A user group provides a variety of benefits for the members and the leaders of the community. The leadership of the group sets the strategy and develops the plan for growth, and the list of things that only a board of directors can do requires strong leaders. Starting a user group takes a ton of work, and participating on the user group board of director takes time, too. Going into it for the wrong reasons—self-promotion, fame, and fortune—will just leave you frustrated and not allow for the development of volunteers. In order to start to build others up as leaders, you need to understand yourself as a leader and seek out qualities that are going to have other good leaders part of the team.

The number of books on leadership speaks to the fact that there is not one solution to become a leader, and there are several ways to get there. There is not one specific quality that makes a leader but a combination and a willingness to learn. A few qualities stand out as being more important to have. They come from character and values that a person has, and other qualities can be developed.

Leadership might be easier for some people more than others, but people are not born to be leaders. Being a leader is a given opportunity to enable and inspire others. Different people are able to communicate with ease or plan strategies because of understanding the big picture without too much effort. That does not mean that someone can grow into the role, especially with the desire to do so. Recognizing that, there are ways to work on some of the weaker skills and characteristics.

To be able to talk business and technology is definitely a valued asset to companies and with the leadership skills development and looking at these qualities of leader is going to be the way to get there.

Understanding the qualities as the goal is secondly important to understanding yourself and where you are with this development. Reflecting and knowing yourself is going to allow you to discover the areas that come easy and start to work hard on the other skills and characteristics that require the effort. Maria Anderson, Independent Oracle User Group President, stated in a recent article that, “self-reflection is a skill that, when well developed and practiced regularly, can bring you clarity and help modify your behavior in certain circumstances; in other words, it enhances your self-awareness.” Self-awareness will help to evaluate where you are with the qualities and recognize how you are doing as a leader.

Before we discuss the qualities of a leader, let’s start with looking at what a user group leader does. This will also help with the self-awareness to realize the areas that are needed and what else might need some development.

What a User Group Leader Does

A user group leader has responsibilities to the volunteers and the members of the community. The leaders work toward the common goals and work to plan for the outlined strategies. Of course they lead, right? The community offers so many opportunities with expertise, mentoring, and other ways to lead. But those put in leadership roles have volunteered to work for a community that they are excited about and wanting it to be successful.

There are wrong reasons for being in this role. Wanting your company and self to be successful makes sense, but it should not be the only reason for wanting to be in leadership of the user group. Fame, recognition and money, not really the reasons for leading a user group either. Self-promotion will cause disruption in the community and make it difficult to recognize if the direction of the user group is planned for the whole community or just their individual benefit. Not to discourage anyone but there is not normally much money to be earned in spending hours in planning and not getting paid for it. These are definitely not the main reasons, because getting to be up front is the easy part, well, at least sometimes. The work has to be completed first, and the overall vision of the group needs to be considered.

So what are the qualities that a user group leader has?

