by Joyce Piñero
Kim Story Haagen, DTM, has been spoiled by Toastmasters. She has been around people who live out the four pillars: integrity, respect, service and excellence. As she changes career paths, she finds herself looking for companies that display these same qualities.
She approaches everything differently because of her eleven years in Toastmasters. She expects meetings to have an agenda and leaders to go above and beyond what is expected.
“I have a high expectation of professionalism because of Toastmasters.” Kim explains.
Although she had a degree and background in communications, Kim lacked confidence and was looking to build her leadership skills when she joined Toastmasters. Not only has she accomplished that, but she’s learned job skills as well.
Kim has become familiar with Slack, Zoom, and collaborative technology. She’s also learned how to use technology in presentations for sales, orientations, and hybrid presentations. She credits Toastmasters with helping her become a better leader because of their excellent tech support.
She’s practiced work presentations in club, and “had everything go wrong” in the technology. “Toastmasters has allowed me to make mistakes in a safe environment.” In turn, that has allowed her to fix the issues before making the presentations at work.
The tech skills she’s acquired through Toastmasters are definitely going on her resume, along with achievements and volunteerism. Public relations, mentorship, chartering new clubs, sales and marketing skills are all things she’s added to her resume because of experiences in Toastmasters.
One of the things she’s looking for in a company is fostering a growth mindset. She loves the evaluation piece in Toastmasters, where she has learned to give and receive feedback. Because of it, she’s embraced a growth mindset both in her personal relationships and in business. She believes if more companies would implement this powerful growth mentality they would see results both in their employees and their bottom line.
Toastmasters, both in the programming and the people she has had the honor of working with, have made her into a more confident person and the leader she longed to be when she joined. According to Kim, a leader is who you are. “Once you are a leader, you are a leader. Titles don’t matter.”
