So when Oakland County Commissioner Mattie Hatchett appointed her to the Women's Commission for Oakland County, Spann wanted to represent her community and be the best commissioner she could be. When a notice circulated among commissioners about a leadership training program, she jumped at the opportunity.
"I felt I could use some additional training, because I didn't think I was qualified. I was on a quest for knowledge," said Spann, who works for Oakland Schools' JobLink Career Center. "I wanted to bring as much as I could to the table."
The application process required her to send in a resume, a photo and a narrative explaining what she felt she would bring to the program and what she expected to take away from it. Not only was Spann accepted into the Michigan Go Run leadership program, sponsored by The White House Project the weekend of May 30, she received a scholarship to attend. "When I got that back, I was delighted," she recalled.
She was even more delighted by the event itself, which was held in Lansing. Speakers addressed a variety of issues that challenge women who want to take a greater leadership role. "They explained what politics was all about and what we, as women, could bring to the table," Spann said.
Workshops: A surprising connection
After a "meet and greet" and group session Friday evening, Saturday consisted of individual workshops and the event wrapped on Sunday with group sessions, including one with Michigan Women's Commission Executive Director Judy Karandjeff. One of the Saturday presenters, Nikhol Atkins, serves with Spann on the Women's Commission. Spann didn't make the connection until a subsequent commission meeting, but said she found Atkins a "dynamic" speaker.
Promoting activism and community involvement has been a natural career path for Atkins, who has worked with the South Oakland NAACP and the chair of the Wayne County Commission. "All of the positions I held were community outreach in one way or another," she said. "That's the path it seems my life has taken."
Her most recent position, as outreach manager with the Center for Progressive Leadership in Michigan, led to her presenting at the Lansing event. "Shannon Garrett of The White House Project reached out to us," she explained. "She wanted ot create relationships with other organizations, and we offered to help with the training."
With 120 people in the room, Atkins launched into a presentation that was not the usual kind of "how to run for office" speech. Rather than a list of dos and don'ts for field work, messaging and fund-raising, Atkins talked about building leadership from the ground up. The leadership pyramid, based in work done by George Lakoff and The Rockridge Institute, starts with a values, applies values to an issue and results in a policy. Leaders who valued equality, for instance, looked at workplace issues and came up with the policy of affirmative action.
"Everybody says 'I live my values', but some would argue that's why we have a crisis in leadership," Atkins said. "People aren't leading from their values."
More training offered
The White House Project training encourages people who have not traditionally had access to power to seek out leadership positions, she added. "It gives them the tools and the opportunity to meet people they normally would not meet. You get to see people who look like you and who don't look like you, but who have the same problems as you."
Spann found the training so encouraging, that she has applied for a fellowship through the Center for Progressive Leadership. The year-long intensive training would prepare her for taking a greater role in leadership, although she isn't sure yet what that role might be. She does, however, know where it will be, because her heart really is in Pontiac, her hometown. While she and her children were educated in Pontiac, her grandchildren are in West Bloomfield schools.
"But that doesn't change my feeling about the children of Pontiac," she said. "These are our children, this is our city. If there's something I can do to make a contribution, that's what I want to do. The workshop has helped me to be that much bolder in what I say...I stand for the children in our community."
For Atkins, the rewards come in living her own values, but also in the people she met in Lansing. She was particularly touched by a woman who approached her after the workshop.
"She had tears in her eyes," Atkins recalled with great emotion. "She said, 'I want to thank you for being a woman and for being African-American and representing the way you did.'." An Olympic trainer from Illinois, the woman found herself challenged by the question, "Why do you do what you do?". She finally came to realize her mission was not only physical training, but helping girls feel better about themselves. That's exactly the kind of outcome Atkins aims for in her work.
"That's what I get out of this," she said. "I'm living my values."
--JH-G
No comments:
Post a Comment