Leadership Lessons on the Fly

We had another election, a runoff,? this week in San Francisco, actually only one district of San Francisco to fill a vacant State Assembly seat.

I volunteer as a Poll Inspector. It’s a long day, 15+ hours. It reminiscent of the old hackathons, except you don’t get to choose or meet your team. Just a quick phone call or text to confirm they’ll be on time.

We already have our project and detailed instructions for completing the project on time. But, we don’t know each other’s skillsets, experience, personalities, or preferences.

We are united in our mission to enable “democracy at work”.?

Within minutes, we have to coalesce into a co-operative team, each receiving specific worksheets of tasks with the critical responsibility of meeting a non-negotiable deadline.

With just one hour of preparation, we open for business, collaborating in a series of tasks and responsibilities that must be carried out flawlessly, always sensitive to our “customers”’ needs, communicating with empathy with those customers and each other over the course of a long day.

Then, we completely unwind this one-day business, running reports, providing a detailed accounting of all transactions, balancing the books, attesting to the accuracy of our reports to authorities, dismantling the “store” to finally return home.

It is an immersive crash course in leadership, team-building, and collaboration. You learn a lot! You might go to sleep reliving the day, the successes, the failures, the interactions.

There’s always another election with an opportunity to improve. June’s primary month!

Word count - 249. One minute read.?