Program and Project Management
Leadership, for me, started at two years old, as my mother tells it, when I started bossing people around (as a two year old does).
But I had to learn to channel the 2-year-old bossypants into facilitation, into listening when I’d rather speak – which has resulted in my spending almost four decades in leadership roles, whether as a project or program manager, a university instructor, an editor, a consultant, or a coach…
And from the family boss at two, I went on to the head of the neighborhood pack of kids at five.
And it continued that way throughout life.
It wasn’t planned.
I was just always put in charge.
As an undergraduate, I was the student delegate to the New England Board of Higher Education conference, and it went on from there.
I learned about leadership and project management in my multiple roles in both college and graduate school – everything from writing the student handbook, being a student manager in the dining hall, an editor on the newspaper, establishing a literary supplement, a student stringer to The New York Times, acting as an officer in several clubs and organizations, a student director and, later, in grad school, a teaching assistant (full faculty member and privileges), the graduate student government association, and more.
Winning the award for “most outstanding contributions to the quality of student life,” upon college graduation, told me who I was really supposed to be. It was more than just a writer or an editor or a writing teacher.
Everything I did was going to be in a leadership capacity. When I taught creative writing to senior citizens in Connecticut, it went from just writing workshops to publishing a literary magazine with them and full-out, public media launches each time an issue debuted — complete with newspaper coverage.
I was never just someone on the team in anything I did; I was always the leader of the team.
And I can show you how to be a successful leader of yours, whether for-profit, nonprofit, educational, hospital, or human services settings, community based organizations, even your own family…
“Peaches is an AWESOME Program Manager! She has an impeccable way of charging and challenging the team members to greatness. ‘Mama Bear,’ as we call her, takes care of her cubs in caring and direct manner. She is totally results driven!!!”
-Barbara Ann Michaels, Jester of the Peace