• Experience. One main thing is that the leader is also using the product or has that experience. In understanding the technology or product from the day-to-day job, this provides the needed details about what users are facing. Understanding the new and relevant topics for the space helps decide direction and strategies.
• The Ability Know to Find Answers. They also realize that because of these complex environments, it is not possible to know everything about the systems. This would help in deciding other people and leaders to surround yourself with because if you can’t have the answers it is important to know how to get the answers. They know that the user community is going to have these different experiences and speakers can provide more the complete picture and a well-rounded education.
• Willingness to Participate in Discussions. The board and committees will have discussions. The volunteer leader brings their ideas and shows up ready to participate in the discussions. Just listening in doesn’t help for the smaller group that will be planning and making decisions. Questions need to be asked and as the whole board discusses nothing should be left on the table. Different ideas are needed or support of current ones which should all be part of the discussions. Other discussions will be where the money should be spent, as there are financial and budget discussions. Without understanding the events and activities with what is needed by the user community, budget discussions are going to be difficult. Reviewing the budget and discussing the financials are a part of what the leader does.
• Consistency in Attending Meetings. Attending board calls and conference calls ready to discuss and actively participate. Being able to understand topics for discussion and understand provides more valuable input. There might be times where you have more input than others which makes sense, but there is preparation that needs to happen before the call. Just showing up can allow for the whole group to discuss, but it is important to be prepared to discussion. The number of meetings will depend on the role but the board of directors. The meetings include the board meetings, conferences, committee meetings, and special interest group meetings and depending on the groups you are involved in would be the number of meetings that are on the schedule. Email is good for a few things, but direct conversations are also needed. Also there will be face to face meetings. Boards and user group leaders are not always in the same location, so face to face meetings might not be as many but they are even more important to attend to relate with others.
• Recognition of Importance of Networking. Networking with other leaders is needed to create the group and have the plan and strategy. The networking does not stop there, because there are vendors and other user groups. In person events are critical to be talking with others. Networking with the members adds strength to the offerings and building the community. These are the future leaders. Vendors need to understand the direction of the group of what is happening and planned for the group so that they can help support. Meeting with other user groups is key in the networking circles. This helps to know what works, gain other ideas, and possibly plan events together.
• Good at Cultivating Relationships. The board of directors has to work together and building the relationships between the leaders helps to understand how best to complement each other. The diversity of the leaders is absolutely needed to pull in the overall picture of the environment. This does tie into the networking, because once meeting the groups of people, the relationships need to be built and maintained. Relationships need to be cultivated with the vendors, other user groups, and the community members.
• Desire to Continue to Learn. Constantly learning is the overall theme besides leadership of this book. But a user group leader is out there reading, researching and learning. This is extremely helpful for the day-to-day job, but is needed to verify the direction of the user group and see if there is anything new and relevant for the community to be learning as well.
• Ability to Make Decisions. Decisions need to be made about events, speakers, webinars, and so many other details under this. It is the responsibility of the user group leader to evaluate the details, understand the costs, and verify against the board strategy. Based on this information decisions need to be made. Budgets get set and voted on to make sure the plans and spend follow the direction and meet the needs of the community. Decisions get made to run the board and the user community.
• Ability to Direct Staff. The staff might be volunteers, but an association management company would be providing staff to take care of the details of the projects for the user group. Regular calls, planning, and managing of the activities comes from the user group leaders.
• Ability to Enable Others. Continue learning and enabling others is definitely a reoccurring theme, and as a leader we should be able to bring others along and learn from them. Removing road blocks and providing opportunities to do the same. Letting others look into options, propose solutions, and make decisions while supporting them.

This is not an all-encompassing list of the things that user group leaders do, but it does list a few for starting. Remember that the user group leader is not alone, because there is a whole board for support and hopefully a membership where a few good volunteers can also be recruited to help out. Even if the current leaders might not be available, previous leaders are a great resource and can provide encouragement. I think this is one of the reasons that I am still participating in the user group even without still being on the board of directors. It is also why this information is being provided to you as a resource and hopefully a source of encouragement.

Leaders of user group are involved in several areas and perform tasks outside of strategies and planning. Being able to perform these levels of tasks does take practice, years of involvement, and a desire to improve skills and develop as a leader.

Qualities Outlined

As already discussed the skills of leadership can be learned and developed. There are qualities of a leader that show the character of the leader. The best way to find out about qualities of a user group leader is to ask current and previous user group leaders. What was interesting in asking the leaders what was one quality that they felt was most important, they all could not just give one. If they had to choose they eventually gave one, but there were specific reasons and still felt that multiple qualities are important. That does mean if there is a weak area that is being developed, some of the other qualities will help with the progress and further leadership skills.

I sent a quick email out to a group of people that have been very important in my development as a user group leader and asked that question, “What is one quality you look for in a leader?” Polled were Maria Anderson, current president of the Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG); John Matelski, Ian Abramson and Rich Niemiec, past presidents of the IOUG; Blake Wofford, current president of FUEL Palo Alto Networks User Group; and Carol McGury, previous interim executive director of the IOUG and executive vice president at SmithBucklin.

