Last month we were proud to announce that our very own Field Program Assistant Manager, Erin Galloway, was honoured the Kathy Barnett Leadership Grant. This grant is awarded by the Whistler Community Foundation (WCF) and was created to encourage the professional development of women working in the Sea to Sky corridor, especially those women whose leadership is geared towards benefiting their communities through charitable work.
With the support of WCF, Erin enrolled in the Leadership Development Program at Athabasca University, and now has nearly finished the program!
Erin has provided us with an update on how her experience in the course has been going so far. She speaks to the challenges she has faced and how she has overcome them, as well as how she has already put into practice her new learned skills. Read on for her personal update!
Erin: The new skills I have learned from this course have given me more confidence in my abilities to take on management roles in the future. Although I have learned a lot from this course it is not without its challenges. This has been the first course I have taken since graduating from university in 2019 and it has been much longer than that since I have taken an online course. I have struggled with finding time to complete the course especially when the weather is nice. Having a space outdoors to work on the course has really helped me find the motivation and time to study.
The third module I am just about finished is called Leading Processes. I have found this to be the most interesting and helpful part of the course so far. It has gone through the process steps for delegating tasks, increasing the quality of work your team completes, decision making, and problem-solving. As someone who struggles with delegating, I have found this section very applicable to my position at SSISC. One quote from the course that really stood out to me was that “Delegation is an investment of time”. It can take a fair amount of time to train members of the field program to complete additional tasks that are not necessarily in the day-to-day job descriptions. Spending this time training is so valuable for everyone involved. The field crew members are taught new skills that they can use throughout their employment with SSISC and their future endeavours. By spending this time training the crew members, I know I can trust them to complete these new tasks. This allows me to take things off my plate instead of stretching myself thin trying to do everything myself; it also gives crew members more responsibility and autonomy.
Thank you Erin for sharing with us the insight you’ve gained through your course, we look forward to seeing how you grow from here!
Many thanks, once again, to the Whistler Community Foundation! 
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