 Welcome to the webinar series of the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network, or ECPN, a network of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. My name is Karri Rainer and I am the 2016-2017 webinar coordinator. Today's webinar is entitled Emerging Leaders in Conservation, Developing Leadership Skills of an Early Career Professional. I am really pleased to say that we have 111 registered attendees and we're really excited that there's been so much interest in this topic. Moving on, I am very pleased to introduce our three speakers, Sarah Staniforth, Molly Gleason, and Michelle Piccini. Sarah is the president of IIC and she recently co-talked the workshop at the Winterthur Museum Learning to Lead Training for Heritage Preservation Professionals in April of 2016. Our following speaker, Molly, is a project conservator at the Penn Museum, a professional associate of AIC and a former chair of ECPN. Our third speaker, Michelle, is a paper conservator from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, a fellow of AIC and a former chair of the book and paper specialty group. Before we delve into this topic, I would like to quickly familiarize everyone with the go-to webinar program. You can use the control panel to make modifications to your audio settings, and you can hide the control panel with the orange arrow at the top of your screen. All attendees are automatically muted by the program, but you can communicate with us and ask questions during the webinar through the question box. Although we unfortunately won't have time to answer all of these questions during today's program, we will collect your questions and answer them in a follow-up blog post or session. I'd also like to take a moment to briefly share information about ECPN and our webinar series. ECPN is a network within AIC that is dedicated to supporting conservation professionals in the first stages of their careers. We regularly update our Wiki, Resources for Emerging Conservators, and ECPN is active on the Conservator's Converse blog. In addition to events in different geographic regions aimed at connecting emerging professionals, each year we hold a session at the AIC annual meeting. At the 2017 meeting in Chicago, this will consist of a lightning round poster session showcasing the work of emerging conservators. Please visit our webpage on the AIC website or our Facebook page for more information about the events and resources we offer. Our webinar series includes two webinars each year on topics relevant to emerging conservators. Whether you are pre-program, a graduate student in conservation, or a recent graduate, our goal is to facilitate discussions and to provide information that will help you develop as a conservation professional. Our webinars are all recorded and the full videos are available on the AIC YouTube channel. If you have any ideas for future webinar topics, please feel free to contact ECPN at the email you see on the screen or post suggestions on the ECPN Facebook group. So now let's turn to today's program. We're going to begin with Sarah Staniforth, who will discuss leadership styles, speak about leadership qualities, and provide tips for effective leadership. Sarah, if you'd like to begin. Okay. Thank you, Carrie. And good afternoon, everyone. Good morning to you, to those of you for whom it's still before noon. Next slide, please. As Carrie said, I'm going to start off by just saying a little bit about what we covered at the Learning to Lead workshop that was held in winter tour in April this year. And we had 58 participants at that workshop, which was considerably more than the 24 that we planned for, but it was great to have so many people there to realize how much interest there was in this subject. And at the workshop, we covered a little bit about leadership types, which I'm going to give a summary of this morning, and also leadership skills. And then I'll talk about my own personal leadership journey and top tips for success. And then I'll finish up by saying what I think the next steps might be after this webinar. So next slide, please. So the Learning to Lead workshop was held at winter tour and was organized jointly by the Winter Tour Museum, Garden Library, and the University of Delaware. And it was organized by Joelle Wickens, who you probably know, teachers on the postgraduate conservation course at winter tour. And she is also the Preventive Conservator for the Winter Tour Museum. And also Bob Norris, who is a professional leadership trainer. And so he gave us really useful information on general leadership principles. Next slide, please. Starting off with leadership types. And we ran through a number of leadership types and discussed when they might be appropriate. And I think it's important to say right from the start that there is no single correct leadership type, even for one individual, that leadership responds to the situation that you find yourself in. Or the position that you find yourself in. And that we discussed under the sort of headline of situational leadership. But within that, at different times, you might adopt anyone of the following leadership types. And of course there are others as well, but these are the main ones which we discussed. So the first is the leader by position achieved. And that, I guess, equates to seniority within an organization, whether it's the chief executive, the director, the head of department, etc. The second is leader by personality. And those are those sort of charismatic and inspirational people. I don't know, people like Richard Branson, who heads up Virgin in the UK. And then leader by moral example. And I suppose the most obvious people who fall into this bracket would be religious leaders. But you also find leaders by moral example in other professions as well. Leader by power held. I suppose the most common form of that would be politicians who've been elected to their positions. Leaders who can influence others to follow. And those are those people who are so persuasive that regardless of what position they've achieved, and they could be quite junior in an organization or an individual, people want to follow them because they have a message that really appeals to people. And then intellectual leaders who