Maria said, “I’m not sure I can choose one quality but I can say my top two (because I feel they go together) are empathy and humility”.

John listed five qualities. As stated it isn’t easy to have just one. John said, “There are five qualities that are essential including honesty, competence, intelligence, forward looking and inspiring…but the most important of these is honesty. Without honesty, the other four qualities don’t mean much!”

Ian said, “One quality seems unfair. A leader has multiple qualities I look for. A leader should be confident and knowledgeable but listen to ideas to build a powerful and impactful team”.

“Integrity”, was Rich’s first response. He quickly followed up with another email with the following, “Honorable mention would be unselfishness”.

Blake did respond with one quality. He said, “Attitude. The right attitude is not teachable, and it’s not replaceable. Attitude affects everything a leader touches, or says or does. It doesn’t matter what talents you have, what connections you have, what education you have. If you don’t have the right attitude, you’re going to fail.”

Carol responded with “Integrity! Someone who is honest and open – can be trusted. Doesn’t think of themselves but makes decisions that benefit the greater good!”

As you can see by these answers and responses, they have all taught and influenced me and I value their thoughts and insight. They are incredible people, and if in saying they that I highly respect them as leaders, as they are reading this, they are thinking they still have more to learn and want to strive to do more. They should take a moment and enjoy the fact that they are awesome user group leaders.

Again it was difficult to come up with one quality. Even the group of six had all pretty much come up with different answers except integrity. Honesty and integrity are extremely important and I am sure every one of these leaders has it in the top five if allowed to give more. It is important to be able to trust a leader. How can one follow if the leader is not looking out for interest of the group and the leader’s intentions are trustworthy? We want to be able to respect and trust our leaders, even if you are a technical leader. Knowing that there are honest answers and even if it is “I don’t know, let’s find out” answer. Integrity and honesty are required leadership qualities. From these other qualities can be built.

In looking at the other qualities for a leader listed; humility, empathy, competence, intelligence, forward looking, inspiring, confidence, knowledgeable and attitude. Adding to the list is critical thinking, serving and enabling. It almost sounds like an impossible task to have all of these qualities, but don’t forgot that is still a process and on-going learning. There are going to be qualities that come easy and others require the work and effort. As one looks at different leaders, there are also bad qualities that are recognized. Self-awareness will be able to determine if some of these bad qualities need to be suppressed. These qualities appear in leaders that we do not aspire to become. Self-awareness allows for the understanding what needs to be worked on and help examine if you are demonstrating these qualities.

Demonstrating Leadership

Practicing the qualities of leader is demonstrating leadership. It sounds easy right? For example, attitude is something you choose to show. A positive, can-do attitude goes a long way. Someone will be willing to work just as hard with a leader that is optimistic with a realistic plan, and even with a little work attitude will take it further. This does come in handy when dealing with the not always the fun stuff. There are budgets and cuts that might have to be made and decided on. An attitude demonstration how important these tasks are will make that process feel just as fun and needed as going out and meeting with the user community.

Another example would be demonstrating critical thinking. This is not only in the user group leadership role but also in the other roles with technology or business. There are plenty of problems to be solved as a user group; how to reach new members, dealing with generation gaps, conference attendance, new ways to present content, how to use social media, and many more.

Demonstrating leadership means doing the things that the user group leader does. Showing up to meetings and participating in discussions with the qualities of a leader. Confidence comes through when having the discussions and not being timid in presenting ideas. Everyone in the boardroom and volunteers has ideas to present, and if not presented with confidence it might not be accepted from the group.

A user group that has the leadership team working on the qualities and involved will have others being excited about volunteering and being part of the team. This provides another opportunity to inspire others to pick up the ball and run with it.

