Onboarding

We have been recruiting for several roles at Catholic Leadership Institute and, praise God, after several months of searching and discernment, we will have at least three wonderful individuals starting in the next month. Especially for an organization with team members based around the country, reviewing and refining our onboarding efforts to be as helpful as possible is always on our agenda. As I was meeting with a few colleagues to review our plans for these new team members, we reviewed a long list of experiences, activities, and information that we wanted to provide. Pleased with the process before us, I was describing it to my wife later and commented that I thought it would really give them a "taste of CLI at its best." She agreed and then with a smirk asked, "How soon before they get a taste of you at your worst?"

While I know the idea of me ever having a bad day is preposterous to the readers of this post, it does, on occasion, happen. I couldn’t help but wonder as a leader, how well do I prepare people for the reality versus the vision? Especially when sharing who I am with others, am I as authentic in sharing my struggles as I am in sharing my aspirations? I always encourage new hires to embrace self-leadership in the onboarding process, to recognize that development and learning is a never-ending journey. However, do they hear or more importantly experience how I am still on that journey with them or do I project that I have arrived at the destination? In my journey of faith, am I asking God only for what I want, or am I asking him to show me what I need to learn? I decided that I needed to add something to the list of information to share with our new colleagues – where I am still working to get on board. Where do you need to get up to speed? Please pray for our whole team, especially those who will be joining, and know we are always praying for you wherever you are on your journey.