MILE 2009

During the last week in April, I attended MILE. MILE is the Minnesota Library Association Institute for Leadership Excellence.

It was held at the Bug-Bee Hive Resort in Paynesville, MN. Librarians from around the state gathered to:
-learn about leadership styles
-develop our strengths
-ask questions of a leadership forum of current librarians holding leadership roles in the state of Minnesota
-mind map our goals
-get set up with mentors that were in our career path. The mentor and mentee will meet monthly over an 18 month period.

We each took an assessment to find our strengths. We used Strengths Finder 2.0. I found that my top five strengths were Input, Command, Ideation, Activator, and Achiever. The book explains how we can use our strengths to our maximum potential. Much of the institute focused on building our lives around our strengths and simply learning to manage our weaknesses instead of obsessing over them.

Comedy Sportz did several improv activities with the group during the first evening. I learned many new ice breaker games that I have now incorporated in my library instruction. Some examples are having all the students pick their celebrity baby name or robot name. There were several games that required team work and/or expressed status. We did several exercises where we could witness power struggles between two individuals of high status or the empowerment of a high status individual over a low status individual. This occurs in the workplace on a daily basis as well as on the sidewalk or hallway each day when the decision is made who is going to be the person to "back down" in a given space OR be the person to power through. There are certain behaviors that we use each day without even realizing it. This is a nice guide on some of the different behaviors of each status.

Overall, it was a great experience. I met some great people, and I was set up with a mentor. Being accepted into this institute required an application process and letters of recommendation. I encourage the Minnesota librarians to participate in the future.