We're excited to share this piece from
SMA Editorial Review Committee
Member Dr. Adrina C. Bardekjian. With
this article and David Moore's recent
"Seven Considerations for Budding
Urban Foresters," we were gifted this
year with a pair of complementary
works from two of urban forestry's
most dynamic young professionals.
Dr. Bardekjian (www.adrinabardekjian.
com) is an urban forestry researcher
and public speaker who works with
multiple groups and boards. She is
Manager of Urban Forestry Programs
and Research Development with
Tree Canada. She is the recipient
of several awards, including SMA's
Award of Achievement (2018) and ISA's
Honourary Membership Award (2016).
Recipe for Evolving
Leadership: Seven
Key Ingredients
By Adrina C. Bardekjian, MFC, PhD
Earlier this year, I was invited by telecommunications
company TELUS in Montreal, Quebec to share my
professional journey and research initiatives at their
Women's Leadership event to an engaged audience of
past winners of TELUS' CHLOE Awards for Leadership
Excellence, Emerging Leaders, Champions of Diversity,
and Community Engagement. Part of this presen-
tation was to share lessons on leadership; these
are the seven I chose from my own experiences.
1. Get Comfortable
Being Uncomfortable
My primary research focus is on women in urban
forestry and how we can support our ever-expanding
involvement in our field through diverse networks
and strategies. I believe everyone has the right to
feel heard and that people need to get uncomfort-
able to effect meaningful change. To that end, I've
learned to question my own biases and to become
more self-reflective and open-minded to new and
unconventional ideas. Ways in which I'm learning
this is by working with diverse and interdisciplinary
teams such as the Toronto Cancer Prevention
Coalition Shade Policy Committee, participating
in non-traditional partnerships, and engaging in
cross-cultural collaborations such as my experiences
with the U.S. Forest Service Office of International
Programs—see article: Look More Closely, Think
More Deeply: Experiences from the 2017 US Forest
Service International Urban Forestry Seminar.
20 CityTREES
