As a part of my part-time role as a notetaker, I get to attend classes which I would never have in my line of studies and learn things which I would never come across and that's definitely one of the many things I like about my work. For one of such classes on leadership, I got to see a TEDx talk on Agile Leadership: Preparing for an unconventional career path by Emily Phillips. She talks about how we can prepare ourselves for an unconventional career path by being an agile leader by preparing for the unpredictable as more often than not especially in recent times (which definitely can be blamed on the tech disruption), what we have planned doesn't work out in the way we would have liked.
The talk is not just about being a leader in a professional setting but how in our lives we can reach for the things we are scared of which doesn't fit into what we might have planned for ourselves.
So, how do we become an agile leader, Emily Phillips lists three steps that she found were important to be an Agile Leader:
1.Have an Iterative process.
A process where you identify a problem and then find a solution for it but not just stop there, after it's done you reflect and repeat it.
2. Build a tribe of resources:
This is a group of people you have crossed paths within your life whom you can reach out to, not just for yourself but also to be there for them and help them grow.
3. Get uncomfortable daily:
This is the one you might have come across often and definitely the one I relate to the most. Everything I have done that has made me proud of my achievements was way outside what I would have been comfortable doing.
I absolutely loved the talk especially because my career path has been anything but conventional and I have been scared to make decision be it moving into technology, choosing units that I knew would be far from easy or going to interviews with sweaty palms, so listening to someone share their experience gives me the confidence to keep getting out of the zone and do things that scare me, learn from my experiences whilst making connections along the way and I'm definitely far from the goal but I sure have started enjoying the process a whole lot more.
I highly recommend listening to this talk if you relate to this post and learn more about how she used these steps in her life to craft an unconventional career path.
If you came this far, pop in the comment section and let me know if you think you could apply these steps in your career.
Top comments (2)
Thanks Tisha! I'm headed to YouTube to hear the Ted Talk right now :)
Thank you! I hope you liked the talk. :)