SOO Culture Team Concept: Leading Laterally and Leading Up
We have all heard the sayings “you can lead from any position,” or “you don’t have to be in a leadership position to be a leader”. In theory this is how it should be, and creating a healthy and safe cultural environment where leading up or laterally is possible is a huge part of being a SOO.
It is also a part of the SOO job to help our employees understand how to lead laterally and lead up, and explain the benefits of doing so. At the same time, what applies to others also is valid for ourselves, and there are plenty of instances where we as SOOs have to lead laterally within our SOO community, or upward with our local management teams, regions, and program managers on a national level. So as much as this page is a resource to help your employees lead laterally and up, it is also a support system for you as well.
The general concept, as illustrated below, is to start with individual development, and then to build up to working on one-on-one relationships with other individuals, then to leading groups of people and developing ideas while fostering increased trust and buy-in for those ideas.
Okay great, but where do I start?
Good Question!
Below you will find a curriculum of resources to help you through some of these topics. You can take the curriculum from top to bottom but in our experience, you will have a great handle on some things, but less so on others. Much like the Meteorologist Development Plan, feel free to pick and choose what you need and bypass what you don’t. We do recommend starting with “The Human Constant: What They Didn’t Teach You While Deriving Equations”. This talk was given by SOO Ryan Ellis while on the AMS Board for Operational Government Meteorologists and was directed at students and early career professionals but also applies to SOOs trying to teach these things! The curriculum below is laid out in a similar format and chronology as the talk so this is a great place to begin.
A Curriculum for Leadership and Culture Development
Introduction to Culture
What is Culture and Why does Culture Matter?
Section 1: Introspection
Personality Type Training
Myers Briggs and DISC Assessment Training
Section 2: Developing Relationships
Section 3: Leading Teams and Developing Ideas
Building a Diverse Team
Exploiting Individual Strengths