After the Leadership Development Program done in April, Indian participants who attended the training facilitated a small workshop in their chapter to share the learning of the program.
By Keval Rathod, AFS Ahmedabad Chapter Volunteer
“I started my session at 7:30 pm. Firstly, I introduced myself and the reason why I’m doing this session. Everybody seemed excited about the session. The aim of the session was to find out and develop the inner hidden skills of leadership in our volunteers. Then I asked the volunteers to share their views on what leadership is. I got so many good responses. According to the leadership model, leadership is, “ability to lead a group”.
Then I shared the details about incomplete leader model, which includes to demystify the MYTH about the PERFECT LEADER. After that I had asked volunteers to share the qualities that a leader should have and what they think about that. I asked them to write it on the sticky note which then I asked them to stick it on the flip chart. Volunteers were very much involved in that activity. Then I introduced volunteers about the four aspects of the leadership model.
Started with sense making, It was about understanding the current reality of local context. I had asked volunteers to share their views on that too. Then I shared about what is relating. It was about building trusting relationships in and across chapters. Then I introduced them about the third aspect of visioning, It was about building future plan for chapter. I asked volunteers to share the future plan for the chapter. Everyone participated in that activity. Then I shared my views on inventing which is about finding out new ways of doing things. I asked volunteers what can be the new ways which can help to achieve maximum progress for chapter.
I then asked all of them about which among these four aspects they found bit difficult, they were asked to rate it on the scale of 0-100. As I was running out of time, I finished the session around 8:30.
Every volunteer wanted this kind of sessions to be arranged again in future. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to AFS India for selecting me and giving this such a wonderful opportunity of learning.”
By Madhusudan Rao, AFS Bangalore Chapter Volunteer
“Leadership Development training was conducted by Madhusudan Rao on 27th August 2017 at Global city international school.
The training session began around 11am. After the Ice breaker, an introduction to leadership development and its main objective was shared with the participants.
With this notion, the participants were exposed to “The Model of Incomplete Leader”. They were first asked to respond to the phrase “incomplete leader” and after the discussion of the same, a detailed explanation on what exactly is this model about? and who is an incomplete leader was given.
The next part of the session was about the 4 attributes of incomplete leader. Each attribute was discussed with examples of AFS context.
The first attribute discussed was “Sense Making” where in the participants were explained what exactly is sense making and how does it work in AFS context. This was made clear to the participants by an activity wherein they were all asked to write/draw their current reality in AFS Bangalore context and present it to other participants. It helped them to get a clear understanding of their current position in the chapter.
(Photo Above: Participants during Workshop)
The next attribute discussed was “Relating” wherein the participants were explained what is relating and they were asked to write their notions of how can the trusting relations be built in the chapters and the same were discussed.
This was followed by the discussion on next attribute of incomplete leader which is “visioning”. Here, the participants first explained about what is visioning and what does it take for a leader to have a clear vision. The characteristics of visioning like intentional, measurable and achievable were also discussed.
This was followed by an activity wherein the participants were asked to draw the vision 2022 of Bangalore chapter and where would they like to see themselves in AFS Context and share the same with others. This enabled them to understand the third attribute of incomplete leader “visioning”.
Up next, there was a discussion on the fourth and last attribute of incomplete leader which is “inventing”. Here, the participants were explained about what exactly is inventing as per the model of incomplete leader. The elements that are required for inventing like problem solving ability and creativity were also included.
How the general works we do can be done in different ways using a little bit of creativity with particular AFS context was discussed. Ex: how chapter meetings can be made more interesting and fun for the volunteers to be regular.
After the completion of all the 4 attributes of incomplete leader, the participants were asked to analyse themselves and come to an understanding that no leader is perfect and what are they strong or weak in, out of the 4 attributes. For this, they were asked to come over to a chart and draw a smiling face for the attribute that they think they are strong in and a sad face for the ones they are weak in. This enabled them to identify their positive and negative aspects as leaders. The other relating aspects like inquiry and advocacy were also discussed with examples. The session was ended with a message that, there is no complete leader, we all lack one or the other skill and we need to work on acquiring the same. A true leader is someone who knows when to let go and let others use their expertise.”