FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – Show Opening

Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for daily tips from the coach with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. You’re listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Shepherd.

00:27 – Start Here – Podcast content starts here!

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast where we give you the practical tips and the inspiration that you need to become an outstanding leader. And let me kick off today’s episode by saying that one of the best ways to develop your leadership skills, is through volunteering. And one of the best ways to volunteer? Well, that’s to become a member of Rotary International, which is why today’s episode is titled How Rotary International Can Grow Your Leadership Skills.

00:54 – Full Disclosure – Gord is a Rotarian who is ready to tell you his perspective

Now it’s at this moment in the show that I have to say I am a Rotarian, but I’m going to tell you the reasons why I am and whether you become a member or not is not important. What’s important is to learn about all the leadership opportunities that Rotary provides and then you can learn from them and take them into your own sort of practice as a leader or tell people about it.

01:13 – What is Rotary? – 1.2 Million members around the world with local opportunities

So what is Rotary? Well, let me take a page out of their handbook and explain it. It says that Rotary is an international membership organization made up of people who share a passion and commitment to enhancing communities and improving lives across the world. Now I happen to think that that is absolutely awesome, but I can tell you people join for all kinds of different reasons. But let me take a step back and start with the big picture. Now, Rotary has over 1.2 million members around the world and they donate the equivalent of more than $850 million-worth of volunteer hours and labor every year. At the local level, Rotary is made up of clubs and they’ve got memberships in the range of sort of 22 people like the one that I’m in. They could be 50 people, sometimes they have hundreds depending on the size of the club itself, and as far as leadership development is concerned, Rotary has a ton of opportunities and I’m going to start at the base part of what attracted me to join Rotary.

02:13 – Rotary Values – The Four Way Test

Now the first place that Rotary starts from a leadership perspective, is they base everything they do on a core set of values. And one of the most important standards that they uphold, well they call it the Four Way Test. So whenever you do something in Rotary, no matter what it is, it has to live up to these questions. Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? And will it be beneficial to all concerned? Now, as we all know, to be a values-driven leader, you need to have these kinds of questions in your back pocket every time you’re going to do something. And I think we can all learn from Rotary to do just that.

02:53 – Rotary Leadership Development Opportunities – Local, International, live and online training and more

And another important way that Rotary helps leaders to grow? Well, it provides leadership development opportunities. For example, you can volunteer in your community like I have. You can work at the food bank, you can help the homeless, you can initiate projects and all kinds of things that I could talk to you on and on about from a leadership perspective. You can also participate in international projects like building playgrounds in Belize or helping mothers in Africa or about thousands of other things that you can look up and find out and just get involved with. And there are all kinds of leadership training opportunities. I can tell you at what they call the district level, when many of those clubs come together, they actually send leaders to training for entire days. And so if you want to go and network with other leaders or learn from great speakers and this kind of thing, that’s another one. There’s all kinds of youth leadership development opportunities. I mean, the list, it just goes on and on.

03:44 – Rotarians Are People of Action – You can be around other proactive leaders

And one of the most important things that Rotary can teach you about leadership? Rotarians are people of action. They get things done. Now you can hear the passion in my voice for this organization. Now, I’m not saying you have to join, but I’m suggesting that if you are a leader and you want to grow, be aware of all the good things that are happening in an organization like Rotary or maybe there’s another service organization you can learn from, because these organizations have decades or hundred-plus years of experience to pass along to you in your leadership journey.

04:17 – Rotary Contact Information – https://www.rotary.org

And if you’d like to learn more, visit rotary.org or just type the word Rotary and the name of your city into Google, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be well on your way to growing your leadership abilities. And no matter what you do, the biggest theme that I can take out of this… and this is why putting this episode together has literally given me goosebumps… is you should take action. Take action to grow as a leader, take action to have an impact as a volunteer.

04:44 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

 And I also want to let you know that this episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast is brought to you by the Meeting Leadership Academy, another place where we want to help you grow your leadership skills through all kinds of great live and online training. And you can learn more about that at MeetingLeadershipInc.com/academy. That’s MeetingLeadershipInc.com/academy.

05:05 – Conclusion

And thanks so much for letting me share my passion about Rotary, my passion about volunteering, my passionate about these vehicles as ways to grow your leadership skills. And we’ll see you tomorrow on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

05:18 – Podcast Outro

Thanks for listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader. And don’t forget to write that review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.