lead by their brightened power and their understanding of knowledge and experience of a particular profession. And then leaders by ability to get things done. I guess those would be the people who are leading as managers. So we discussed all of those leadership types. And we also thought about scenarios in which a particular form of leadership might be appropriate. And I will come back to that when I talk about my top tips. So now let's get on and talk about leadership skills, which are in the next slide please. And so these are some of the skills that we thought about. And I'm sure they'll be very familiar to you. The first of course is effectiveness. So whichever leadership type you're using for a particular situation, it's using it effectively and understanding what buttons need to be pressed to achieve the goals of that particular leadership task. The second, I can't emphasize this enough, is communication skills and also of course related to that listening skills. And when I talk about listening skills, it's really active listening. So it's not those people who when you're talking to them, they're sort of looking over your shoulder at the next person who they think they want to talk to. It's really focusing on what people are saying to you and showing that you're listening, both by looking at them and also by making responses which just demonstrate listening. And then delegation, really important particularly as helping people to develop. So it's costing employers to do a good job and really giving them tasks and then letting them get on with it and praising them if they do a good job. But also if things don't go as well as they might, using that as a learning experience and using it as an opportunity to do a bit of coaching and mentoring to help that person do a delegated task better the next time. And flexibility and understanding. So that's really responding to a particular situation, not just setting out and carrying on regardless. Coaching and working collaboratively and of course working collaboratively ties in with teamwork that I've always also listened. And that's the whole business about really understanding a team and helping a team and all the team members to do the best job that they possibly can. Emotional intelligence and empathy and that's becoming more and more important as a leadership's quality and that's really building on that understanding of people and what makes them tick and empathizing with their situation. Teamwork, no one person can do something to achieve goals on their own. They always need to be working with other people. And then finally, this is not an exclusive list but finally for this list the importance of an even temperament so that people know what they're getting that you respond in the same way, a consistent way every time not sort of leaping to conclusions or making rapid decisions. So top tips for me, next slide please. And these relate really to two different stages of my career. For really nearly 20 years in my role at the National Trust I operated as an advisor and as an advisor I had no management responsibilities but nevertheless it was possible to lead in an influential way to ensure that my advice was listened to. And so the first top tip is to really understand the difference between leadership and management and it may be that some formal training can help with that. The second is to hone those soft skills and those soft skills of communication, emotional, intelligence, active listening and influence which I've already mentioned. They're not necessarily born with them, it really helps to practice them and you can practice them consciously by asking a coach or a mentor to work on them with you or you can practice them in your everyday work just by thinking to yourself well how am I going to really actively listen to this colleague who's explaining something to me or asking my advice. And then the third thing is to really understand your organization and I am aware that not all of you will be working for large organizations so I want to just touch a little bit on smaller organizations and individuals at some point but for those of you in large organizations it's really important to understand your organization and understand what other people's jobs are and what their priorities are. It's not all about conservation in a big organization. Management will have other priorities which will include for example visitor experience and financial sustainability and really understanding where they're coming from helps you achieve your aims. And then practice change management. And a lot of leadership is about helping people through periods of change and again you don't have to be the director or chief executive of an organization to be bringing about a bit of change. You could be bringing about a bit of conservation change and thinking about how you influence people to go through that change can be very helpful. And then the fifth thing when you're like you're waiting for a formal leadership position is to have some formal leadership training and I think that we may want to think about what leadership of training is available for conservators perhaps in the Q&A or following up on this webinar. And next slide please. My next set of top tips really came from when I was in a position of either managing a department or being on the senior management team of the National Trust which was the organization for which I worked nearly 30 years. And so these applied when I was in the role of historic properties director, well first of all head conservator then historic properties director then museums and collections director. And these were the things that I find really helpful. First of all to have a mentor and that mentor is usually someone in your own profession as opposed to a coach who is able to help more generally with personal development. A mentor is someone with whom you can discuss your goals and think about the ways that you need to develop in order to achieve those goals. And then to broaden networks to reflect the role. So when I moved from being head conservator having had a very good network in the conservation world I needed to broaden my networks to reflect my historic properties position which included archaeology, buildings conservation, gardens