In November, I was interviewed for The Talkative Toastmaster podcast which is hosted by Melanie Surplice from Brisbane, Australia. Melanie and I talked about communication and leadership skills in general, and as members of Toastmasters International, we easily veered into how this worldwide organization enables people to polish their public speaking skills, and to communicate with confidence. Here is a link to that content -
https://youtu.be/VSn0DRyRR9I?si=yCLJ5Y0cLsl-aSbw
Engaged Local
Leaders
During the interview we talked about the treasure of engaged
local leaders, in this case engaged local Toastmaster club leaders. In 145 countries worldwide (for reference,
there are 193 member countries in the United Nations, some of which are very
small), local Toastmasters club leaders respond to the ambitions and needs of
their individual members and their local market demands. While a broader support structure is in
place, it is highly variable in its ability to deliver much needed support to
local club leaders. Local club leaders perform phenomenal volunteer work in supporting
their club members, and adapting to their local market ambitions.
Post Pandemic Effects
The impact of local leadership was made so very clear
during the COVID pandemic when local clubs lost their ability to meet in-person
for an extended period. Most local leaders reacted with speed and agility that
enabled their clubs to quickly pivot to online meetings, primarily using the
Zoom platform. While initially their online meeting skills were not extensive or
widely shared among their members, as their online meetings continued all participants
improved their online meeting skills. As the pandemic eased, their competence
to successfully operate hybrid meetings developed.
This quick and effective response from local leaders
enabled their clubs to not only meet during the pandemic, but in the long term
enabled significant skill advancement in operating online and hybrid meetings for
each of their members. In my opinion, this was the organizations most
significant collective skill advancement in decades, and was driven by a
crisis for local leadership teams.
I’ve participated in several hybrid meetings outside
of Toastmasters and many are not well run. In my experiences outside of
Toastmasters, attendees who are not present in the physical room have challenges
engaging as a full participant. Conversely, most Toastmaster members who
participate in our hybrid or online meetings learn how to respect and manage
all participants in meetings. Online participants do learn to assert their presence
even though they are not in a room with a majority of attendees.
A Rapid Adaptation
The rapid adaptation to online meetings by local leaders
personally invested in their clubs would not have been as quick, and perhaps
not even possible, by a centralized board. An oversight board would need time
to convene, then list several approaches to address the issue, then investigate
and debate the merits of each approach, ultimately choose an approach, and then
finally communicate the decision to local leaders. By the time such a process was completed, it
would be too late for many who simply folded their tent, and would fail to
reach many others who simply missed the messaging.
Supporting Local Leaders
In any organization it is critical to support and
encourage local autonomy, experimentation and innovation, while ensuring the core
objectives of the organization are respected and achieved.
With such support, all involved can grow their comfort
zones.
No comments:
Post a Comment