Do you know someone who thinks they can do it all themselves, that they don’t need to ask for help? They don’t make a very good leader. They may be very good at getting things done, but they’re a loner, they aren’t helping anyone else learn, and what happens when that person isn’t around?
One of the hardest lessons to learn as a new leader is the need to delegate. Of course, that means you need someone to delegate to. Recruiting assistants has numerous benefits:
- Help spread the work out among more people, avoiding burnout — “many hands make light work”!
- Provide better service to the clubs and members, more resources to call upon and provide regular contact
- Fill in for when that one person, the Area Governor, is busy, or has two things at the same time
- Better practice leadership skills, now there is someone to lead!
- Provide potential successors the next year, who will already be familiar with the role
The Toastmasters District Leadership Handbook briefly mentions assistant Area and Division Governors as part of the area and division councils, but doesn’t describe their roles further. Typically, there are two assistants, one for marketing and one for education. Ideally, they attend the training and DEC meetings just like Area and Division Governors (though they have no vote at the DEC meetings).
The Assistant Area Governor Marketing focuses on helping clubs build and retain membership, and might also take a lead role in building a new club for the area. They can help a club put on an open house, put together a guest welcome packet, create a lively club web site, or brainstorm articles for the sponsoring company’s employee newsletter.
The Assistant Area Governor Education and Training helps clubs improve their educational program, encouraging completion of manual speeches and better evaluations, and quality speech contests. They can advise a club about running a Youth Leadership or Speechcraft program, improving contest participation, or how best to use meeting themes to increase excitement and attendance.
Division Governors have two assistants as well, doing the same sort of thing as at the area level, and helping their counterparts at the area level be effective.
By recruiting and using assistants, the Area Governor can improve service to the clubs as well as assure quality service after they leave office, enabling them to confidently answer YES to the question “Did you leave things better than you found them?”
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