and parks conservation. So quite a broad array that I needed a new network to reflect that role. And then moving into senior management it was extremely important to understand the government of my organization and to influence those people who were involved with governments which of course were the trustees and the experts on the various advisory panels. And for any organization, this is part of understanding the organization. You need to understand governance as well which really helps with getting your message across at whatever level you are in the organization. And then the importance, the real importance of employee development and succession planning. So thinking about who is going to step into your shoes as you are promoted or move from the organization. It really is rewarding for employees to feel that their managers are interested in their development and also in their career goals and then of course finally to plan your next role. So to think about where do you want to be in five years time, even where do you want to be in ten years time and to work towards those goals, perhaps using a mentor to help you to do that. And my final slide is a summary of what we felt were the next steps after the winter tour workshop but I think that may well still apply and we can think about working on this following this webinar. So the first thing that I think we need more sort of opportunities to learn about is the real difference between leadership and management and that probably is best achieved on a formal leadership course. Help with finding a mentor and or a coach and that can be done within professional networks and of course developing networks. You have an absolutely wonderful network for the EPCN and of course there are equally good networks in AIC and of course in IIC. And we touched on gender issues, sort of recognizing the fact that conservation is becoming an increasingly female profession but the leadership doesn't necessarily balance the gender balance of the wider profession and then related to that thinking about work-life balance and how you ensure that you have time for yourself and time for your personal life and indeed time for reflection because one of the things that people find most difficult is really the time to think about themselves and their development. And then a bit more about the smaller institutions. We don't all work for large institutions. Some work for very small museums and some people work for themselves. So what does leadership mean? What does leadership look like for those people? And at the workshop we touched on personality types and recognized you absolutely don't need to be an extrovert and so understanding other people's personality types really helps with team building and finally building confidence and really supporting people which we can do through mentoring and other networks and of course how do you do succession planning? How do you think about who's going to follow you and their development needs? So Carrie, that's me finished and I guess it'll be on to Molly next. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's such a privilege to get to hear about your experiences and I really do hope that some of these points you bring up on the last slide we can address with resources after the webinar perhaps. Our next speaker, Molly Gleason, will introduce some real-life examples from her own personal experiences with leadership and outreach. Thank you so much, Carrie. I'm really honored to be speaking in this webinar with Sarah and Michelle and with the time that I have I'd like to talk about my personal experiences and motivations. While I often feel like the course my career has taken has developed organically, when I reflect on things I can clearly see that I've relied on and used several leadership principles which have shaped some of my decision-making and resulted in opportunities. Next slide, please. So going to focus on me is five things. Know yourself, know your strengths and know what you want. Seek out mentors throughout your career. Volunteering for and saying yes to things. Connecting, developing relationships and empowering others. And engage with people in positions of power and influence. Next slide, please. So I'm going to start out with Know yourself. A few years ago I was facing a difficult decision. As you can see by the star I was in San Diego. I was four years out of graduate school and in San Diego for mostly personal reasons. And I was trying to figure out a way to make a career for myself there. And my options were mostly private practice and contract work. But every time I tried to dive into these efforts and really commit to them, something just didn't feel right. I really, really wanted more day-to-day mentorship, especially at this point in my career. I wanted colleagues and I really wanted to work in a collection. I also like teaching outreach a lot. I'm really drawn to that. So I was filling in the gaps in the private practice work with these opportunities. But despite the occasional rewards I was feeling through these efforts. I just wasn't thriving. I felt stuck and uninspired. I kept thinking if someone else was in my shoes they would be more successful. And that wasn't helping either. So I went to AIC that year. A colleague I really respect suggested I apply for a job at the Penn Museum. It wasn't a no-brainer. It was working on the Egyptian collection which I had very little experience with. It also was only a one-year contract position and it was 3,000 miles away. But it did have some benefits which were it was a job at a museum, a university museum with possible opportunities to connect the students and faculty. And it included a lot of outreach. So I discussed this decision extensively. I took a leap of faith. I applied. And I was off of the job and I took it. Next slide please. It really, oh sorry if you could just go back one time, one slide. Just for a moment. It meant leaving behind great colleagues and friends and other possible opportunities that I was excited about. But it ended up being a really good decision for me. Next slide please. Not only have I learned a ton in this job, but it has really allowed me to use and develop my strengths and interests in outreach and teaching. And most