Tag: leadership

coaching

Dear Leaders, Are You Looking For a Coach? Join us on @CoachingThruIt

Laura Pasquini

For the fourth season of the Coaching Through It podcast, my co-host/fellow coach, Julie Larsen, and I want to support real leaders with real problems. Whether you’ve just transitioned into people management or you’ve been supervising folks for a while, being a leader today is increasingly complex and complicated.

There’s been a whole lot going on in the world of work. If you manage people, your workload and expectations as a leader has only been amplified. Being a people manager is not an easy role. With evolving economics, a multi-generational workforce, recent layoffs, and knowing that the only constant is change, leaders are required to keep the lifeboat — their team and themselves — afloat in the sea of uncertainty. We have no doubt you’re being more than challenged as a leader — so, we wanted to throw a lifesaver to you.

Call for Leaders Who Are Searching for a Coach:

We want to hold space for any people managers who could use a “guide on the side” for the next season of Coaching Through It pod. As coaches, we want to offer a FREE, 1-time coaching session for leaders who want a thinking partner to discuss their leadership development. Whether you want to tackle a specific supervision issue, identify an area of growth as a manager, or just take a beat to review your own leadership practice. We want to offer a 60-minute coaching session to support YOU!

If you are interested in joining us for an audio-only, recorded experiment to work through your leadership values, strategies, and approaches — please reach out to us by email (coachingthroughit at gmail dot com). We’ll meet to explore coaching topics and discuss how this session is shared in the podcast in advance. In your message, please tell us about you, your role as a People Manager, and how coaching can support you:

  • What leadership challenges are you experiencing? 
  • How are changes impacting how you manage others?
  • What practices do you want to work on to support your team?
  • How do you want to grow and thrive as a supervisor?
  • What leadership support do you need now?

About the Coaching Through It podcast:

About the Pod: In Coaching Through It, co-hosts and coaches, Julie Larsen & Laura Pasquini, bring their ideas, questions, perspectives, & insights to their own coaching practice. Whether you’re making a big decision, exploring a new path, planning a project, or you just want to learn how coaching might help you. In each episode we’ll introduce you to our coaching practice with powerful questions, reflections from our training, share coaching tools/techniques, and share how coaching fits into our work and personal lives. Subscribe to Coaching Through It & follow the pod on Instagram or Twitter.

#3Wedu, Conference, wine, women, WomenWhoWine.edu

The #3Wedu Podcast No. 11: Women Advancing the Future of IT in Higher Ed

Laura Pasquini

Every individual has a responsibility in an organization to enhance the understanding of the value of women leading, create structures to help women overcome gender barriers they may experience, and identify strategies to support women’s progress along their leadership path. Women bring heterogeneity that can benefit the workplace. To avoid groupthink and bring more diversity to our organizations, we need to consider putting more women into leadership roles to improve performance and productivity. Each of our higher education institutions has an organization culture that can empower or limit women’s ability to lead at various levels. These cultures consist of assumptions and values (see Schein’s model of organizational culture) that are sometimes decades old. Many times organizational structures have been developed by men and their actions potentially inhibiting women leading in various ways.

3wedu_no11_unl

The #3Wedu: Women Who Wine in Education will be trying a new format and location as we join host our podcast and keynote panel today (November 7th) from 3:25-4:55 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln IT Leadership Conference. In an effort to share our panel discussion we hope to stream this session via YouTube LIVE and, of course, we will do our best to keep the Twitter backchannel banter going here: #3wedu.

Opportunity that Scales:

WOMEN ADVANCING THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY  IN HIGHER EDUCATION

women_it_highered

Tune in LIVE between 3:25-4:55 pm CT as we will stream our keynote panel TODAY, November 7, 2016 here:

Through changing our behaviors, activities, communication, and environments, we can potentially alter the culture with these micro level modifications. Implementing practices to facilitate the growth of women leaders while creating an embracing culture that is pertinent for leadership development. Let’s talk about it. This isn’t a women’s issue; this is everyone’s issue.

A version of this blog post is cross-posted at The #3Wedu Podcast website.

Higher Education, nacada, Professional Development, Training

Passing the Torch: Leadership Transition in Our Professional Organizations

Laura Pasquini

In many professional organizations and associations (both formal and informal), leadership positions are fluid and change frequently. Whether it is an elected position, scheduled appointment, or a professional move, it is important to consider how your organization manages leadership succession and transition to sustain the association.

