Week 24: Wallflower Polling vs Educated Consensus – #AlphaFemaleFriday

Week 24: Wallflower Polling vs Educated Consensus – #AlphaFemaleFriday

“ WEEK 24 / 133 – 133 WEEKS TO SUCCESS ”

I recently had to say goodbye to three people at work. One of these was one of the higher level managers who went to go follow his life’s dream now that he was nearing the age of retirement. The other two were two young gentlemen beginning their life and career who had to leave because they were interns with us. They each represented to me different kinds of leadership. The older gentlemen was a model of what once was for leadership, while the two younger gentlemen were models for what was to come for the future of our industry.

In thinking about this, although I am only a few years older than our budding interns were, I realized that I had to set a good example for these two young gentlemen. Whether I wanted to be a role model or not, I would serve for them as a memory of what a good leader or employee was, I hoped, or a person who had much room for improvement, which sometimes I do think I do.

A vital lesson I learned after being an indirect manager to one of our interns was the idea of wallflower polling versus getting an educated consensus. It was about finding balance between getting the knowledge I needed to make an educated decision by going to those with the expertise. I would be making a mistake and setting a poor example if I went around asking for guidance when I knew for sure based on past experience and common sense what the correct course of action was.

This week I’ve been thinking about when it is or is not the right time to make those guesses on a hunch. Although sometimes I wished there was a perfect guide or formula to making the correct decisions, I knew that the variables did not allow for such fortune. Despite my best intentions to set a good example, I knew I would stumble along the way, trying to find the right answers versus at least making it look like I knew what I was doing. If there is anything I’ve learned is that there is a right time to step up to the plate and take the swing, and then there is the right time to watch from the sidelines and take note of what the greats are doing. Maturity is knowing the difference.

Cheers,

Kelly

@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @KellyRGonzales                                                                                

About:

Each week, I take a tip from Lois P. Frankel’s book, Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office, and explore how each of these tips affect myself and other women in similar positions on the road to becoming the women we want to be. There are far and few between who are a few steps behind me, and many more who are far advanced. I found that Lois P. Frankel’s advice applied to novice, intermediates, and experts alike. It helped me see that I was already doing right, served as a reminder to keep on doing what I was doing and how to keep that momentum going. The book also showed me areas where I could improve, and gave realistic tips to jump on board. There are a total of 133 tips, and explore one tip per week in a program I call: 133 Weeks to Success.

Join the movement using the hashtag #133WeeksToSuccess with posts which are posted every #AlphaFemaleFriday.