The New Year is off to a fast start since I arrived on January 1st to take over as president of Wings of Hope. As I look forward to 2015, I see my role as servant leader to you. This means leading with love and compassion for our team, those we serve and our donors. The book, Lead with Luv, by Ken Blanchard and Colleen Barrett, (former Southwest airlines president) detail how Colleen and Herb Kelleher practiced servant leadership at Southwest. They go on to describe the leadership part of servant leadership as having two parts, 1)strategic vision/direction (what we do) and 2) operational leadership (how we do what we do). So updating the Wings of Hope strategic plan and strengthening our culture, will be key activities for us at Wings of Hope in 2015.
Wings of Hope has a strong foundation with our current vision to help promote hope and peace and our mission to come alongside those we serve on a journey to self-sufficiency. I think we have an opportunity to: clarify the scope and breadth of our humanitarian services, update our strategic plan goals and add core values on how we operate. My preliminary thoughts on core values are based on my discussions and interactions you, the Wings of Hope team. The proposed core values are: servant leadership, service excellence, safety, sustainability and fun. Fun was described well in Lead with Luv as we want to enjoy our work life as much as our home life. We take our mission seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, maintain perspective, celebrate successes, enjoy our work and are passionate team players.
I believe Wings of Hope should be: the volunteer service of choice for volunteers, the humanitarian service provider of choice in the communities we serve and be the charity of choice for our donors. I welcome your thoughts and input as we shape Wings of Hope for the next growth horizons in our future.
Don Hamblen,
President