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I woke up at 6:30 this morning with that old familiar stress feeling in my stomach. It's never a good sign when you wake up Saturday morning stressed out about what happened over the week. The whole insane structure--more properly, lack of structure--at Youth Venture, combined with the fact that the National Program Manager has moved on and that my boss is traveling and thus out of easy phone contact, has been producing a situation where I'm almost everyone in the National office's go-to girl, as well as my boss's long distance go-to girl. At nine months in, I'm the second most experienced person in the office. The other two VISTAs who started a while ago have specialized departments--development and IT/website--and almost all of the other VISTAs have only been at Youth Venture for under two months. So for general "where is this?" or "how do I proceed on this?" or "make me this" inquiries or requests, I'm the person people come to. The president comes to me. My boss emails me with things she would need to be doing if she weren't travelling. Four and a half VISTAs in the office come to me, and two VISTAs outside the office also occasionaly have requests for me. And then, because I have a lot of other tasks as well, and everyone can see how stressed I am with the amount on my plate, the two VISTAs in charge of our interns end up ceeding them to me.
Since Lorraine, our National Program Manager, left, it always feels like I'm a knowledge hub, but the last two days with my boss gone it's been feeling like I'm the knowledge hub of the National Office. Our President is only an Acting President, so his foot is always out the door. Sarah, the only permanent staff person in the office, is the Director of our Mid-Atlantic region and chooses to focus more on building relationships with the outside world than taking a leadership role in the office. Although she spends time managing the VISTAs who work for her, when she is otherwise occupied, which is a lot, some of her VISTAs tend to come to me. It's troublesome that I'm the knowledge hub and a management hub given that I'm going to be leaving in three months. I hope we'll have gotten a new National Program Manager by then and I trust that the new VISTAs will be more capable of managing themselves by then, but these things only happen in degrees, and even if we've gotten a new Program Manager by then, she won't have learned everything she needs to know.
The past few months have certainly been an interesting way for me to experience management and leadership. Let's just say I feel like I've been able to manage, but I haven't, and shouldn't be, providing leadership. Leadership means providing vision. Leadership is what our president and Sarah and Jen (my boss) are supposed to be providing, but they have been out traveling, or locked in their rooms making phone calls, so much. Leadership is a luxury of people with time not to be doing tasks. I've been doing tasks.
Since Lorraine, our National Program Manager, left, it always feels like I'm a knowledge hub, but the last two days with my boss gone it's been feeling like I'm the knowledge hub of the National Office. Our President is only an Acting President, so his foot is always out the door. Sarah, the only permanent staff person in the office, is the Director of our Mid-Atlantic region and chooses to focus more on building relationships with the outside world than taking a leadership role in the office. Although she spends time managing the VISTAs who work for her, when she is otherwise occupied, which is a lot, some of her VISTAs tend to come to me. It's troublesome that I'm the knowledge hub and a management hub given that I'm going to be leaving in three months. I hope we'll have gotten a new National Program Manager by then and I trust that the new VISTAs will be more capable of managing themselves by then, but these things only happen in degrees, and even if we've gotten a new Program Manager by then, she won't have learned everything she needs to know.
The past few months have certainly been an interesting way for me to experience management and leadership. Let's just say I feel like I've been able to manage, but I haven't, and shouldn't be, providing leadership. Leadership means providing vision. Leadership is what our president and Sarah and Jen (my boss) are supposed to be providing, but they have been out traveling, or locked in their rooms making phone calls, so much. Leadership is a luxury of people with time not to be doing tasks. I've been doing tasks.
