Chamber Insider Blog

Leadership Development in 2015

Post by Tracee Garner

2015 is here! Early January is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings. We look ahead with excitement in setting achievable  goals or ideal resolutions, tweaking business projections and aspirations, and setting out a robust budget. How many people even successful business leaders, omit putting self-development for themselves and as a program their employees can partake in on the list?

Cultivating leadership development skills to inspire others and yourself, as well as conflict resolution, improving mediation skills among employees and facilitating their ability to best shine in the workforce are potential goals for your 2015 list. Are they on yours? Self-development, dare I say self improvement, is often an afterthought, or for others. They are among those ideal resolutions you set forth, but maybe as tasks to be completed as fast as possible. Thus you decide to participate in a webinar for an hour and you check off the self-development box when for most of that webinar, you were multitasking on other pressing work like composing a detailed e-mail to a VIP. That approach doesn’t give your ideal resolution a fair chance to blossom. 

Leadership development is also action.  It’s how you succeed at bringing out the best in other people and ensuring they are capable, confident and competent.  If you can’t do that, or do it better, then something (or someone) is out of alignment and that might be a big “no” on how you want to look back at 2015 when 2016 rolls around.

Posted by Tracee Garner – Tracee is the Outreach Coordinator Loudoun ENDependence (LEND) and on the Board of Directors for Leadership Loudoun

The list of Tracee’s accomplishments and interests is extensive. She is an award-winning, bestselling author of four fiction titles. She is a dynamic speaker and presenter with a wealth of knowledge and resources. Tracee is the organizer and creator of the Loudoun Writer’s Conference, which is an annual one-day event offered through the Loudoun County Public Library system designed to give aspiring authors the tools to write and publish their own works of fiction. She teaches courses in novel writing and in small business PR and promotion at the Northern Virginia Community College where she has been an instructor since 2004.