CLASSROOM REFLECTION

Masters Class Session One Class Reflection by Kris Carpenter, Class of 2018, Masters 2019 – Billings

Walking into the conference room at the spectacular Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, I felt the same apprehension I did when I began my first experience with Leadership Montana in Big Sky. What had I signed up for?

Preparation for our LMT Master Class began before we arrived. We had completed a leadership self- analysis and a 360-degree leadership assessment that was filled out by our employees, co-workers, direct reports & bosses to establish our leadership behaviors and our effectiveness as a leader.

During our three days, under the skilled direction of our facilitator, Amy Savage-president of Fine Points Leadership, we dug into our Leadership Assessment reports together. It was such a unique and rare opportunity to spend time focused on our own leadership styles. This deep dive took us on a journey to begin to get clarity and understanding and we began to work on our personal leadership challenges.

We were reminded that we must completely understand ourselves first before we can effectively lead anyone else – whether in our businesses or our community.

We continued learning about how our skills – or our skills in need of development – show up. Using the 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership from the Leadership Challenge training we uncovered how these affect us professionally and personally in our interactions with those in our lives.

This definition of what leadership is from Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner really said it best: “Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” It sums up what Leadership Montana represents and how our shared aspirations and desires for them are what bring us together.

These three days were extremely challenging and helpful. Allowing us to become vulnerable and honest are some of the things Leadership Montana does so well with its orchestrated and thought out sense of space and place.

I walked out of the conference room on the last day with a sense of purpose and a plan to achieve that purpose. This was an experience that delivered so much value and I am so grateful I took advantage of it!