The nature of roles in a university means that the higher you are, the more visible you become. You are asked to talk to or work with more colleagues, other teams, or even other institutions, and your profile is raised. As a result, working towards goals that match your values and beliefs becomes even more important. That authenticity allows you to confidently own your actions and making you more comfortable with your visibility.
Leadership on the small things – Whilst we’d all love to be a beacon of authenticity with noble and strategically important goals, reality is often more mundane. For those of us who aren’t in positions of leadership currently – How do we embrace small goals in a way that aligns with our values and beliefs? Especially when we perhaps don’t get to pick and choose our activities.
If I think of a task that my colleagues and I might be given – producing a instructional guide – I know that the way we approach it will be dependant on different factors: skills, circumstances, but also our internal priorities. One person might prioritise the aesthetic – adding visually appealing graphics. Someone else might who value linguistic qualities would want to ensure the piece is written in very clear English with precise grammar. Another person might value efficiency, and push for the work to be delivered as quickly as they can. All will (hopefully!) produce a guide to an acceptable standard and in most cases, no single way is “right”. Instead the output reflects the skills and priorities of that person.
I can see that even in these smaller tasks, understanding your values will allow you to produce work that you are proud of. If I know I am good at collaborating – I might be pleased that a guide is the work of several people. Working to your strengths and values could mean that you are more confident* in relaying what you’ve done, you talk more openly about your work and are remembered for it. As a result, you might attract people who value the same elements as you, and offer more opportunities. All these would also make you more visible in your area of expertise, increasing your leadership potential.
Having written all this down, it feels sensible and obvious. Unfortunately for me, it requires an understanding of self and values that doesn’t come easy to me. I hope that future Aurora sessions (and this blog) will help me grasp the ephemeral topic of my personal values and begin to work out which are the most important to me.
*as a slight aside, this shows how the fake-it-til-you-make-it approach might work, as you’re injecting the faux confidence at this point, and everything else comes from the confidence, rather than necessarily the task itself.