Recipe for success

What do you think are the key skills leaders in public health need in order to be successful, and why? What skills are you most interested in developing over the course of the fellows program?
-------

Sometimes I am intimidated by the number of skills that public health leaders need to have. Like leaders in every field, it helps to be persuasive, charismatic, and wise. They must be good at negotiating, good at settling disputes, and competent in their content area. These are particularly important because public health leaders tend to work with so many different stakeholders.

But, perhaps most importantly, leaders have to get a lot of work done every day, especially when they are overseeing a large teams that need to ask them questions in order to move projects forward. I am amazed by how many emails people answer, how many meetings they are able to participate in, in the span of one day. I really want to learn how to do this, to work on my time management skills, and my ability to work quickly and efficiently. Another skill that's important to me is organization. I am not naturally an organized person, but have put systems into place for myself in order to manage my calendar, my files, etc. But often these systems do not fit my needs well. I guess I'd like to see how other people organize themselves, and learn from this.

I also want to work on my networking skills. I sometimes go to networking events, but then do not feel like talking to anyone at all. Even though I like talking to people, I feel nervous about approaching people, worried that I'll ask them boring, irrelevant questions. Somewhat related - I'd like to work on my interpersonal skills in general. Though I don't feel like I'm socially awkward, I feel that this is an area that is so critical for success, I'd like to focus on it. In particular, I'd like to get better at sensing how others are feeling, and responding appropriately.