importantly, that one-year position has now turned into a position that was recently renewed for another four years. But to get here I really had to put aside what I felt like I should be doing and remember to focus on knowing myself, knowing my strengths, and knowing what I value. Next slide please. So seeking out mentors. I mentioned mentors already and I cannot emphasize enough how important these relationships have been to me in my career. I've been so fortunate to have had the guidance of so many wonderful conservators throughout my career. Some of these relationships were set up just by chance. I happened to take an internship with somebody who was a great mentor and still is. But then there are other mentors who I clearly sought out because I wanted to align myself with them the way that they work. I wanted to learn from them. And I credit so many of the opportunities that I've had to the encouragement and advisement of these mentors in my career. So a good example is my previous role for two years as the chair of ECPN. I didn't pounce on this opportunity to be honest with you. It was suggested by a good mentor of mine that I apply. And she strongly encouraged me to apply. I was a little uncertain at first. I didn't really know what I was going to get myself into. But it turned out to be such an important experience from a leadership perspective, getting to know how an AIC committee works, getting to implement some meaningful projects, and really getting to connect with colleagues that otherwise I wouldn't have had the opportunity to connect with in this way. I am really grateful to have mentors who make suggestions and provide encouragement for me to challenge myself and to step up into leadership roles. Next slide, please. So what I just said ties in with another important quality that I think has opened doors for me. And this is volunteering for and saying yes to things. A lot of times I volunteer for things because I know it will be appreciated. This includes saying yes to simple things. But also to things that maybe are a little bit more difficult to commit to or you're uncertain about. So as an example, the summer after my first year in graduate school at UCLA, I volunteered to assist with an FAIC-funded Adhesives Workshop at the gate. And I volunteered to do the prep work for this because it had some obvious tangible benefits. It allowed me to sit in on the workshop at no cost whenever I didn't have to be doing other things. It also included a small stipend and these were really wonderful for being a graduate student. But the unexpected benefits were that I formed some really wonderful relationships with the conservators who were attending the workshop. And these relationships have continued to this day and turned into people who have mentored me, actually. And they've resulted in work opportunities that I'm really passionate about, including teaching basket care workshops in Northern California to basket weavers and organizing sessions and workshops for archeologists through the Society for California Archeology. And this all came from volunteering for something completely unrelated. Next slide, please. So there are a couple things I know define my personality and also my career choices. And one thing is that I really value getting along well with others. And the second thing is that I have a strong desire to connect with people outside of the conservation community and to make our work relevant to other people. Working to build relevance requires being a good listener, developing trust and respect, seeking collaboration and partnership, balancing different perspectives and needs, and working to empower and engage other people. And these are also good leadership principles and they should be applied to our work relationships as well. I have been put into the position of having to lead people, sometimes when I'm asked to supervise interns. And then there are times when I realize that I need to step up as a leader. A lot of that that I've learned about being a good leader has come from just emulating other leaders that I observed, good leaders. Then there are other situations where it's a little bit more difficult to prepare. And as an example, when I first moved to San Diego, I had a grant funded position at a small museum. And when I started, I was warned by many people in the collection staff about somebody who worked in collections who was difficult to work with and required a lot of special attention. So I got to know him a little bit and I started to realize he was being asked to do things that he knew very little about and he was really being given no guidance at all. So I spent some time getting to know this person and I realized that what we're seeing as difficult qualities were in fact some really valuable qualities. He's a great researcher. He took a lot of pride in his work. He took guidance well and he took his work seriously. So I ended up working with him to develop this project, giving him some more guidance along the way. And he ended up leading a really important project for our department. And by the time I left, he was really one of my favorite people there. And from this and many other experiences, I've learned the value of taking the time to get to know people, to connect with them and empowering them often by providing them with the opportunity to lead themselves. Next slide, please. So we are not often in the position to be engaging with our organization directors or board members or people who are funding the work that we do. I recognize that I am in a unique position at the Penn Museum. I work in the Public Conservation Lab, which puts me in the position to be the face of the ambassador for our lab and our field. The lab is a readily accessible place for our colleagues to visit and to bring potential visitors, donors, scholars, and for schools and university groups. I know that when the museum director or development team brings somebody into that area, I know what that could mean. But sometimes you just never know how you might influence somebody. In fact, it was through an interaction I had with the family visiting on their own nearly three years ago that led to a relationship with them and ultimately this family's commitment to fund the lab and my position