This week, I had the opportunity to sit in on an OPRA Leadership meeting. During this meeting, I had the chance to listen to leaders speak about their past experiences and their views on leadership. Each of these people shared what values they thought to be most important when you are in a leadership role. While I thought all of them were helpful, the common theme that I found most interesting was, “It’s a good thing to have conflict”. At first, when someone mentioned it, I thought, “That’s terrible advice, conflict is bad”. However, as they continued to discuss, they brought up how important it was for employees and employers to trust and respect each other enough to be able to express their true thoughts, in order to pursue positive changes. Having a staff with differing opinions and ideas can be an extremely positive thing. Additionally, one other common idea that I found to be interesting was, “Choose to be vulnerable”. They discussed how helpful it can be, as a leader, to be able to share parts of who you are as a person, not just a boss. This led me to think about our conversations from our Wednesday meeting where we heard powerful leaders emphasize to us that their job is to make sure that everyone has exactly what they need in order to get things done– in other words, it isn’t about gaining personal power, but doing everything in your personal power to help your staff and business.

Additionally, during this meeting, I got to see a presentation on the social and political history of people with developmental disabilities. This presentation was incredibly powerful. Throughout history, these people have been shamed, mocked, and mistreated. It was incredible to see how much progress has been made in the field throughout history, but also a little disheartening to see how long it took these changes to take place. It does however, give me hope that more positive changes are to come.

Moreover, this week I worked on another edition of our blog, Through Our Lens” as well as my typical Tuesday outing with my ASPIRE group.