Adriana Melendez - LLMC

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I am a brown mid-size (AKA curvy) woman, the eldest daughter of 3, I am the mother of 1 kind boy and 1 sharp girl. I am a loved and loving wife of a great partner. I am a friend to some but approachable to all. I am a proud public servant. I am Mexican-Canadian married to a Cuban. I can speak 4 languages yet I have always encountered resistance to “fit in”.

What motivated you to join the Lifting as you Lead Mentoring Circles program?

I work hard to be the best version of myself every day. I find advancement in the PS very difficult especially for immigrants, to lengthy for any PS and I wanted to take advantage of any opportunity available to progress. I find that communities are a great place to feel valuable, and listened to, they are a place to help each other out, promote others, and leverage everyone’s strengths to collective knowledge.

Describe the impact you aim to make within your role through this program.

I am blessed to say that whatever I had in mind as expectation was surpassed. I inspired someone enough to request me to mentor them. I sparked someone’s interest to challenge my beliefs and contribute to an environment where they can express at ease their disagreement. I learned week after week from my peers and each session provided value. I still have to build a community of practice of my own.

Do you view your public service career differently after participating in the Lifting as you Lead Mentoring Circles program?

Yes, serving Canadians is a priority to me but much like helping myself before being capable of helping others, I feel serving my colleagues is necessary before serving the rest of the population.

What is the one message you would like to leave us with today?

Leadership is a beautiful challenge, a rich experience with ups and downs, with good days and bad days but when success is achieved by any of us, we all win, and it gets multiplied. When one of us struggles, the burden gets divided.