for a total of six years now. In this instance, I had no idea that I was engaging with a family who could provide this type of support. But I learned that by bringing enthusiasm to what I do, no matter who I'm talking to, can make a huge impact on others, can excite them and inspire them about our work, about the museum, and even about their own life and their pursuits. But getting back to engaging with those who you know are in positions of power and influence. I recently attended the Learning to Lead workshop at Winster earlier this year and it really gave me more of a language to use when talking about leadership. It crystallized some ideas for me. At the end of the workshop, we were all asked to write down one concrete thing that we would do when we would go back to work the following week. So I thought of a very concrete and pretty easy thing that I could do which was to go to our museum director's office hours, which he holds weekly, but I had never attended, to tell him about the workshop. I thought he might be interested to know that this was a topic that conservators and conservators from our department were interested in. And not only was he interested, but in coordination with my supervisor, he offered to continue my professional development in this area and he supported my enrollment in the first of a series of leadership courses offered by Penn and I've just started that first series. So just to conclude briefly, today I've gotten to hear me reflect a little bit on my career, my strengths and values and some leadership principles that I've followed. It's been so incredibly valuable for me to do this, especially as I think about moving forward in my career. And I really encourage all of you to do the same sort of self-reflection and self-evaluation as you think about how you would like to move forward and apply some leadership principles into your careers as well. And then I have one more slide, just with two recommendations of reading material. One is this book, Quiet by Susan Cain, which really speaks to the idea that you don't need to be an extrovert to be a leader. And then secondly, this book by Nina Simon, Art of Relevance. I mentioned Relevance. This book isn't specifically about leadership, but rather her speak actually about this book. She was so engaging. And I think that this topics brought up in this book have a lot of relevance when we're talking about leadership principles. So that is it for me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Molly. It's incredible to hear about your personal challenges and successes and you've done a fantastic job connecting that to some of the broader concepts that we're talking about. So thank you so much. Our final speaker is Michelle Piccini, who will focus on professional development and growth as well as successful workplace communication. Thanks so much, Kari. Gosh, this has been really wonderful. I'm so pleased to be part of this really great panel. So what I'd like to bring to the discussion is really talking about leadership in the workplace. I personally have been working for Art Museums for over 20 years now, and much of my time has been spent with really wonderful mentors and people that I've watched over the years be very successful with negotiating with their colleagues as managers, navigating difficult projects, trying to bring really good things, good fruition from day to day. And so I'd like to share with you different leadership skills that you may be presented with or can hone throughout your career as Sarah said in the kickoff of this. We aren't all born to lead right away. There are different stages of our development. We all come into the field as pre-program interns. We go to graduate school. We have our fellowships. We have our first jobs. Each of these roles that we have at different times of our career, we have different opportunities to hone our skills, valuable time to think about who we are, what we want to do, where our careers are going to go. So thinking about opportunities for career growth over time, how can I make the best of what's available to me at this stage of my career? When you're in pre-program, you're going to have a very different day-to-day tasks than let's say when you're in your graduate program or when you have your first job. Think about where are you, what's available to you right now at this moment? What is the best use of my time? Perhaps if I'm in a fellowship that's a three-year fellowship, I need to think about what do I want to get out of this opportunity and how can I plan that? Who can help me grow? What mentors can I identify around me to help me get to my goals? And what skills do I have right now that I can share? This is a really important point for me. I love watching the intern come into my workplace who has such a command for something, whatever that specialty is, whatever that strength is that they're really good at, and they shine and you see it, and everybody always wants to tap into that. And as far as for the ECPN for Emerging Professionals, this time in your life, when you're first starting out in your career, you have enthusiasm. You have time to hone these skills. You have time to think about what maybe a specialty will be for you, what appeals to you, and I really encourage you to think about honing your leadership skills through all of those avenues. So here's the skill set that I see for people that I really appreciate as leaders around me in the museum field. And really, these can all happen in all stages of your career. This isn't just for people that are in charge. This is for everybody to have all the way through. Always have short and long-term personal goals. This is so important. I think we always have to be thinking about how can I successfully do this thing that I've identified for me. And when I say for me, I mean you as your best advocate, you know in the job that you're in or the job that you think that you want, what skills you need to hone. But you are the only one who can decide what it is that your long-term goal should be or that short-term goal. As Sarah mentioned earlier in this discussion, listening, active listening, this is really difficult for a lot of people in general. Listening is hard. Most people come to conversations with their