homework

yes, I have homework. if you can believe it.

I'm in a seminar at work designed for in-town staff. Field staff tend to jump from expedition to expedition, with briefings and debriefings, instructor-team building, and they actually teach students the leadership curriculum in a wilderness setting. So they're constantly evaluating and being evaluated and giving feedback.

In-town staff tend to not usually get that experience.

And the 7 leadership skills are just as applicable in-town as they are on an expedition. It just looks a little different.

So I'm in this seminar, Friday afternoons for the next few weeks, and we're going over the 7 leadership skills. Last week we went over Self-Awareness. We particularly learned about emotional responses, the amygdala, how our brain stores information like that, and why we may sometimes have highly emotional responses or misinterpretations of situations at hand.

Homework assignment #1: pay attention to your highly emotional responses, and track your thought process. ask: what am I feeling? and why? does it track back to hard evidence, or perceived/assumed truth about someone, something, or some experience? have I stored other emotional responses that I inappropriately apply to new situations?

We also learned about [Listening] Communication. And how to do that well. When I look at it as a selfless act, it makes so much more sense.

Homework assignment #2: practice listening skills. don't jump to giving advice when it's not asked for, or turning the topic to yourself. listen, actively, focusing on the other person's story. and wait for them to say "Exactly." It is at this point when you've truly heard them, and they know it.

The best part about all this leadership-talk is that it seems so natural. And it's not just focused on the leader as the head of the pack. It's about life-skills, about how to interact positively with other people, how to live in community and accomplish goals. And it's refreshing that it doesn't contradict in any way what I believe as a follower of Jesus—it coordinates quite nicely, actually. And challenges perceptions of what the core truth coordinating it all really is.