I gave a little recap of my first week of my agency’s Middle Leader Program waaayyy back in September.
Middle Leader is a three-week leadership training program that Forest Service puts on for people at a certain GS level. Basically, for people seeking thrilling careers in middle management.
The three weeks of training were spaced out over the course of four months, so as not to interrupt our work schedules too much.
The first week was held in-person in Albuquerque, as was the third week. The second week was conducted virtually via Zoom.
I’m still technically enrolled in the program, since it includes six hours of one-on-one sessions with a Forest Service-designated coach to help me walk through some things, but the bulk of the work — including those three weeks of training, case study analysis and development and several networking events — is done.
I had my last week of the three weeks earlier this month.
This will be a pretty short post! I just wanted to share a few more of the leadership models and material we went over.
And a photo of this charcuterie board. Yum.
Let’s start with the second week. The second week was structured similarly to the first. We spent the first four days going over leadership models and material, and then the last day reviewing, analyzing and presenting case studies. During the first week, we were put into small case study groups. We were each given a case study, written by a previous cohort, and asked to analyze it and solve the problems using several of the leadership models and theories we’d been presented with over the past four days and the first week.
Some of the content we went over during the second week included mindfulness in leadership, “ABLE in conflict” — where we learned how to be direct in addressing conflict —, emotional intelligence, humanizing leadership, drama roles and mindful decision making.
We’d all taken emotional quotient inventories (EQIs) and spent a lot of time addressing our emotional intelligence, including our strengths and weaknesses, and how that all pertains to leadership.
Our third and final week was only four days, which was nice because I had to get back to Flagstaff Thursday night to prepare for our Friday yurt trip.
Some of the things we talked about during the third week were change dynamics, influence, a little bit more about emotional intelligence, networking, self-awareness, resilience, purpose and value.
A few of the lectures/ discussions/ activities were really interesting. We spent quite a good amount of time figuring out our values, and then crafting a vision from those values. I decided that my values (we were asked to pick seven) are (in no order): being challenged, ethics, travel/adventure, autonomy, sense of purpose, health/strength, relationships and sustainability.
It reminded me what a great fit my career is for me and how lucky I am to have this awesome job where I get to feel fulfilled in most of my values.
My favorite session by far was one given by Char Miller, a professor and expert on Forest Service history. Ironically enough, he’s never worked for the Forest Service. He gave us an incredible presentation on Forest Service history, talking about leadership transitions and differences between Gifford Pinchot, Henry Graves and William Greeley. It was incredibly fascinating.
We spent our last day presenting leadership case studies we’d written. My group went with a fun “Jeopardy”-themed presentation, and that was it. We had a “graduation” ceremony where we all received our certificates, and then we were on our way.
It was also really cool to have a week in Albuquerque. I stayed at a different hotel than the one our conference was held at, so I got to spend our lunch breaks reading and knitting by the hotel’s Christmas tree.
We also got to attend a networking event — similar to week one’s — across the street at Fork & Fig. During week one, we had a chance to meet some of the individuals in the agency’s Senior Leader Program. This time, we got to meet with last year’s Middle Leader Program graduates, who get to come back together one year after graduation for two or so days of reflection.
Honestly, the whole thing was a lot more valuable than I originally thought it would be. I covered a lot of the content I’d learned in grad school, so it was a good refresher, and hopefully some of what I learned will help me grow into a leadership role, if I ever decide to take one again.