minds already made up. If you can come to a meeting, if you can come to a person and really not think about your own initiative at the moment, but just think about what it is that they're saying, those are very, very powerful skill sets to have that are going to help you later. Make yourself available. You never know what opportunities are going to come down the road. And if you're open to them, you'll find them, you'll see them. If you're prepared, this is a big one. I really appreciate when my colleagues come into my meeting and they've really thought about the subject and they're coming with something to offer. This shines leadership skill right there. Be confident in your ideas and express them well. People really like well-thought-out conversations. And if you're prepared, you are able to offer this to your solution, to your project. Offer creative solutions. I really believe when lots of people come with different ideas, you have a really wonderful outcome. This is far superior than everybody having the same idea and not really kicking the can forward. Now, in order to do this, you have to offer creative solutions. And everybody loves creative solutions, but you have to be prepared if people don't necessarily want them, or they don't necessarily work out. So this takes really a level of confidence to not only offer up a creative solution, but then to really be able to take on the compromise of perhaps that not being chosen. But I guarantee you a creative solution always pushes ideas forward. Transparency is key when you're working with others. People want sincerity. You have a lot more opportunity to compromise with people and instill confidence in people when they see that you're coming wanting the job to go well. Knowledge and respect are earned, and this takes time. It takes time to be really good at something. It takes time to hone your skills, but it also takes time for people to recognize that you're working toward that and that you are prepared and that you are confident with your advice. So exemplify dependability. See potential in your colleagues and find a way to work well together. This is really important. We want to see what is the strength in all the people that we're working with. And Molly really exemplified that when she talked about her collections care person. Celebrate the success of others. It's so nice for everybody at the end of a project to really come to a place where they feel like things went well and they did it together. So recipe for success in the workplace. This is my sort of boil down list of things that I think are really important. Put yourself in other people's shoes. What are your colleagues goals? What does the project require? If you can balance these two things, you're really ahead of the game. Just understanding what's the strengths that other people are bringing and what are the kinds of things that will motivate them to help you. You really have to think about things from the other person's perspective to get good at this. Create solutions that motivate everyone. One person can't win. When you're coming to a project with lots of different people, you have to compromise. But again, you have to identify what are those shared goals and how do we get this job done. This helps you to figure out how do I motivate the team so everybody walks away with something. There are always point persons and information for projects. You need to respect other people's assignments and boundaries while being helpful. Now this really requires some emotional intelligence to understand that you can bring advice to a project and you can try to be very helpful. But then you also don't want to take away somebody else's power if they're a manager in the situation. I think this is really important for emerging professionals and how they can really contribute to a team even if they're not in charge of, let's say, that project. Also, this is my favorite. You can't be at every meeting so your colleagues are your representatives and power them. If you've earned your colleagues respect and trust and people know what it is and want and need and understand your goals, they'll help you support them even when you're not there. And that's a really, really powerful way to tap into strengths of other people. So communication is hard. You're going to disagree with people. So maintaining your relationships, it's like being a gardener. You have to find balance with the nature around you. Be kind to your colleagues. People are sensitive to criticism. I find that people in creative fields such as conservation are really filled with very empathetic people who feel really deeply. So keep this in mind. People are sensitive to criticism. How can you bring your advice and bring your strengths and bring service without necessarily making people feel like they're being criticized? Again, this is emotional intelligence at its best and this is definitely a skill to hone. Forgive. We all occasionally say things we don't mean. And this is a two-way street. Sometimes it will be me. Sometimes it will be you. But we all need to come together and decide that we're going to move forward and we're not going to linger or hang into bad feelings. Don't forget, you want to change. People grow and change just like you. This is good for everyone. We can't put people in a box and leave them behind. We want to grow. We want other people to grow. Recognize others for a job well done. Thank your colleagues. We are rarely successful without the help of others. People want to be seen and they want to be heard. Supporting the people whose names are not at the top of the project. Really letting people know that they were part of the success. Everyone wants to be recognized for their work. Never take credit for everything and not give credit to your colleagues. I find this is a really painful management mistake. You want to keep people's respect. You want to earn that respect. And you can't do that by taking all the credit. You have to give thanks. And if your motivation is truly the success of a project, then your tone is always positive and is always inclusive for your peers. You are working for the team and the team wants to work for you. So, here are the keys. Envision goals for yourself. Plan a path for your short