View From the Class: Archana Verma, LT'22, United Way of King County

Archana Verma, LT'22, Director of Marketing, United Way of King County

What are you learning?

Leadership Tomorrow is an immersive learning environment like no other. While there is much to be gleaned from each of the guest speakers, cohort members and LT team members, I’m finding a lot of the learning is individual and perhaps based on what lessons each of us need or are ready for in this moment of time.

For me, there are a few direct take-aways from guest speakers and leaders like ‘asking the right questions’ from Marc Dones and finding your ‘occupassion’ from Michelle Merriweather. And then there are the less tangible but equally important learnings from cohort members who’ve generously shared their wisdom, courageously spoken up to hold us accountable and shown extraordinarily vulnerability in a (virtual) room full of strangers.

What has surprised you? What has challenged you?

What surprised me is the absence of a curriculum, set framework, tools, or even shared definitions for antiracist community leadership. At every step, we have been asked to journal and reflect on what this concept means to us as individuals based on the conversations of the day. At first this was challenging for me because it forced me to move from being a passive recipient of information to an active participant in my own learning.

Perhaps LT’s role has been to provide the learning environment for us and we get what we put into it through the year. While there are certainly opportunities to build connections, it’s really up to individuals to seek and build relationships with others to make the most of this experience. While there is a wealth of information and experiences shared in the sessions, it’s on us to do our own pre- and post- research and reading to deepen our understanding of the issues and concepts we explore.

Have you had any “aha” moments?

The “aha” moment for me was during a Challenge Day early on in the program when we were presented with a panel of speakers with different viewpoints. I saw many of the Leadership Tomorrow norms being manifested in real-time that day making them more real and tangible rather than just words on a paper/screen. I was being ‘challenged’ to create space for multiple truths and perspectives that were often vastly different from my own. Many of us were experiencing discomfort and I saw my peers being kind and brave in their courage to speak up and ‘challenge’ the narrative. I saw the LT team seeking to learn (in public) and share power with the cohort in offering open spaces for opportunities to build bridges and redesign the curriculum to meet the needs and expectations of the collective. I find many of the LT norms now being embedded into who I am and how I show up in my personal and professional life – even beyond the LT experience.

Which of LT’s values resonates most with you and your experience in the Flagship Program? Why?

Curiosity and Humility is the LT value that most closely aligns with my experience in the program this year. In fact, Mele Miller (guest speaker for the Economy Challenge Day) phrased it as “humble curiosity.” One of LT’s core elements has been bringing together leaders from different sectors in an environment where we can learn from each other and work together towards common vision collectively. We’ve been encouraged to stay curious and open-minded about the issues we explore together, be curious about each other as we build non-transactional relationships, and be curious to explore ways that we can make our collective learning in LT better – not just for us but for future LT generations.

We’ve also been encouraged to have the humility to accept that there isn’t one right way or belief and holding space to listen actively for perspectives that are different from our own. We’ve also been offered opportunities to humbly learn from Indigenous wisdom like Seventh Generation thinking as we consider a long-term systems change approach to problem-solving.