Being President of the local chapter of AHDI (AAMT back then
in 1993) was not something I had on my “to do” list. I have never been afraid of hard work or
volunteering my time, and I’m not one to take on a task only if there is
something in it for me. But I love being
the one behind the scenes. I’m great at
details and being that right-hand guy. I
also love that niche—it is a perfect fit for me. As happens so often, and it’s true for most
professional associations, come nomination time, we were having a hard time
finding people to fill in the openings for officers of the chapter. We were close to folding, and I did not want
to see that happen. I knew I could do
the job and also that I would not be handling it all alone, so I decided to
take the leap. I ran for President, and
since I was the only one on the ballot for that particular office, I was pretty
sure I would get it.
I was pretty nervous at that first chapter meeting, even
though I had been to more meetings than I could count and knew the drill. As I mentioned in my previous post, I did
make the mistake of offering my opinion on a discussion we were having before
taking a vote on the matter, and a member came up to me after that meeting and
let me know how atrocious it was that I spoke up and possibly swayed the
vote. Well, okay, she did not use that
word, but that is exactly how she made me feel.
It is always good to learn from your mistakes and not focus just only on
the mistake, so that is what I was going to do and move on from there. It was not the best way to start out my term,
but getting the tough stuff out of the way in the beginning was good, yes?
I was soon to find out that night was a piece of cake. A short time later, I got a letter from an
instructor at a local college extremely upset, and that is putting it mildly,
that a member of the chapter had taken some students through her MT service,
and after the tour, she asked these students to send her comments about their
course of study because she felt the curriculum was inadequate. She went on to ask these students not to let
their instructor know about this. She
even went so far as to hand them a self-addressed stamped envelope. How nice! The instructor was asking me to “take action”
regarding this breach of the AAMT Code of Ethics. I sure picked a great time to be President,
didn’t I. I think I could have found better
ways to test my leadership skills, but this is what I was dealt. Oh, and before I forget, this was also the
same member who let me have it at that meeting I mentioned above, one and the
same!
The first thing I did was stop. Whenever you are thrown into a difficult
situation, your first instinct is to react.
I did not want to do that because that is when it is so easy to make
mistakes. I took 24 hours to think about
what I needed to do. I also was a lot
calmer when I slowed down the emotions and took deep breaths. Next, I called my fellow officers to get
their take and some ideas on how to proceed.
I decided to call the national office, since this was a pretty serious
situation, and I would be representing the association in this matter. They advised me, since this member was in no
way representing AAMT or the local chapter, there was really nothing that could
be done. What she did was not ethical,
but it was also a personal choice, not something remotely related to her
chapter activities. So that is the
approach I took with this college instructor.
I sent her a letter stating as such and explained our
process of any such activities needing to be approved by our Executive Board
and that she would have been notified personally ahead of time before anything
even took place. I also stated that we
at AAMT were so grateful that the school had an MT program and would be happy
to help in any way we could should they ever decide to make any changes or expand their
program. I told her our members would be
reminded to never represent the chapter before getting approval. I included a copy of this letter to the
chapter member, along with a personal note to her to make sure she understood
in no uncertain terms she was not to represent the chapter without permission
and the matter would be closed.
Whew—it worked! I
never heard back from the instructor, and the rest of the year went pretty
smoothly. I even went on to a second term, although I had to resign my position
about half way through the year because that is when I moved to Idaho. I have to say, if I had to do it all over
again knowing what was coming, I think I would have done it anyway. Sure, it is easy to avoid nasty situations
when you can, but it is also a great opportunity to see what you are made
of. It is always interesting to me that
truly you can handle things you would normally think would just not be
possible. I handled it, and I handled it
well!
The icing on the cake was a letter I received from another
chapter member, a lady I have mentioned in previous posts who was my mentor and
also one of the founding members of GAC, who told me she felt I did an
outstanding job with this very difficult matter. That made it so worth it to me, and it’s one
of the reasons I went on to tackle a second term. I still like being that second one on the totem pole, but if I ever
have to be the one who needs to take that top position, I know I’ll be able to
do it and see what new things I can learn about myself. Learning is always the best advantage to
anything that life throws at you, good or bad.
So if you have the chance to work in a leadership capacity, don’t turn
it down. You will be truly amazed at
what you can see, and learn about yourself, from the top.