and long term success. I cannot overemphasize how important this is for you as a leader and for you to be successful. But don't forget, be flexible and open to the opportunity. You never know when the call will come and it will be a wonderful opportunity for you. Sometimes you can't see it right away. But if you're open to it, you will. Know your strengths. Periodically check in with yourself. This is so hard to do. We never set time aside for us to really think about how we want to grow and what our goals are going to be. But you need to do it. And also think about, what do I need to improve? Sometimes a mentor can help you with this. What skills should I develop further? Think about it for yourself. Sit down. Write a list. This is really important. Know yourself. Now after you think you've identified those things, talk to your peers. Talk about your professional development. Diversify this group. It can't just be people that love you. You have to talk to people that you think will bring you a really honest, neutral opinion. And if you disagree with them, sometimes that just hardens your true idea about what it is that you want. So think about all of these things as you're diversifying your mentor group and the people that are going to help you move forward. Connect with people. Ask good, thoughtful questions and engage. I love good interns that come into my lab and it's a two-way street. Not only are they giving me advice and talking to me about things that they've learned or done or what they've had, but they're also asking really good questions and this always leads to really interesting conversations and growth I think for everybody. Tap into conferences, workshops, visit labs, join these online discussions. I think these are all ways to really grow your network which both Sara and Molly talked about the importance of. So one of my number one things when I'm on a project is leave with a task list. So this is my task list for you. Things you can do right now. Everybody can sit down, make an appointment with themselves and have a self-assessment. Find peers, ask peers that you trust and mentors for that growth advice. Write down your short and long-term goals. My next point that I think is always really helpful for people is to pay attention to the job market. Keep your resume current and ready and become aware of the trends in the field. Sometimes people are hiring lots of conservation scientists. Sometimes you see a lot of photo conservator jobs. Look at all the preservation trends. See where the jobs are. Are they on the east or on the west? Is the Midwest booming right now? Look at all of those patterns and think about how that applies to you. Also applying for jobs gives you the opportunity to make decisions. In the end, this actualizes the job you really want. Sometimes it's parts of many jobs that you've seen, but identifying those things and how that fits in with your short and long-term goals is really important. Right now, you can participate in your professional organization. Most members of AIC can upgrade their professional designation right now. That requires you talking to people, finding mentors, updating your resume, figuring out where is it that you can grow. What are your strengths? Upgrading your membership is a really good way to have this appointment with yourself. Becoming involved and giving your time and expertise is so rewarding and again, expands your network and your skill set. I really encourage you all to volunteer within the organization. Certainly here in America, the AIC and Mali Specialty Groups provides many, many opportunities to do that, not to mention with all our online resources. So, just to summarize everything that Sarah and Mali and I, this is really the boiled down slide. Listen. So important. So hard, but really important. Active listening. Trying to figure out what's happening around you and taking in all that information and using that tasks toward being a better leader. Build trust. It is really important for your colleagues to know that your advice is good and you've earned everybody's trust and that you are dependable and prepared. Look at the perspectives of all the players on the project and the team. This is such a powerful component to compromise and getting things done. Inspire. Everybody loves an inspirational leader and if you have really some things to say that will really get the group going or really get the creative juices flowing, this is always a great thing to add to any discussion. Grow professionally and take others with you. It's so much more powerful to have this network of colleagues around you who've earned their trust, who know your strengths, who understand your leadership skills and then it's a two-way street. You want to tap into that and you want to tap into your colleagues' strengths and their leadership skills. But ultimately, you are your best advocate. You have to do that self-assessment. You have to identify those paths for yourself for how to continue to improve your strengths and know it is where you want to go in the future. Thank you so much Michelle. What fantastic advice and I'm actually going to linger on this last slide because this is such an incredible summary that I talked about today. I think we do have a few minutes for maybe just for one question. One of the questions that we received earlier is whether the speakers feel they've sought out most of their leadership experiences or whether they fell into them and have they ever turned down leadership roles and if so, why? So, Michelle, maybe we could start with you. Well, I think for me personally I've always worked in art museums and I've always been attracted to working with really a group of creative people and the idea of working together for preservation was something that I always found strengthened. And as my career unfolded my pre-program work and then going into graduate school I was always preparing myself to go into private practice. So, I had my sort of pie in the sky goal of being a permanent employee at an art museum but I always had three or four things going in the background in case that didn't work out. So, you know, slowly acquire equipment. I actually always was working in private practice. I constantly had a treatment. I always