Despite the economic downturn created by COVID-19, leadership is a skill that remains in high demand. Alongside communication and management, leadership is one of three top skills that appeared most frequently in job ads between March and July 2020, according to a report by the labor-analytics firm Emsi.
These skills, dubbed “resilient” by Emsi, are typically seen as human skills that are part and parcel of psychology education, and they will continue to be sought after even within the postpandemic workforce, says Karen Stamm, PhD, director of APA’s Center for Workforce Studies.
“Leadership was a skill important prior to the pandemic, it’s a skill important during the pandemic, and it is a skill that will continue to be important postpandemic,” Stamm says.
But how do you get that type of training in leadership? APA offers several opportunities. Among these is serving on one of the association’s more than 30 boards and committees, many of which are eager for early career members and a few of which are also open to psychology students. These groups, which have been continuing to meet virtually throughout the pandemic, represent areas of expertise such as practice, academia, or research and are charged with reviewing or developing new policy recommendations or projects that advance APA’s strategic priorities or carrying out specific business of the association (e.g., accreditation or continuing education). Boards and committees aim to have diverse representation, including age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status. Most positions are for three-year terms.
Serving in a volunteer position on one of these boards or committees will not only give you leadership experience but also fill APA’s need for new ideas and fresh voices, says Roseann Fish Getchell, PsyD, 2019 chair of the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) and a clinical psychologist with Providence Health & Services in Oregon.
Another place to look for leadership opportunities is through APA’s 54 divisionsopens in new window, which offer seats on their boards of directors, standing committees, task forces, and work groups.
While becoming a leader in a big organization such as APA can seem daunting, particularly when you’re just starting out in the field, those who have taken on such roles say they have not only gained leadership experience but also expanded their networking opportunities and benefited the field and society through their mission-driven work.
“My career is what it is today because of the leadership positions I’ve held and the connections I’ve made along the way,” says Melanie Wilcox, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Augusta University and 2020 chair of APA’s Board of Educational Affairs (BEA). Here, other students and early career psychologists share their advice for securing APA leadership positions.
Identify a group. What kind of committee might interest you? A good place to learn more about APA governance positions is on APA’s call for nominations webpage. This webpage lists open positions, describes the qualifications needed to run or apply for them, and explains the process for being appointed or elected.
Once you’ve found a committee or board that appeals to you, do some research: Reach out to APA staff or the board or committee members to ask questions about the process and consult about different opportunities that might be available. Most APA boards and committees actively recruit early career psychologists to gain their perspectives.
Also look for openings posted on division email lists or in their newsletters. When Christina Shane-Simpson, PhD, found a committee position that sounded interesting, she emailed the committee chair for more information and introduced herself to other committee members at conferences to discuss the opportunity.
“I believe that this name recognition helped me in the election process,” says Shane-Simpson, who served on APA’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education (CABE) from 2018 to 2020 and continues to serve as a leadership committee member on the Psi Chi Network for International Collaborative Exchange.
Align with your passion. As a professor of psychology at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, Jaclyn Ronquillo-Adachi, PhD, works to ensure that her community college students get more of the opportunities commonly found at four-year institutions. That passion led her to seek a position on APA’s CABE to work alongside leaders in undergraduate education who share her commitment to helping students.
“My biggest tip to students and early career psychologists is that whatever it might be that keeps you going, keep that as your focus and never give up on your ‘why,’” she says.
Stay flexible. What if your dream position isn’t available? It’s OK to settle for a less desirable position if you think it will help you gain the leadership experience you want, says Justin Karr, PhD, 2018 chair of the APAGS Committee, who has also served as a member of APA’s Board of Directors.
When he first applied for an APAGS position, he was most interested in serving on the committee as the member-at-large, science focus, but he was slated for a different position: member-at-large, membership recruitment/retention.
“It was a foot in the door for many networking experiences, which eventually put me on the trajectory for the 2018 APAGS chair,” says Karr, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky.
Develop a platform. To be appointed or elected, it’s important to be well versed in the issues the board or committee covers, to determine where you stand on them, and then to communicate why, says Getchell.
“I did a lot of research on what the hot topics were, what had been done already, and what still needed to be accomplished,” she says. For the APAGS Committee chair election, she eventually developed a platform on addressing graduate student debt and increasing the supply of internships.
It’s also important to remember that leaders need to support others’ ideas and keep the overall mission going forward, says Karr. “The majority of what I have done in my leadership roles has diverged from what I set out to do, and I realized succeeding in these secondary, often ambiguous, roles is among the most essential components of leadership.”
Tailor your leadership style to your strengths. Doing this can help you build self-efficacy, Wilcox says. She recalls feeling out of place when she first joined the BEA, even after having years of leadership experience with APA’s Div. 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology). Then she was assigned a racial justice item to investigate for BEA—a topic near and dear to her heart. She worked hard to analyze the issue to back up her suggestions to her fellow BEA members and in the end, the BEA members supported her recommendation.
“Being a leader from the perspective of my values and using my skills for good and to push the association forward was my type of leadership, and getting that feedback helped increase my self-efficacy in that role,” Wilcox says.
Understand that leadership is more than a title. Too often, our mental models for leadership are hierarchical, Wilcox notes.
“It’s not about being at the top of the food chain,” she says. “It’s about being willing to step out first and express uncertainty and invite everyone in that circle into a collaborative process.”
Her unconventional view of leadership is perhaps what made her feel so uncomfortable initially in APA board and committee leadership as opposed to division leadership.
“I thought maybe that was wrong somehow,” she recalls. “And I think other early career professionals may similarly feel like, if hierarchy is the model for leadership, perhaps I shouldn’t be in leadership. But we need [early career psychologists] who can come in and use their facilitation and collaboration skills to bring a more equitable version of leadership to APA now more than ever before.”
Be yourself. “One thing I’ve learned through my experiences as a leader is that the best way to be a leader is to be myself, tap my own strengths, and not try to be someone else,” Getchell says. For her, that often means bringing up the elephant in the room.
“It’s a bit of a risk, but speaking up about an issue that is clearly hanging over everyone’s heads really brings out some of the unsaid things that can be happening in groups,” she says. “If I tried to squelch that, I would not be my authentic self.”
