By Staff
Arthur McLean
Just call me the thinker. Brilliant will suffice. Just don't call me to be the life of your next party.
At least that's what the report I received this week about my personality says.
This is all part of the learning process of Leadership Atmore, a nearly year-long series of classes organized by the Atmore Area Chamber of Commerce.
Each year, the Chamber selects a group of people who either live or work in the Atmore area to become part of Leadership Atmore.
Over the course of the several months, participants learn a great deal about themselves, Atmore and their classmates.
The education covers Atmore's history, governmental structures and functions, the economics of an area, and other topics. It's kind of like the masters degree program of citizenship.
Among the hopes of the leadership program is to build a core group of citizens who are aware and active participants in our town. In short it hopes to build community leaders, people who will make a positive impact on our community.
One of the tenants of this is that to be more effective as a member of the community, you must know more about yourself.
To that end, the first day of our leadership class found a bunch of strangers standing in the middle of the woods, staring at a gaggle of ropes and wires high above our heads. In order to negotiate these obstacles, we would have to learn a little bit about ourselves and learn to trust our classmates.
We'd learned a little about each other that first class, and by the second class, it was time to learn a little bit about ourselves.
All the class members took the Myers-Briggs indicator, to find our where our personality traits are strongest. Armed with that knowledge I have a feeling we will form an effective group, where individual members can play to their strengths. After that? Who knows what will happen.
But if you hear someone talking about "being" some sort of alphabet soup. Ask them if they're in Leadership Atmore, and ask them what they've learned.
As for me, you can still invite me to the party, just don't call me late for supper.
Arthur McLean is the editor of the Atmore Advance.