had tools to work with the public figuring out what kind of documents I needed and insurances and things like that. So, for me personally I was always working in the round. So, I always had that 10-year goal but I sort of always had a safety net and trying to figure out what was the strength of my character and how could I make that work in the scenario that I had. I do think so much of our opportunities you know they even flow you never know what's going to come up. I've you know, had colleagues that have been so strong at so many things and I think, gosh, you know, why isn't this person in this position? Why hasn't something come up yet? And you know, you never know where the chips will fall but you can always make the best of what you're given. And I think that's really important is to feel like you're never sort of taken by the flow and you do have some control in your life and you can sort of push through and do those things that you consider important things that you want to do. So, yes, I think it's hard and things change and there's a lot of factors but I think you always have to for yourself feel like you made the good decisions you know, you have to own your decisions and you can only do that if you've identified when the one comes up that you want. Thank you so much. Those are fantastic points. Molly, how about you? You seem to allude to this a little bit in your presentation of falling into leadership positions versus seeking them out. Yeah, I do think that that's true. However, you know, as Michelle was speaking I was thinking about how falling into these things doesn't mean that they just come your way without doing anything not usually anyway. Something that I've been really appreciative of in my current job is that I have been given the space to show or to demonstrate the skills that I have and the interests that I have which may not apply directly to my day-to-day work and so I've been given opportunities or offered opportunities for my supervisor to assist with or work on and take on leadership roles on some other projects that have come up. So, I mean, in one way I've fallen into them but actually I do think that it took an active demonstration on my part to speak up about what I'm interested in and to be an active participant in the conversations. And about turning down leadership positions I can say that one time I did do this. Sometimes you have to think about all the things that are on your plate and when things come your way a couple of years ago I was asked if I would be willing to run for a position on the board of an organization and I just felt like I had too much on my plate and I was very concerned about what I could commit to and so I didn't do it but I knew that there was going to be giving me another year and I'll be ready to do it and so I have now saw that those opportunities. Thanks Molly, that's really great. How about you Sarah? Sarah are you with us? Yes I am but I lost you for a minute. Just for me like Molly I have turned down leadership positions mainly in trustee type positions because I've had to think very carefully about whether I've got enough time to give to them and I think it's always hopeless if you take on too much so I think knowing your own capacity and this goes back to my work-life balance point that in a way it's irresponsible to take on too many things at a particular time if you know that you can't dedicate enough time to them but as far as seeking out leadership positions yes on the whole I have applied for roles which have been in my initial medium and long-term plans and I have sort of looked for the development opportunities to make myself ready for them but one more thing I just wanted to say about this work-life balance issue is that when I was quite early on in my career with the National Trust the head of conservation job came up the head conservator job came up but I was on the alternative and I really felt that I couldn't cope with taking on a senior job at that stage and that actually put my career back by over 10 years and this is one of the things that I think women have to think quite carefully about and I don't know how many of the people listening are women but I guess for those of you who have reached that time in your careers when you're thinking about family it really is a difficult decision to make about career and family and how you plan that and I think this is one of the ways in which having someone maybe another woman who's been through that could really help you and I'm a member in the UK of the Women Leaders in Museum Network and that group has been very helpful to members of the group in talking all of those sort of work life balance issues through. Thanks Carrie. You know this is Michelle I also want to say that there's such a great advantage to I think having a balanced workforce and having people at different stages of their career because you may have someone who their children are grown they do have a leadership position within the department but then to be able to support women that perhaps have small children because you understand the things that they're going through at that point in their career and again the enthusiasm of a fellow that's there who doesn't have children who's right out of school. I think all those parts in your career are valid their leadership positions in ways you can hone your skills at every level and I think as a group we need to be kind and really think about how all of our colleagues have something to offer at all of these stages no matter where they are as women or men or family or whatever the version of the theme is I think everybody has something really really good to contribute. Thank you Michelle these are such good points and I hope we can follow up more with this in some sort of you know after the webinar post or session I hope we can address some more of these issues. I think we're unfortunately out of time for more questions but once again we will have some sort of follow up responding to questions we receive during the webinar and we have some additional resources we're planning on posting including a bibliography related to leadership if you have any additional questions in the meantime or suggestions for future webinar topics I would really encourage you to email