What made you decide to become a Division Director?
It was a natural further step after being an Area Director. I wanted to develop my leadership skills even more. To develop my responsibility, decisiveness and self-agency and stepping out of my comfort zone to collaborate in multicultural team learning from and observing other leaders in action.
What is your vision for you in your role?
I see myself as a motivator and facilitator for the team, a person who shows the transferrable skills and advantages for everyone in any role. If that condition is met, all leaders, all club members want to act, want to grow and want to involve in the club strength building.
What kind of challenges were you able to identify so far related to your role?
The challenge can be for me the distance between me and all team members. That we don’t have much direct contact. And that I won’t be able or it will be difficult to visit every club myself to get to know the clubs personally which is still my aim.
What’s in it for you?
Learning from the best leaders in the District. Acting as a leader, manager gives me experience, confidence and courage for facing any kind of leadership situations. I need it for my personal life, which is easier now and has higher quality of interpersonal communication. But it is also needed to my professional life. I want to start my own business and being a Division Director or other leadership roles in the organization give me experience of managing, building strategy, planning, marketing – Toastmasters is like a company so everything I do here is for a reason and is practical.
How do you think this role will impact your professional career/ personal goals?
I see how already the role influenced my whole life, every aspect. I am much more brave in conflicts, in difficult situations, my communication skills increased. I am calm because I know now that I can manage all such situations, and I am able to communicate better my feelings, my expectations and communicate with anyone.
When it comes to my professional life, I feel I am ready to start my own business with all the experience I got. I am only waiting for some trigger, some idea, but I know I can do it and I want to do it.
What are your passions aside from Toastmasters?
I am a passionate cyclist so I cycle a lot during a year, longer distances, shorter but more adventure MTB trips. Every year I plan with my friends a few cycling challenges. Croatia is coming soon.
Besides I love dancing and singing and I also have a blog where I express my thoughts, writing stories about every day life and small things from it. (By the way I believe Toastmasters experience is what triggered me to do this step, to share it with the world finally).
What drives you to be part of Toastmasters?
Here I realized that I have power and not only I changed, I grew, but I also can have positive impact, influence on other people, on the environment. I especially love that I can see something in people, what they still don’t see in themselves yet. And I can help them to discover it. Exactly the same way somebody helped me in my Toastmasters journey.
I also value the fact, that here I meet positive open-minded people, where everyone has own different experience in different fields, so I learn from them a lot. And I met friends here. It is pleasant to be here, to gain experience and at the same time to have fun.
What piece of advice would you give someone who would aspire to take on this role in the future?
Don’t hesitate. Go for it. On every leadership role people learn by doing and learn in practice. There is nothing like a manual of being a good division director. You have some rules of course, some goals, but how you do it, is up to you. You will be discovering it in the role. You will learn in the role. You will see what works, and what not. This discovering gives you the feeling of self-agency. You can shape your role, and that brings you creativity. Of course you need to want it first. If you are open for challenges and want to try something new, just go for it.
What are your plans for the next years?
Next year I will focus more on my local environment. I plan to involve more operational here. And receive a DTM award. My plan also is to develop my professional ideas.