Passing the Torch

In thinking about transitioning out of my current role with NACADA, I was asked to share my experiences and resources* for incoming leaders for in the association. I figured I might as well share a few of these ideas with others who might be transitioning or transferring of roles in their professional organizations as well:

I. Build Your Professional Posse – No leader can do it alone, nor should they. Surround yourself with some great people who share similar interests and passions in your professional area. You know who they are – you have met them at a conference, attended one of their presentations, connected with them online, or heard about the great work they are doing – so reach out and get these members involved.

  • Recruit members at annual conferences/meetings in-person and online. We used a shared Google Form to invite others, e.g. the  #AdvTech Technology in Advising Commission Sign-up for 2012-13

  • Pass on and share the names, contact information (email, phone numbers, Twitter handles, etc)

  • Find out HOW members want to be involved with your group. Be open to suggestions and areas of interest that you have not thought about.

 

II. Take Note — Document, Organize & Archive – Be sure to keep notes, capture screenshots, record meetings, and file take notes, take screenshots, record online, and file information in an organized way throughout your elected/appointed term.

  • Save and file emails into folders from the professional association, members, and more – you never know when you will need to refer back to them

  • Organize information by projects, deadlines, and responsibilities

  • Store and save your files in an accessible space for your group to review

  • My “go to” spaces of organization for NACADA included:

 

III. Mentor While You Lead – Succession planning does not have to start at the beginning or end of your elected/appointed term. Consider involving members in your professional organization early and often.

  • Encourage point people for sub-groups, committees, or projects

  • Recommend collaboration within and outside your specific group

  • Involve participants in activities, presentations, research and development with your interest/commission area (psst you should not do it alone).

 

IV. Meet with Your Members – You will want to organize a regular meeting schedule with your committee, group or advisory board. Inquire about these at the start of each academic semester or quarter, and try to keep them on a regular schedule. Save the date(s) in advance.

  • Determine when you can meet. Try using a Doodle to sort out your meeting schedule.

  • Find the best space to “meet” for your group as they may not be anywhere near one another geographically:

    • Conference Call? There are a few free ones like http://www.freeconferencecall.com/ out there

    • Professional Association or institutional online web conferencing available? NACADA uses the Adobe Connect platform

    • I also am a fan of Google Plus Hangouts – free group video chat for 10 people and the ability to have IM chat and shared documents from Google Drive and/or screen sharing capability

  • Put out your agenda a week in advance to remind others of meeting, where/how you are meeting, and to give time to prepare/read over meeting information

    • I use Google Docs for shared agendas to encourage members to add discussion topics, questions, or updates

 

V. Create a Communication Plan – Consider making a communication plan for your professional group. This will help you understand the how, where, when and why for communication. This will also help you to disseminate information, seek out information, ask questions, and engage the members of your professional group.

  • Survey your group to find out WHERE they want to stay connected and informed. This can be at an annual conference/meeting or online. {We asked at the annual meeting, and on the digital sign-up sheet.}

  • Create welcome messages for email, Facebook or other networks to tailor and respond to interested members ASAP, for e.g.

Hello ________________,

Great to hear that you are interested in getting involved in the NACADA Technology in Advising Commission (#AdvTech)! Our #AdvTech Commission would love to have you join in the fun. To help identify your interests for involvement in the commission, please complete the NACADA Technology in Advising Commission Sign-up for 2012-13 {insert URL}

Also, be sure to connect to our commission  Facebook Group: {insert URL} There are a number of great conversations, questions and opportunities to share resources in this space. Finally, we do have an option to sign up to the commission listserv and information on the NACADA Technology in Advising Commission web page. 

Looking forward to getting you connected and involved soon!

Best,

Laura Pasquini

NACADA Technology in Advising Commission Chair 2011-2013

  • Get SOCIAL (media) – find an online, connected space that works for your group. Our group was interested in a moderated/closed Facebook Group; however I have seen Google Plus Communities, organizational listservs, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn groups (e.g. Advising Veterans), or hashtags on Twitter (e.g. #firstgen) to bring professional groups together. Just be sure to keep up with the conversation in whatever space you choose to use.

  • Be open for members to reach out to you for questions, ideas, suggestions, and getting involved. I often connected with members via email, Skype, on the phone, Google Plus, or another social network. Keep the conversation going, and consider hosting “office hours” or regular ways to connect with you.

