Leadership: Assistant Director of Departments
The Health Scholar Program has a hierarchy within their Leadership Team. The are regular leaders, and then there are Executive Team Leaders, who oversee the operations of those regular leaders. For some time I've been thinking about stepping up from my role of Department Coordinator to that of Assistant Director of Departments. I knew that the Director of Departmental Operations was swamped with too many responsibilities, and he only had one ADD to help him out. Since I felt like I had a very solid grasp of my current responsibilities, and wanted to expand my duties in a meaningful way. Also, we started hiring new leadership team members like crazy, and I knew that we would need more oversight to train these new recruits and set good examples. I felt like I would better have the capacity to share my experience in the role of ADD. In addition, this program is all about professional growth and development, and it seemed like I had pretty much gotten everything I could have out of being just a Department Coordinator. So I finally applied to be an ADD!
The experience thus far has been pretty great. It's certainly more demanding than being just a DC, because I'm suddenly responsible for two or three times more work. Being on X-Team carries with it too a greater deal of accountability. If I don't follow through with my responsibilities as an ADD, the stakes and consequences are much higher than if I wasn't able to complete them as a DC. But rather than being frightening, I find these higher stakes compelling. I enjoy the work more because it is so challenging, and it seems like I'm doing something more worthwhile because of it.
I've also transitioned into being a leader among leaders rather well. I now manage my own team of Department Coordinators, many of whom began working as a Department Coordinator at the same time I did. I was worried that this might undermine my authority, but what I've found is that by introducing myself to them as a resource, someone to help them along and guide them rather than their boss, they've responded well. It's nice to see them incorporating my advice to improve their own work while still maintaining their own style and voice. In a sense, I still am a peer to them and they are to me, and I definitely feel like we are all on equal ground. It's just that I have some additional responsibilities than them, and I think it's owning those responsibilities rather than the title of ADD that has made my relationships with them feel natural. I've definitely seen some other X-Team members take on a domineering personality with the other leaders, and all it accomplishes is that the leaders begrudgingly carry out their orders and also don't take the X-Team leader seriously.
One thing I really want to work on during my time as an ADD is to take initiative and really bring some of my ideas to fruition. During this on-boarding process, it's been hard to implement my own ideas since we're all figuring out how duties should be divvied up. But once that all dies down, I want to put in the extra work to commit to my ideas and improve the program. I don't want to just be checking off the list of things I need to do, to just be an ADD. I don't want to just do the bare minimum, but really establish myself as something more within this program.
I've also transitioned into being a leader among leaders rather well. I now manage my own team of Department Coordinators, many of whom began working as a Department Coordinator at the same time I did. I was worried that this might undermine my authority, but what I've found is that by introducing myself to them as a resource, someone to help them along and guide them rather than their boss, they've responded well. It's nice to see them incorporating my advice to improve their own work while still maintaining their own style and voice. In a sense, I still am a peer to them and they are to me, and I definitely feel like we are all on equal ground. It's just that I have some additional responsibilities than them, and I think it's owning those responsibilities rather than the title of ADD that has made my relationships with them feel natural. I've definitely seen some other X-Team members take on a domineering personality with the other leaders, and all it accomplishes is that the leaders begrudgingly carry out their orders and also don't take the X-Team leader seriously.
One thing I really want to work on during my time as an ADD is to take initiative and really bring some of my ideas to fruition. During this on-boarding process, it's been hard to implement my own ideas since we're all figuring out how duties should be divvied up. But once that all dies down, I want to put in the extra work to commit to my ideas and improve the program. I don't want to just be checking off the list of things I need to do, to just be an ADD. I don't want to just do the bare minimum, but really establish myself as something more within this program.