4-minute read
Post Contributed by Shelley Sjoberg, AVP, Product Development & Support, Canada Life
Leadership Winnipeg Class of 2024-2025

Do you know what makes you tick… or tok?

Most people have probably not spent too much time analyzing what motivates them, what are their driving forces, how they naturally prefer to communicate and how that translates into every aspect of their life. Holding up a mirror to your inner thought processes and motivating forces can be a bit unnerving. In a room full of, by all accounts strangers, it can be humbling to challenge how you’ve maybe always seen yourself and others in the world.

On day four of our Leadership course, we dove deeper into our personal Talent Insights report, and it was an enlightening experience to reflect on why knowing who you are and who others are is so important.

From the first session to the fourth, Dawna Atamanchuk has pulled on our personal threads. She has shown us how important and rewarding knowing yourself can be. She’s uncovered how in every aspect of our lives we are “working with others.” From the smallest of things: helping a friend arrange hors d’oeuvres for a party to much larger engagements like sitting on a board, you are navigating some form of relationship with other people.

During the morning, we focused on board governance. We heard from Kevin Freedman, the Governance Guru, about the role and purpose of boards. At first glance the pairing of diving deeper and unpacking our personality test results with board 101 and governance training might seem odd.

But right off the top of Kevin’s session, he asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves and comment on why they are here. He noted that like in a board, it’s important to set a culture of participation, “it’s important for people to feel like it’s easy to participate.”

We each introduced ourselves and explained our motivations in ways that later in the day, as we dove deeper into our Talent Insights, likely connected the dots for folks. When we show up, we come as ourselves. We bring our diverse and unique perspectives, all the various things that make us tick. From the Talent Insights report “the ability to interact effectively with people may be the difference between success and failure in your work and personal life. Effective interaction starts with an accurate perception of oneself.”

As Kevin shared many insights about board roles and responsibilities, he wove a common theme of diversity of thought and many other desired qualities of board members: confidence, respect, curiosity, skepticism, honesty, trustworthiness and passion. It was clear – successful boards are comprised of individuals that while diverse, know themselves and know how to effectively interact with and support others.

As this day marked our fourth session, you could feel a settling in vibe throughout the room. We were no longer a room full of strangers. We were getting to know each other and sharing an incredibly unique experience. We are now team members, colleagues, and friends. We have common goals, feelings, and passions that while unique can compliment each other. My yellow energy has found an incredibly complimentary blue and this incredible journey we are all on is taking shape to be transformative in many ways.