  • Think outside the communication box. Consider offering different means for sharing member information and updates. We tried out the NACADA Tech Talks of 2012, and after the NACADA 2010 conference members of our group initiated the the #AcAdv Chat weekly Twitter conversations.


*There are a number of different tools and online resources to help with professional organization workflow. I am just sharing the specific ones I used with my NACADA Technology in Advising Commission the past couple of years. Figure out your purpose, then find the appropriate tool that will work for you.

Professional Development, Reflections, Training

Supporting Student Success at #UFTL13

Laura Pasquini

UFTL13

I was able Last week UNT hosted the annual University Forum on Teaching & Learning:

UNT’s University Forum on Teaching & Learning (UFTL) is a one-day annual event that enables faculty, graduate teaching fellows, and staff involved in supporting teaching and learning to share ideas and practices that motivate learners, promote critical thinking skills, engage in real-world problems, and better prepare students for life and work in the 21st century.

This year’s #UFTL13 focus,  “Supporting Student Success,” helped initiate the conversation and help our campus understand how to support our students. It also shed some light on what success is and what it REALLY looks like for our learners.  In moving beyond the dirty R-word (retention),  it is critical to think how the meaning of the word success varies for our students. Our planning of “good” teaching and learning practices may need to extend beyond a course credit, a classroom setting, or a syllabus requirement for our students to be truly successful.

During the morning round table discussions, we chatted about reaching students beyond our state mandates or the general push to graduation, and thought more about how to connect with our learners to better understand their needs and purpose for being at the university. It was clear that success means many things to many different people. Our small group identified different things that signify success (in general) including promotion, failure, self-discovery, overcoming challenges, and such. The key issue we had in talking about “success” for learning is the divergent goals that formal education require specifically in terms of assessment, evaluation formats, and individual competency reviews.

Later in the morning Dr. Cassandre G. Alvarado, from UT Austin, asked “What is student success really?” in her keynote address. In Dr. Alvarado’s opening statements, she shared how higher education is broken with the “universal problem” being = too many students are not successful. [I will get into the “broken higher education” discussion in a future blog post- note this for now].

First we talked about the definition of success, brainstormed a few ideas, and chatted about how we might need to redefine success in our classroom and on our campus. Here is what success meant to our small group and from the speaker’s point of view:

  • effecting people in a positive way
  • being an inspiration
  • impacting others around you
  • having a goal, working hard & making sacrifices to work towards that goal
  • passion for what you are doing or how you are working with others

BIG IDEA: Success is more than content knowledge.

enjoy-your-success

 Key Goals for Success & to Be Successful shared by Dr. Alvarado in her keynote:

1. Perseverance – “Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to be discouraged.” ~ Thomas Edison

  • We need to share with our students our struggle so they can learn
  • Model for our students our own struggles
  • Reward effort as well as correctness, e.g. rewarding effort on homework and tests, using innovative assessment methods produced almost triple gains

2. Community –  “My model for business is the Beatles. Total is the sum of the parts… Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” ~ Steve Jobs, 2003

  • Community happens inside and outside of the classroom
  • Is about understanding our role
  • Is more than just friends, e.g. Creation of learning communities increase ention through Drop, Fail & Withdrawal rates stayed the same; cluster of courses

3. Imagination – “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” Thomas Edison

  • Discovery is imagination
  • Ask students to solve problems that don’t yet exist not ones that have already been solved
  • “See yourself on the other side.” Dr. Marcy Haag’s mantra 4 breaking a board in a Taekwondo class and she shares this for learning/perseverance

Finally, I was asked to join a student, staff, and faculty panel (I fit a couple of these roles) to talk more about student success at UNT. Here are the questions posed to the #UFTL13 panel:

  • How do you define student success? Can you share an example of or tell a story about student success at UNT. (This could be a personal story, one of a colleague, classmate, friend, etc.)
  • From your perspective, what do students need to experience success at UNT?  Do you have any examples to share?
  • What types of partnerships make student success a reality at UNT?  Do you have any personal experience with partnerships?
  • From your perspective, what can staff/instructors/students do to enhance student success?

Of course, I took a few notes and tweeted during the panel, so here are a few themes that emerged from the our responses:

#UFTL13 Student Success Panel Responses

How do you define student success on your campus? What student success stories can you share? Think about it, and let me know.