August/September 2004

Volume 45, Number 1

7 Leadership Qualities

by Jackie Damrau, Senior Member and President, Lone Star Chapter

As a leader, I'm always reading. I don't get enough time to read, but I do have a reading folder that I carry with me in my briefcase. This folder contains articles that are torn out of magazines, printed from online e-zines, and from personal emails that come to me that spark an interest that I say to myself, "Aha! That will make a great article to write for one of the SIGs or chapter newsletters."

The article that spurred this one came from Selling Power's May 2004 issue, entitled "Tap into the 7 Qualities of the Best Sales Managers: Improvement isn't optional, it's mandatory (if you want to survive)" written by Maryann Hammers and Gerhard Gschwandtner (pp. 61-65, 91). While reading this article and the seven qualities, it made me realize that Transformation and chapter leadership fit very well with applying these quality initiatives. So I'd like to share with you my views using Hammers and Gschwandtner's seven qualities.

Quality 1: Become a master of change

The Transformation Initiative is asking all chapter leaders to support the change, communicate it to the chapter members, and be the master of change when this Initiative starts rolling. Many chapter leaders are for it; many are against it; and many are not sure where they stand. Change has been in the business world for many years.

The STC itself has been set in one mold for too many years. With the economic swings that rise and fall, so does participation in non-profit organizations. I am a member of two non-profit professional organizations, and both are suffering from a decrease in membership and conference attendance. Our organization is not alone!

Peter Drucker (as quoted in the Selling Power article) says, "Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does." The STC has started doing this through its Transformation efforts. This follows on the heels of so many members saying, "If you increase my dues, what additional benefits (values) will I get?" In one respect, the member is trying to justify the additional cost (especially if they are not receiving company monetary support). Yet, the member needs to be asking, "What can I do to make STC become a better organization for me and others?"

This leads to the next quality.

Quality 2: Earn their trust

The STC leadership (the STC Board of Directors and a team of volunteers) needs to earn the trust of its members that our leaders have a solid direction in which they are taking us. Without this, the members may envision a sinking ship and jump to other professional organizations to get the services they need. During the STC 51st Annual Conference, our leadership held several sessions about Transformation, and what the plans to date are, and how they will communicate the plans to our members.

For me as the newly elected Lone Star chapter president, I felt that our leadership shared as much as they could with us. The two subsequent publications that they provided during the conference (check out www.stc-org/transformation) earned them my trust.

Remember, trust is a relationship foundation. My belief is that they are not intentionally keeping things from us. They are communicating when they have a solid decision and direction that will fit all our needs.

Trust builds upon and requires your feedback.

Quality 3: Give feedback

Giving feedback requires setting clear expectations and realistic goals. As the Society leaders are mapping out the expectations and goals for the Transformation Initiative, we need to be prepared to offer our constructive (not destructive) feedback. Through our support and our voice, they will be able to make the necessary changes that will (hopefully) infuse members back into the organization by providing additional member benefits. Will these benefits be a little costly? Sure, but the cost of a quality education is also high. We need to invest in our own education and professional development. What better organization to support than our own?

Our leadership needs feedback on our individual and collective thoughts about this Transformation. As chapter leaders, we are the ones that our members will look to for direction about the Transformation Initiative. Our responsibility is to provide both the positives and negatives of what Transformation means to the Society as a whole and to the Chapters individually. Yes, we may lose a few members to other new or renewed communities. Yet, if we determine who we are and make known to ourselves and to them the value we provide to our members, those members will return. Under the new STC organization, it will be easier for members to choose what type of community to belong to, and can easily choose more than one community to be part of.

From trust to giving feedback, we turn to the fourth quality of building enthusiasm.

Quality 4: Building enthusiasm

The wheels of Transformation are beginning to roll. The first major outpouring of the Society's direction started at the 51st Annual Conference in Baltimore. The chapter leaders that attended the two Transformation Q&A sessions and the members that attended the Transformation progression received the latest information available at the time. The Society's goal is to openly communicate with the membership at large when it has a solid decision.

Does this mean that you do not have a voice in the decision? No! It means that you need to look for the silver lining for your chapter, your members, or yourself, and support the Initiative enthusiastically. We are the foundation builders, cheerleaders, or support group for this Initiative. Let's embrace this and move into a new era of professional development.

Embracing our professional development and the direction of the Society has one key element: our involvement.

Quality 5: Get involved

It is well and good to sit on the sidelines and squeal our disgust at the direction that the Society is going in. Have you made your concerns known? Have you read the information on the Transformation web site (www.stc.org/transformation)?

The Society does have certain things that cannot be discussed in an open forum. However, those things that are for open discussion are made available to us. The Society officers have established independent committees that are looking into various aspects of the Transformation. These committees include Communication, Communities, Education, Finance, Governance, Membership, and Technology.

Take the time to go to the website and read Newsletter Issue 2: Communities. The purpose for each committee appears in that issue. I encourage you to get involved in embracing this effort by providing your feedback (positive/negative) to the officer(s) of the committees. They are not doing all of this in a "closed-door" environment.

Just like we grow from baby to child to teen to adult, the Society needs to grow and develop into a more viable professional organization. This takes us to the next to last quality, Growth and Development.

Quality 6: Growth and development

The Society has reached its zenith. It is time to launch a new nova that will help the Society to grow back into an organization that meets our ever-changing needs. In years past, Society members were only technical writers inside technical industries. Through the years, we have been able to redevelop ourselves into webmasters, instructional designers, facilitators, project managers, proposal developers, and the list goes on.

Regardless of your profession today, the world of technical communication is growing into new areas. Many other professional organizations exist that may directly focus on one particular aspect of what we do, but STC offers you a more rounded opportunity to meet with other technical communicators to learn from their experiences. The Society and each chapter/SIG/community will be growing and developing as a result of the Transformation effort.

We can focus on the good side, which is to return to a successful professional organization. Or, we can focus on the bad side, which means the demise of the Society, in general. Should this happen, we will turn to one of the other professional organizations to meet our needs. Will we be any happier with that organization? Will it address our specific needs as technical communicators? Will they experience the same growth and development pains?

The final quality is leading people to improvement. I'd like to rephrase this to:

Quality 7: Lead STC improvement

Hammers and Gschwandtner say:

"There are subtle, yet profound differences between innovation and ongoing improvement. Innovation demands big steps leading to breakthroughs and fast results. Ongoing improvement depends on small steps, relies on conventional common sense, pays great attention to process, and teases out results in small doses over time." (p. 65)

Leading the Transformation Initiative requires innovation and ongoing improvement—innovation to provide additional membership value; ongoing improvement to look at how to restructure itself into a viable professional organization that can continue meeting STC members' ever changing needs for their professional growth and development.

As Hammers and Gschwandtner said, "it takes small steps, common sense, attention to process, and communication in small doses to affect a major change." The Transformation Initiative is following this process.

We are the future of the Society. Without our acceptance of change, trust, feedback, enthusiasm, growth and development, and ability to improve, we will not have a Society that meets our professional careers. Let's support the Society and stand behind them as they take the baby steps needed to transform us into a renewed professional organization.