Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Leadership and Professional Development


PHOTO BY: heretakis

I think I took a class once with that same title. Actually probably I didn't, but it's catchy.


Today I was talking to my boss.
He's a nice guy. I know the kiss of death for a man to be called nice. They liked to be called funny, btw. That's what all the magazines say. Any way, I asked boss man if there were any special projects he'd like for me to take on in July seeing as it's a slow month at the school. He thought about this financial database thingy that the state uses and suggested that I get comfortable with it. Kind of like a back up to his brain for tapping the resource.


That's all well and good and this girl can poke around databases and do that kind of thing, and she will but it's not my thang. While boss man was talking he mentioned others in his business office area (he's over operations, and I'm still the lunch lady, so read that as SO not in the business office) would have less of learning curve than me with getting intimate with the database.


I retreated to what I know best.
I asked him what the professional development plans looked liked for those folks and if he couldn't align his desire with a backup brain with someone else's desire to garner more responsibility. We of course got massively side tracked talking about performance evaluations and other such things, but really that's my sweet spot and all in all it was an awesome conversation.
I will learn the database thing, well because July is boring and it's learning and it will look good on the resume but really, snooze.


So if you are looking for advice from this post, I don't have it. Other than, don't tell your boss no, unless she or he's being ethically reprehensible but also know your limits. My biggest triumph really with this whole conversation is seeing that HR, training and development, really is where I want to invest my time. I've been making peace with that for a while now. Having it crystalline is helping.


Oh, as for the peace part, in business school, they say HR is where they stick the failures who can't directly contribute to the bottom line. I think that's a bit out of date, but it's biased my thinking for far too long. I want to be a coach. I want to help people realize their potential. I want businesses to flourish, and that will happen when brains are engaged and people are happy. I can do that.

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