Empower Leadership: Strategies for Success

1. Chapter Leadership Forum

2. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar LEADERSHIP Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. – General Colin Powell

3. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar Leadership Attributes PROVIDEINSPIRATION: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams TEACH AND LEARN: “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy BE BOLD: “I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for Failure, which is: “Try to please everybody.” BE HUMBLE: “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get All the credit for doing it.” – Andrew Carnegie

4. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar Leadership Attributes LISTEN TO YOUR PEOPLE: “The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt STRIKE A BALANCE: “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – Norman Schwarzkopf TACKLE CHALLENGES: “Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.” – Reed Markham

5. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar Leadership Re-Cap • WILLINGNESS TO TAKE RISKS • EAGER LISTENERS • PASSION FOR THE CAUSE • OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE • ABLE TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE, POWER AND CREDIT Examples of putting Leadership skills to work • Using Meetings to Motivate Members • Community Involvement – Outreach – The Mission • Legislative Goals • The Resolutions Process

6. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarUsing Meetings to Motivate Leadership DAV Leaders can Prevent Meetings from being tiresome, cumbersome and time-killing • Things only transpire that way if you as leaders in DAV, allow it • Yet meetings are necessary to get things done Keep your members motivated and active • Don’t let your meetings stagnate with just one person doing all the talking. This quickly turns of your active listening members

7. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarUsing Meetings to Motivate Leadership Recognizing Members Recognize members for their individual accomplishments, either personal or professional, and let them know their efforts are not unnoticed. • Include elements that enthuse and motivate them to accomplish even more then they had imagined • Establish goals with accompanying rewards that can add an element of fun and competition to chapter activities • Devote part of each meeting to reviewing and applauding team accomplishments

8. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarCommunity Involvement – Outreach - The Mission Volunteer Recruitment Rallies Why would any volunteer accomplish anything for an organization when they do not feel like they belong? One of the first and most crucial things that any leader must do is to make volunteers realize that they are part of the team. • Making the volunteers part of the work and a vital part of the team leads to increased success • When volunteers understand that they are part of something that matters and is bigger than themselves, they are often more motivated • Our mission provides focus and strength for our members, it can also promote focus with the volunteers

9. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar Community Involvement – Outreach – The Mission Building Collaborative Partnerships The importance for collaborative leadership is being recognized more fully in our involvement with: • News media (Radio, Television and Newspaper) • Public/Private Partnerships • Institutions of higher learning • Civic collaboration • Political collaboration to tackle veterans issues at the Local, State and Federal levels Collaboration requires leaders to achieve success through people and resources outside their control

10. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarCommunity Involvement – Outreach – The Mission DAV Mission Statement We are dedicated to a single purpose. Empowering veterans to lead high-quality lives with respect and dignity. We accomplish this by: • Ensuring veterans and their families can access the full range of benefits available to them • Fighting for the interests of America’s injured on Capitol Hill • Educating the public about the great sacrifices and needs of veterans transitioning back to civilian life We at the department and chapter level are the vanguard extending the DAV’s mission of hope into the communities where these veterans and their families live.

11. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarDAV Resolutions: What good are they? • Purpose of Resolutions Directly affect veterans benefits and services: • Influence legislation: Crafting, amending, testimony, grassroots • Effect: Statute and regulation writing/re-write • Duration of resolutions: Until enacted, or must be readopted by DAV Resolutions: • Fuel the ship • Provide coordinates for the ship Members: • Set the ship’s mission

12. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarDAV Resolutions: What good are they? • How Resolutions Directly Effect DAV Where is the following DAV statement located? • Representing the interests of disabled veterans, their families, their widowed spouses and their orphans before Congress, the White House and the Judicial Branch, as well as state and local government. Within DAV’s official mission statement! Resolutions Keep DAV relevant and effective! • Gives organization focus/mission: • Organization stays attuned to needs, issues, gaps… • We need to know what’s happening • Engaged in matters

13. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership Seminar DAV Resolutions: What good are they? • Your Resources • Legislative Process and you Document; https://www.dav.org/wp-content/uploads/LegislativeProcessandYou.pdf • DAV’s National Resolutions Publication; https://www.dav.org/wp-content/uploads/ResolutionBook.pdf Critical; current resolutions must be readopted! • Legislative Officer Duties Publication; https://www.dav.org/wp-content/uploads/LegislativeOfficerDutiesMidWinter.pdf • Current DAV Constitution and Bylaws; http://www.davmembersportal.org/sc/Department%20Newsletters/2013-2014%20National%20DAV%20Constitution%20Bylaws.pdf • Department Legislative Officers • Chapter Legislative Officers • Committed Advocates at the Chapter and State Level • National Legislative Staff

14. 2014 Department of California ConventionLeadership SeminarDAV Resolutions: What good are they? Recap 1. Are our Resolutions important? Absolutely! 4. Where can you find resources to help you in crafting DAV centric resolutions? Within this PowerPoint 2. Will all resolutions be adopted by DAV? No 5. A resolution adopted by DAV stays in effect until? • May be a local issue(s) • May be outside of DAV’s mission • Enacted into law • Or must be readopted by DAV • Section 3.2: Duration of Mandates • Mandates and resolutions adopted at each • National Convention shall be effective only until the next National Convention. 3. Are grassroots efforts really that important? Absolutely!

15. 2014 Department of California Convention Leadership Seminar Feedback and Contact To provide any comments or suggestions for this or future seminars, email us at www.davcal.org/contact-us Thank you for your continued interest and support! Leadership