Read Part I
Read Part II
Read Part III
Read Part IV
Life is full of contradictions. We have to plan for the future while also living in the moment. We have to make amends for the past but not live there. We want to know what will happen tomorrow, next week or next year, but if we did it could drastically change what we do today, which would change tomorrow (the whole time travel dilemna from science fiction shows comes to mind).
In this work situation, I tended to live in the moment in a negative way...if things seemed stuck today I could not see how they would change. I assumed that if I wasn't being patted on the back today, or if my tasks were mundane, or if somebody else was advancing, that it would always be this way. It seemed like there was no hope that it would ever be my turn.
Of course I was wrong! There is nothing more constant in this world than change; it happens in and around us all the time! It's just sometimes hard to see, especially when we put the blinders on ourselves. Think about it...think about where you are today. Have you always been there? In the physical sense, I could never make that claim because I have moved 19 times! In the emotional sense, I am not the same person I was even a month ago. And in the spiritual sense, I change every single time I pray alone and every time I worship with others.
So what does all this have to do with leadership training? Well, at the core of leadership is the ability to prepare people to respond to change and to guide them through it. When you think of the word "leader", who do you think of? What situation do you recall that makes you feel this person is a good leader? Wasn't there change going on?
We are no longer being called the management team at work. We are the Leadership Team. Because, like my boss says, you don't manage people, you manage tasks. You lead people.
continued
No comments:
Post a Comment