Transitioning Leadership Philosophies
Above: 100+ Local Chapter Presidents from dozens of different countries, and I, in AIESEC's International Congress in Cartagena, Colombia
After spending one year as Vice President of Business Development, I became the President of the AIESEC’s local chapter in Seattle in January 2017. AIESEC was an immense part of my freshman year and the president position was something I had been eyeing ever since I joined the organization in 2015. I had two main goals for me as president. First, I wanted to move on from recent failures as quickly as possible - and a “capital L leadership” position seemed like a great way to do so. I also wanted to completely revolutionize AIESEC in Seattle and make it be among the top local chapters in the United States - which is 100% easier said than done. In AIESEC the way that success is measured is through “exchanges”: the more people we send abroad or host in Seattle, the more people are having cross cultural and leadership development experiences, meaning that we are closer to achieving our mission. As my goals may indicate my approach to this leadership role was short-sighted and, as a result, my time in it was short-lived.
I applied for this position in Fall 2016 amidst non ideal circumstances - my dad had just lost his job, I was failing all my classes, and my future at UW was uncertain. It was irresponsible to apply to lead an organization knowing I could have to go back to Brazil before my term ended, and knowing that I could barely “lead myself” - but that’s how much the organization meant to me. All my community in UW, all the growth I have had in college, and all my best experiences that far were associated with that club. Talking with people at AIESEC in Seattle, and in other chapters around the country, they all kept telling to apply to be president and that I would do great. I knew our local chapter had seen better days and had heard amazing success stories of chapters that have had exponential growth in a short amount of time. This was a great opportunity for me to do something I loved while, at the same time, recover my self-confidence and move on from the traumatic events of the previous quarter.
As president, I would be responsible for directly leading an Executive Board comprised of five Vice Presidents, and supervise the operations of approximately 30 volunteers. The volunteers were spread in five teams, one for each Vice President: Finance, Talent Management, and three other “operations” teams, which in practice were the sales and marketing teams for each of the product/service we provided. My responsibilities also extended to the national level, as I represented and voted on behalf of the Seattle chapter on legislative meetings, and supported the implementation of national strategies locally.
Leadership Competencies Developed:
This was arguably the most consequential experience I had in college. As I started it I was very concerned about moving on from my failures in Fall 2016. This eagerness to move on ultimately made me try to also move on too quickly from the problems I faced as president, which resulted in impulsive decision making and, ultimately, in my resignation. Leaving AIESEC and my social circle behind was extremely hard, but I would not change this experience one bit. I believe that everything that happened was exactly what I needed to grow as a person. If before I struggled with feelings of uncertainty around the future, and trying to move on too quickly from the past, I now feel more comfortable in embracing the present with the help of my “north star”.
Plan
At the AIESEC Winter National Conference, recently elected executive boards of local chapters across the country get together to, among others, define the strategy for the upcoming year. The national leadership body of AIESEC walked us through a framework with which we, as a local executive board, could define the purpose/vision of our chapter given what AIESEC strives to achieve and our context unique. From that purpose we then defined a set of behaviors our team needed to embody, our team ambition for the term, strategic priorities to make that ambition come true, and so on, until we get to very specific tasks and key performance indicators - thereby operationalizing our vision. As president it was incredibly rewarding to learn this framework and facilitate the process with my team while balancing what I wanted to do with what my team wanted.
Supervision
On my previous leadership experience, as VP of Business Development, I ended up being more of a doer than a manager. I knew that I needed to learn how to effectively delegate tasks, otherwise the entire local chapter would collapse. I also wanted to give my team the freedom to implement their own strategies and ideas on their teams, without too much “micromanagement” from me. In the end of the day, I realized there isn’t an “one size fits all” approach to management and supervision, as each individual operates, thinks and communicates very differently from another. By focusing on frameworks such as the “Success Signals” by Rhonda Hillyer, Leadership Styles by Daniel Goleman, and the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, I aimed to understand more each individual and tailor my approach to each.
Group Development
From day zero, I wanted to put a big emphasis on team building. According to the “5 Dysfunctions of a Team”, the “root cause of dysfunction” is lack of trust. It was important for me that my team was able to be vulnerable with each other and had a sense of belonging, so that they could trust one another, have productive conflicts, etc. Through executive board team retreats and dinners I aimed to develop the personal side of our relationships, other than on the professional setting. As far as the entire local chapter goes, I implemented a system of anonymous feedback forms so that they were able to express their concerns and give suggestions without the fear of negative repercussions, and I made sure to address those as candidly as possible.
During my presidency I received the most direct and harsh feedbacks I ever had up to that point. Since I was leading the entire local chapter, I was responsible for every little thing that went wrong. Self assurance is vital in order to receive feedback effectively. Not everyone is going to agree with what I do and if I am not self assure regarding my actions and decision, I’ll be changing my mind every time someone disagrees with me - which is not sustainable. Because I did not stick with the beliefs and convictions I had when I first applied to be president, and gave too much credit to all feedback I received, I changed directions and made impulsive decisions too many times. This slowly deteriorated the trust my team had on me, and I was forced to resign. Of course, many pieces of feedback I received were valuable, but instead of just impulsively acting on them, I should have taken more time to reflect and talk to the person who gave it to me. After a while I just stopped acting on the feedback I received altogether and started seeing a dichotomy between my team and I, as in a me vs them scenario, which just made things worse.
Receiving Feedback
Reflection and Application & Personal Values
By the end of the summer of 2017 I lost most of what mattered to me. I had to resign my presidency which meant that I lost this organization that meant so much to me, and basically the entirety of my social circle and support system at UW. I was lost, as my sense of identity greatly went around my role at AIESEC, since I spent so much time in it. I wanted to find out what was important to me and regain my sense of identity. After a long time of reflection, I remembered one of my last experiences in AIESEC by that point. In July 2017 I went with the national leadership team and other local chapter presidents to Cartagena in Colombia, for AIESEC’s International Congress. During that conference, the international leadership team held a session about AIESEC’s six core values. They said that they were a “north star” for the organization and gave direction for our decisions to be made. That was exactly what I wanted: a set of core personal values that summarized what was important to me and gave me direction in the best and worst of times. From that point on I keep reflecting about what my personal core values are, what is important to me, and if I am applying them on my daily actions or not. I have defined a “north star” for myself and that made all the difference.
Diversity
Going back to the International Congress in Cartagena: it was the largest conference of the year, with over 650 attendees and 115 nationalities represented. I never met such a diverse group of people before and just having conversations with people all over the world was an extraordinary experience. Most noticeably, in a workshop for local chapter presidents, we were divided in 4 groups with about 30 people each and had to perform a series of tasks together. This was amazing but at the same time very challenging, because it made the “cultural shock” more evident. People from different nationalities were used to communicate and work very differently from one another, and it required a tremendous amount of coordination and empathy for the team to be effective.