Serving the community is demonstrating leadership. A serving leader will look to serve the group in helping others succeed. This is what a user group does in helping members learn and be successful in their careers. It isn’t just constant pouring yourself into the community and giving up on all of your needs, but it is realizing that there is value in serving the greater good. A serving leader is normally one that is recognized by the people being excited to be part of the community and being enabled to learn and network. It is not just letting everyone speak or not setting a standard for volunteers, but it is setting the expectations and demanding excellent quality of education. It sets a high bar for the volunteers, but also one that is obtainable. It gives them in turn an opportunity to serve the community back.

A serving leader is right there in the middle of it all. They just don’t say do, but give expectations, leave room to discuss how something can be accomplished. Once it is decided what to do they are right in there helping out and supporting the effort and work. Just like with the different committees for the user group, this provides excellent ways to roll up your sleeves and participate with the group and serve the community.

Developing a succession plan for the board and leadership demonstrates how the important a transition is for continuity of the culture and governance. This puts the importance of the group ahead of the needs of leader. It too can plan out different ways for the user group volunteers to reach the board of directors if they choose to do so.

A leader demonstrates how to handle change and leads the process. Change is a constant and it is not always something easy to do, especially in a group that might be rooted in something the vendor did at one point or have quite a long history. Managing change from communication to doing by showing the way with the changes. Sometimes change is needed in the user group because of new technology or different needs of the community. There is always resistance to change because of history and how something has always been done this way. Social media has changed how we communicate, and something that might have been sent out or emailed might now just be a link or some of the face-to-face events might be a virtual offering now. Depending on these needs it might be difficult for some of the community to accept these changes, and the leaders have to demonstrate how that has helped them to communicate better or take advantage of more education. If the leaders and volunteers are helping out and showing the way the community is able to buy into more.

Leader Volunteer to President

This is a personal example and some of it was not easy nor did it go the way that I had expected. It is really just to give a brief story of the user group and how I went from being a member to a leadership role. It is something I didn’t think was possible, and I am still very thankful for the opportunity. I have also pointed out that I am still supporting and involved in the user group and leading from a volunteer position because I enjoy being part of the community. Again, I am trying not to present this in a way of boasting, but just hopefully something that can be learned from. Even from recruiting volunteers, which will be discussed more in the next chapter, as you can see why I did some of the things I did to get more involved.

As a member I started to use Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) as a resource for starting off as an Oracle DBA. I had work with other database platforms and was able to tap into the user community for the information related to Oracle and how to work on performance and other design considerations. In working on different projects, I continued to look for information and realized that there were ways to get more information and details from the vendor and provide feedback.

There was a volunteer leader that recognized the involvement I was seeking with the vendor and offered me a chance to develop on of the special interest groups. I gladly participated because it was the details and solutions I was looking for work, and I was able to work with a couple of other volunteers to build a community around the special interest group. Things I did as a leader in the special interest group was plan, set strategy recruit other volunteers and communicate with the community. We developed a plan to provide webinars and articles around these topics. We worked with the vendor to make sure we understood the roadmap of the product and how we could provide feedback. The schedule for the learning opportunities was communicated to the membership along with recruiting specifically for those members with this interest.

The work I had completed with the special interest group provided an overall charter for other groups to be developed. The structure, that was used to create the group helped, created governance and planning of additional special interest groups. It was then one of the board members plugging this structure into the overall strategy that board had to utilize the special interest groups. It was not just me but there great leaders on the board of directors being aware of the different options and enabling volunteers to be part of the development of the user group.

It was such a privilege to be asked to apply for the board. This again is a pattern of building a succession plan and finding good volunteers. There were different responsible areas for the board of directors. We each had our own portfolio, which allowed us to build committees from that and organized the governance to make sure that the different portfolios were connected to the overall strategy of the board. We did not always agree on the portfolios the different members had. There were some discussions within the boardroom. Debates and some other thoughts took place of which groups should be assigned. Outside the boardroom the decision made was supported.

