Faith Alexander: A WRJ Leadership Spotlight

In our latest District President Spotlight series, meet Faith Alexander! Faith is the current Southeast District President. Learn how Faith developed her leadership skills and more in this Q&A:

How did you come to be a WRJ leader?
I became a sisterhood leader at Congregation Schaarai Zedek in Tampa, Florida when I stopped practicing law. I received a call from a member of the nominating committee of my local sisterhood. She wanted me to join the sisterhood board. I told her, “I can't be on the sisterhood board. I'm not even a member.”

She said, “No problem. Just join sisterhood and we'll take care of the rest.”

As you can see, they took care of the rest. But the important lesson to learn from this is to never be afraid to ask. The worst thing that could happen is the person says no.

Describe your leadership in three words.

1. Inviting
2. Collaborative
3. Fun

Always create a welcoming and inviting space so that people feel comfortable. When you're working with others, try to collaborate so that the members of your space and community feel that their work is valued and that their voices are being heard. Finally, have fun! Our work is so much more rewarding when we have fun along the way.

Who is a leader you admire and why?
A WRJ leader that I admire is very easy to think of. My local sisterhood, Congregation Schaarai Zedek, is also the home sisterhood of WRJ North American past president, Judy Rosenkranz. I've served on my local sisterhood board with Judy for many years and have seen the wisdom that she imparts to us. However, as I've become more involved with WRJ on the international level, I also see the respect that our members have for her and the other women like her who forged the way for all of us.

Tell us about a time that called for your leadership skills.
My leadership skills really came in handy at my very first District Board meeting. We had a motion on the floor that had several amendments, and it was very confusing. Admittedly, I'm a little bit of a parliamentary procedure nerd, and all the training that WRJ has given us on parliamentary procedure and ways to run a meeting really came in handy. I was pretty thankful at that moment, and I would encourage all of our leaders to brush up on those skills because you never know when you might need them!