Leadership and Management Training - Toastmasters Style

By Edwin Ebreo

This post is inspired by an educational speech I delivered at El Presidente Toastmasters club. Thanks to club President Marilyn Abella for the opportunity.

When people join Toastmasters it is mostly for one purpose and that is to enhance their public speaking skills. What not too many people appreciate is that Toastmasters is a great training ground for developing leadership and management skills among others. the functions members play is a practicum for some corporate management roles. Let me cite them one by one.

In case you don't get to finish reading this post, be forewarned that the Toastmasters Leadership Training that I am tackling here only works for those who want and strive to be better. Practically nothing can be learned from mediocrity. This only applies to those who subscribe to the idea that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Read on for more learning.

Experiencing Toastmasters Competent Leadership Manual

If you first became a Toastmaster within the last couple of years, that means you received two manuals. Both manuals are equally important in your Toastmasters career. But the Competent Leader Manual takes longer to complete. So I encourage you, and if there's a way to force you to I would, to bring your Competent Leadership Manual EVERY MEETING. So you can get credited for every role you play. And also so you can perform your role better.

I can't force you to start working on your Leaderhip Manual, but I hope that Jean Hogle's article will inspire you to do so.


Experiencing the Competent Leadership Manual
from: http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/December/Articles/CLManual.aspx


"Since starting to use the manual as intended, I have found that not only am I doing a better job in each role, my speeches are better."

By Jean G. Hogle, DTM


Why is the Competent Leadership manual important? Why should we use it?

In January 2006, a new member joined my club. Of course, this meant he received two manuals: Competent Communication and Competent Leadership. The new member came to me, the president, and asked how to use the Competent Leadership manual. As the advanced, experienced Toastmaster I am, I gave him the highly articulate answer of “Huh? Duh, ah, well, gee, I don’t know. But I hear it’s only 10 projects.”

Wanting to be a good leader, I immediately ordered the manual and studied the projects. When I saw that each project consists of doing multiple roles, I panicked. How is anyone supposed to complete this? However, I began bringing the manual to each meeting and asking for an evaluator to fill in my required assignments. It was a slow process, but the roles started to gather checkmarks.