In the years that I was on the board of directors we looked at the strategy and went back and forth to make sure we had the right strategies and goals set, which did change over the years because of changes in Oracle stack and changes in the community. These are good examples of what a board needs to do and the leadership of the board needs to be able to have the forward thinking and big picture for the community to be able to do this.

There were opportunities to learn from the other board members and their experiences. There were also formalized classes on leadership that were available. I took advantage of everything available to sharpen my skills and develop the important qualities of a leader. One of the most important things I learned from these classes was self-awareness because that taught me to look at my values and evaluate my motives. I could then realize how I was doing as a leader, and measure against people I was inspiring and allowing to also come along as volunteers and leaders in the community.

I had the privilege to attend the baseball game where the Cubs defeated the Cardinals in the 2015 Division Series. It had been awhile since I was able to attend a game or even sit and watch a game on TV. I did not just enjoy it because the Cubs won, even though that was pretty awesome, but I enjoyed watching the team how much they were involved in the game and how the fans fed off of that energy and participate with great enthusiasm as a key part of game. Previous Cub teams that I had seen play did not have the energy and did not have the excitement as being part of the game. This was an important game and there was already anticipation to win the division series, but the team had to work together to get here. The teamwork and eagerness of the team was outstanding. The Cub manager encouraged the fun and participation with the fans. He taught them what they needed to know. He let them know when things needed to change as the pitcher changed out and didn’t wait too long to implement the change. They celebrated accomplishments. The leader of the team enabled his team to be excited to do what they liked to do and that was to play baseball.The last board meeting I was involved with, I was so excited how everyone was having great discussions, going back to strategies and evaluating the resources and what should be done. They were really a group excited about the IOUG and being part of the community. They had grown as leaders themselves and took succession planning seriously to make sure that it continued.

I hope that this brief description of the areas I was involved with in the user group helped of what might be important for leadership and areas that need to be developed by the board of directors. I am still speaking and recruiting volunteers for different areas to have people who are passionate about the community to remain involved.

Summary

A user group leader has a wide variety of things that they need to do to lead, support and inspire the community. Even as a leader, you do not have to go alone. There are others on the board of directors or other key volunteers that can help out to verify ideas support the tasks at hand and provide feedback about what the user group is doing and areas to work on.

There are many qualities of a leader with a few of them being discussed in this chapter. Integrity is a very important quality that a leader can demonstrate. A leader with integrity is one that is respected and will have people willing to follow. Leaders who are open and honest will communicate to the community in this way and gain the respect and followers.

There are some qualities that come with values, but others that can be developed and worked on just like skills that are needed. Self-awareness will help determine the qualities that you are already demonstrating and evaluate good versus bad qualities. The bad qualities are normally easy to determine because these are obvious in the people in charge that are not considered leaders.

Another quality is attitude and one that we might overlook, but having the right attitude being involved and excited about the user group is going to inspire others. A positive attitude is one that is contagious and the enthusiasm will spread throughout the group. Bringing energy and excitement to the community will draw others to volunteer and become more involved.

Learning and developing skills and qualities to become a leader requires practice, too, and demonstrating these skills in the user group and community. It does not have to be in a board role first but as part of a committee or another area that the user group can use the assistance. There are plenty of ways to demonstrate these qualities and they will be noticed either in the workplace or user group. These qualities are important for career building as we well as the involvement in the community.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list on how to demonstrate and all of the qualities that are needed. Remember leaders do have multiple qualities and it is not just one quality to work on. It is not an easy task, but well worth it when seeing the results and others enabled to learn and develop these skills too.

It is difficult to compare some of the same work we do to baseball, and the excitement of this game. To experience that on a regular basis within the user group would be amazing, and the leaders of the user group can enable the exhilaration and energy. Keeping up that level could get exhausting but it would not be boring. The leaders can inspire this type of team and community to be working toward a goal. It would be an awesome feeling to be part of a community that takes pride in what they do and provide. To be able to continue to do what we are good at and have a group of leaders that are developing talent in the membership and grow the community into champions.