Posted by Steve Johnson in Questions for the Candidates - Good Presidents

Posted by Adam W. in Questions for the Candidates - Good Presidents
These are questions for any candidates, though not all of them will apply to everybody. These questions are inspired by a post by Joe.

Joe defined “weak leadership” as leadership that doesn’t accomplish much, doesn’t hold other people accountable, and is not responsive to concerns or issues. To me, this definition of “weak leadership” misses capturing another form of poor leadership that is often seen in STF, the micromanager. How do you lead in a way that finds that balance between being too controlling and not controlling enough? Do you find yourself more likely to slip into being an idle leader or a micromanaging leader? Most seem to at least drift towards one or the other.

What makes a good President a good President?

For those who have been an exec, how would you evaluate how you did in that role every time you were an exec? How good of a job would you say you did in each term?

Thank you in advance for answering.

Adam W.

Hi Adam, I thought I would jump in here as well.

I find the best way to lead is to start by understanding the strengths of each of the people you are picking in the first place. And from there setting clear expectations, and deadlines. We all have so many things going on, and deadlines help me set priorities on what needs to be done first. I’m happy to discuss pro’s and con’s of different to do list apps with people! ha

I do tend towards the micromanaging side usually, though really it’s less constantly watching over the person, and more of just give the stuff and I’ll do it myself. But this is something that I’ve been working on for many years now in real life, as I had to go through this at work when I transitioned to my current position. This is where picking the right people, and learning their strengths becomes super important. That way you can build out a list of expectations and timeline that they can best succeed at.

What makes a good President? I like to think of a good President like a duck on the water. Calm up top, but furiously working under water, or in our case behind the scenes. Part of this is picking that right team, that brings to your attention issues that need to be addressed, before they become major issues. That’s not to say everything should happen behind closed doors, transparency is important. People don’t need to see you running around, but they should know that you are out there working for all of them. There shouldn’t be a question of “what are they doing all day?”

As for previous terms on exec:
Well my first time on exec picks up where Joe’s tenure that term ends. When Joe stepped down as VP for Drew, Drew asked me to step in as VP. Joe already addressed some of what went on that term, but it quickly led to my first term as President. To put it succinctly, I was not ready to be President. I was in the middle of starting a brand new job, in a brand new city, by myself for the first time ever. And my tenure of President started off by not only by one of my very good friends at the time resigning in the face of impeachment, but then I had to follow through with permanently banning that person. It was during this time that Joe and I had one of our biggest arguments.

Needless to say I was gun shy about wanting to be on exec again after that. But I did relent and became VP for James when he took over after David resigned. I was in a much better place at this time, and I think it showed. We were able to get things done, and together James and I were able to help keep things humming along.

This led to my next term as President, and our first uncontested election in modern STF history. We started off strong, and Sarah I had a plan. We wanted to go through and update, and modernize, the current set of bylaws. We were doing our own review coming out of the holidays, ready to start getting stuff posted, and then the world shifted. We were in March 2020. We went from what can we build on here in STF, to oh shoot, the world is going crazy. It became less of building to the future, to what can we do to maintain a happy and healthy place for people to come and have a break from reality. We did have some down’s, having to decommission Magellan (that is still a tough one for me) and the Olympic, but we also started the Sentinel.

What I think shows the most here is the progression I took during my time on Exec. I started rather naive, even having been in the club for years at that point, being all cocky and thinking that I could handle the role. But by the end having a good grasp on what is needed to run the club.

Thanks for the question Adam! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Steve

Thanks Steve. Hearing more about the big argument between you and Joe sounds interesting, if it is the sort of thing either of you are up for talking about.

Adam W.