COMSEP Conversations about Leadership are designed as informal sessions to:
- Create a diverse and inclusive community of shared experiences and growth
- Develop awareness of different leadership strategies, approaches and challenges
- Facilitate the application of leadership frameworks and theories to one’s own work.
Calendar Series: COMSEP Conversations about Leadership
Topic: Situational leadership
Materials:
- Situational Leadership Theory
- Understanding the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model (video)
- Situational Leadership (How to Pick the Right Management Style for the Right Team and Situation) (video)
Additional Resources for a deeper dive:
Session Description: The optimal approach to leadership depends on the situation – including the task, context, and developmental level of the people involved. Most of us have a dominant or preferred leadership style. Awareness of that preferred style and deliberate practice in flexing to a different approach may allow us to optimize our effectiveness as leaders. In this session, we’ll reflect on our “go to” approach, consider situations from our own experience that might require a shift in style, and explore how situational leadership can support diversity, equity, and inclusion.
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work, COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice. We then plan to work in small groups sharing experiences and responding to prompt questions.
Topic: Cultivating Joy in ourselves and creating joy in our workplaces
Materials:
- Leading with what lights you up
- Can work make you happy? (video)
- Joy in the workplace (video)
- What matters to you (video)
Additional resources
Session Description: Our next session will focus on cultivating Joy in ourselves and creating Joy in our workplaces. Joy as a leadership quality? So much in the World around us seemingly conspires to wipe out joy in our workplace. Living with joy can be liberative and leading with joy can disrupt the extractive nature of our capitalistic society, build community and provide sustenance and meaning to what we do. As we begin the New Year, let us learn from each other on some small steps on how we can all promote joy around us.
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work, COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
Topic: Authenticity in Leadership
Materials: What Makes an Authentic Leader
Optional Readings:
Session Description: Our next session will focus on authenticity in leadership. Throughout our journeys in medical education, many of us will step into leadership roles that require new skills and knowledge. How do we acknowledge our own areas for growth without losing credibility as a leader? How do we transparently share collective challenges we face in our work or institutions without overwhelming our teams with negativity or uncertainty?
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work and COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
Topic: Leadership during uncertain times
Materials: Six Strategies for Leading Through Uncertainty
Optional Readings:
- Leading In Difficult Times | AAMC
- Creating Brave Spaces within and through Student-Faculty Pedagogical Partnerships
Show Notes: Show-notes-6.9.25.Final_.docx
Session Description: Our next session will focus on leadership during uncertain times. As educational leaders, we continuously face challenges at local, national, and global levels related to our roles and the people with whom we work. This session will discuss concrete strategies for leaders to implement during times of change.
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work, COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
We then plan to work in small groups sharing experiences and responding to prompt questions.
Topic: Traits of inclusive leadership and how that fosters a community of belonging.
Reading: The Key to inclusive leadership
Optional Reading/Video:
- The six signature traits of inclusive leadership-Thriving in a diverse new world
- Inclusive leadership in the health professions and health professions education
- How to become an inclusive leader | Meagan Pollock, PhD | TEDxWolcottCollegePrep
Session Description: Our March session will focus on the traits of inclusive leadership and how that fosters a community of belonging. We all want to be the most effective leaders possible and sometimes it is hard to “see” beyond what we usually do or the people around us are doing. This session will dive into actionable steps of inclusive leadership to make us more capable of bringing out talent from our diverse team members and making your professional career more rewarding with a better environment to produce quality care and education. We will learn from important aspects of inclusive leadership from the business world about how to create a culture of belonging through empathy and humility.
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work, COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
We then plan to work in small groups sharing experiences and responding to prompt questions.
Topic and Podcast: 3 Things Great Leaders Do Differently
The podcast is 30 minutes long and if you need to focus in you can listen from 3:33 to 28:48 if you want to skip the introduction and wrap up.
Session Description: Our December session will focus on behaviors great leaders do differently from others. We all want to be the most effective leaders possible and sometimes it is hard to “see” beyond what we usually do or the people around us are doing. This session will dive into stories of great leaders to glean actionable behaviors to make your professional career more rewarding. We will learn from important examples from the business world about how to create a culture of collaboration, encourage risk taking and allow for productive failure.
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss how this topic links to our work and COMSEP’s priorities, and how to incorporate these behaviors to building effective teams, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice. We then plan to work in small groups sharing experiences and responding to prompt questions.
Topic: Leader Wellbeing
Materials: What’s Driving Your Microstress
Session Description: Leadership within organizations influences employee well-being and it is well established that attending to personal well-being influences productivity and satisfaction at work. A recent paper examined the link between leader well-being and leadership behavior (Kaluza et al. 2020). In addition, a single institution study concluded that burnout, professional fulfillment and self-care practices of physician leaders were independently associated with their leadership effectiveness (Shanafelt et al. 2020). As we move from summer to the rest of the year, we hope that discussing how to optimize your well-being and reflecting on how personal well-being affects your leadership with colleagues will energize you moving forward in 2024!
During this 1-hour session, we will discuss the topic’s relevance and importance – and how it links to our work, COMSEP’s priorities, while highlighting important principles such as diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
We then plan to work in small groups sharing experiences and responding to prompt questions.