So I am throwing a shindig tomorrow. Throwing parties always puts me on edge. Will it be successful? Will anyone show up? Do people like me? Do people like me but also think I am boring and so won't show up? Do I have the charisma to lead, or must I stay relegated to the follower role?
See I have a history of being shy and introverted. My attempts at being a leader in the past have mostly been failures. For whatever reason, I couldn't get people to follow me. I've had a few successes too. But mostly failures. I think that I am mostly past this and my personality has changed. I have the charisma to interest people in something I want to do.
Some failures at leadership:
- Was elected an officer of my dorm in college. But I was pretty unsuccessful at getting anyone to implement any ideas I had for parties, events, or activities. Those that were implemented were sparsely attended.
- Was appointed alternate chair (mostly dealing with Treatment issues) on the Corrections and Treatment committee in District 20 in what was then the Washington Area. I did pretty well at coordinating activities in existing facilities, but my one idea for a ign-up list at various groups through out the district to make a master list easier to maintain was a failure. The lists went out. I stumped for each group to have a maintainer. A few groups added maintainers. Even fewer lists were ever submitted back to the committee.
- At another time, I was appointed chair of the newsletter committee. Despite all my efforts, I could not get any groups to ever submit any kind of news. I couldn't get anyone to help out with the newsletter. The level of involvement from the groups was this low before I took the position, but I certainly had no success at improving the situation.
- All through high school, my friends and I looked forward to whenever someone's parents were out of town. That meant a party. My parents were rarely out of town (as they had clerical and blue-collar jobs). But finally my junior (and last) year of high school, they went to North Dakota for a wedding or something. So I threw a party. I think it was me and Jason and one of the Petkovics. No one else showed.
Some successes:
- At my last job, I was made a lead. Turns out I was pretty good at it. In addition to the clerical type of things, I had to decide tasks for a bunch of other developers. I had to get them to do things a certain way. I had to convince our client about how things should be done. I was extremely successful at this. I figured I could do it, but I excelled.
- At Jason's (
mrsloane) urging, I decided to invite people to my grandparent's cabin last month for our birthdays. It turned out to be a rousing good time and I am trying to do another one next month (yes, for those of you on the invite list, it is not going to be this weekend, it will be in September).
I'm sure I could think of a bunch more, mostly in the failure category, but a few in the success category. But for some reason, I feel like the changes I started going through this spring have made me more of a leader than I used to be. It's been a few years since my self-esteem would take a blow if an event like this failed. If no one shows up, I will simply have pie for breakfast for a long time. I don't think that's going to happen though. It feels good.
Still have the jitters though.