[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 59-04, October - December, 2005 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

Leadership Skills, a new track at COTS

By Lowell Shank, Cardinal District DVP, CSLT

Leadership skills are already an integral part of the following tracks: President, Music and Performance and Chorus Directing. Other tracks incorporate varying amounts of leadership training, however, the Society Leadership requested even more emphasis on Leadership Training at COTS. Why? There appears to be a shortage of trained leaders to take district and Society leadership positions, a situation you may have also experienced at your chapter.

A separate Leadership Skills track, which is new at  COTS this year, will be taught by Bill Hogan, the Barbershopper who designed the track. The curriculum was developed  with input from Larry Lewis and Digger MacDougall, Barbershoppers who are professional leadership instructors and trainers.

The Leadership Development Track major blocks will deal with the leader as a planner, thinker, motivator, person of influence, communicator and teacher.

Five distinctions of a leader are: 1) know the territory; 2) listen, really listen; 3) create an exciting vision; 4) enroll others in your vision; and 5) be unstoppable. Related to this, students will take a test in class to help do a self analysis.

Consider the leadership track an advanced track  for those officers who have attended their specific track previously and think they have no need to attend COTS because there is nothing new to learn. For example, the experienced chapter development officer could learn leadership skills to then become a better candidate for being the next chapter president. Also, chapter counselors and those thinking about being a CC should attend this track.

You can take a computer test titled the Jung Typology Test at home that is computer graded and will help you identify your general life style and your style in activities such as in Barbershopping. This test is a simplified version of the Briggs-Myers Test wherein you are classified using four criteria: 1) extroversion-introversion; 2) sensing-intuition; 3) thinking-feeling and 4) judging-perceiving.

The instructions to take the free test are to enter the following web address: <www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp>. The 72-question test, which involves answering yes or no to each question, will appear. I suggest you copy the test and put your answers on paper as well as on the computer. When I attempt to copy the test with my answers noted, the answers disappear. At the end you click “Score it” and wait.

What appears next is “Your type is xxxx” followed by the words that fit the code. The strength of the preferences is given in percentages, for example a 67 in judging is noted as “distinctly expressed judging personality.” To get a full explanation and interpretation, click on the “description by D. Keirsey” and on the “description by J. Butt.” You will also get a list of famous persons who have the same type as you have.

I encourage all of you to take the Jung Typology Test just to satisfy your own curiosity. Now see how the members of your chapter compare, especially those on the board. For those taking the leadership track at COTS, take the test, and take your printouts to class with you. Students, consider this your assignment. I will be there to check off your homework.     k