Leadership Questions

8 comments

1. The ques­tion that I am most drawn to is — how can I be tru­ely authen­tic? I find that I am often edit­ing my thoughts in con­ver­sa­tions, meet­ings, even when I’m talk­ing to myself! Who am I? What do I authen­ti­cal­ly think or feel at any giv­en moment? 

   Would it be appro­pri­ate to say to oth­ers what I am think­ing? Sup­pose I think you are an idiot — do I say that to you? I always long to be one of those char­ac­ters in films who just blurt out this well script­ed speech that shows how smart and pow­er­ful they are. Most of my speech­es nev­er sound like that. 

   This is a great open­ing thought and ques­tion, Dan. Let’s keep talk­ing about this.

   Jay

2. Thank you, Jay. The basic ques­tion you seem to be ask­ing is “How do I know when I’m being real — with oth­ers and with myself?” Maybe “real” isn’t blurt­ing out that you think some­one else is an idiot — maybe that’s an angry self, tired of not speak­ing up. Maybe it’s not a great speech from a movie — that also seems unre­al because it real­ly is a script. This may sound odd, but when I think of the times in my own life when I have felt most authen­tic it is when it is NOT a small me that is speak­ing to some­one else in a self-con­scious way, but rather it is when some­thing pow­er­ful and pos­i­tive comes through me that is of gen­uine help to some­one else and (poten­tial­ly) to our rela­tion­ship. It has a clean, hon­est feel­ing to it, as if it came right out of the ground and up through my body and it rep­re­sent­ed a state­ment or ques­tion that felt des­tined to come for­ward at that moment…

   Because I know you, I know you have asked those kinds of ques­tions and made those kinds of state­ments. Many times I’ve received them and felt their char­ac­ter and depth and sincerity…always impos­si­ble to ignore or dis­miss, always a way to affirm some­thing impor­tant and vital about being alive.

3. Dan, although I do know how oth­er peo­ple think about lead­er­ship in a gener­ic way, because I can read their books or arti­cles or research, I have a hard time address­ing my feel­ing about my own leadership–how I do it or what I want out of it.

   I guess I have been an effec­tive leader in dif­fer­ent set­tings and with very dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions, and I think that what I’ve done that’s the same in all these chal­lenges is to let myself be steered as often as tak­ing the wheel myself.

   Find­ing the gold­en ker­nal of truth or pur­pose in an orga­ni­za­tion’s mis­sion or business–that rea­son for the orga­ni­za­tion’s exis­tence that gives mean­ing to my com­mit­ment and engagement–has been the key to devel­op­ing my faith and belief that my time will not be wast­ed. Once I can see that truth and devel­op my faith in it, then it’s a mat­ter of show­ing that light to others. 

   I have required that light be present in every orga­ni­za­tion I have ever worked for, and I’m for­tu­nate to have had a rich and var­ied work­life where I was able to learn from my stu­dents, col­leagues and cowork­ers. I sup­pose that I might have invent­ed a grand pur­pose for any orga­ni­za­tion I might have had to work for if I had­n’t been so lucky.

   So, maybe I have found the ques­tions I ask–how can I be excit­ed and engaged with my work here? Or, how can I be sure I’m spend­ing my time on this plan­et, my very best hours in fact, work­ing for a pur­pose that is tru­ly worth­while? Once I have the answers to those ques­tions, the rest just flows naturally.

   Thanks Dan, for focus­ing us on what we need to say to ourselves.

4. You’ve ask a great ques­tion — How can I be sure I’m spend­ing my very best hours work­ing for a pur­pose that is worthwhile? 

   Real­ly, how can any of us know, except that when we do, it mat­ters lit­tle whether oth­ers are pleased with our work or whether there was mon­ey or pow­er or sta­tus in it. 

   It seems to me our real lead­er­ship work comes to us in two pos­i­tive ways: first as a com­pen­sa­tion. We find that we are teach­ing what we most need to learn. If I felt dif­fer­ent from oth­ers, I dis­cov­er I am help­ing oth­er peo­ple stand up for their dif­fer­ences and thus…belong. If I felt cramped and con­strained and dam­aged as a child, I teach oth­ers how to be free and how to feel their own val­ue. If I don’t feel at home, I try to help oth­ers find a home…

   But even­tu­al­ly I think we come out of this phase. We get enough of the pro­jec­tions onto oth­ers, the sym­bols and ironies, and just try some­thing sim­ple, let go. 

   And that’s when “giv­ing my very best hours” comes in, this search for the essen­tial, the gist of a per­son­al gift, a knowl­edge that there’s only so much hon­ey in the pot of time and we want to spread it out just so. 

   Lead­er­ship of this sec­ond style of con­tri­bu­tion is sweet because it depends less on accom­plish­ments and major insights than moments that once might have passed unno­ticed. Like when sud­dent­ly there’s an under­stand­ing between peo­ple, but it hap­pens after every­one has left the room.

5. Hi dan…welcome to the blogosphere…

   Some great ques­tions in this pdf:

   http://www.isce.edu/site/Key_Wood.pdf

   Hope you get the com­ments thing worked out!

6. Chris

   Very sor­ry to hear of the loss of your father in law. I read your post­ing at
   http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/index.html.

   His book on tox­ic emo­tions in the work­place looks fab­u­lous and sure­ly is tes­ti­ment to a man who lived his life with great integrity. 

   Your com­ments about sto­ries res­onates with my own experiences.

   I facil­i­tat­ed a retreat one day for a depart­ment of pro­ba­tion (mis­de­mean­ers, not felony offend­ers). The exec­u­tive team want­ed to devel­op a con­gru­ent vision. But the ten­sion was so high due to inter­nal mis­trusts that I actu­al­ly pro­posed call­ing off the retreat as it began! After some silences and furtive looks, the group decid­ed it want­ed to go ahead any­way. Almost imme­di­ate­ly they got into an argu­ment about whether the word “pun­ish­ment” should be replaced by the word “reha­bil­i­ta­tion” in the cur­rent mis­sion state­ment. The room was equal­ly divid­ed and high­ly argu­men­ta­tive. It was­n’t until the group start­ed telling per­son­al sto­ries about WHY they held their views so strong­ly that we could move for­ward. When the finance man­ag­er in the group shared that the word choice was a life and death issue for him, every­thing began to change. “What do you mean?” some­body asked. 

   He explained how years before, dur­ing a tough time in his life, drink­ing and on a num­ber of drugs, he had decid­ed to dri­ve his car off a cliff. He sur­vived the event, but it had been peo­ple in the very same pro­ba­tion depart­ment in which he now worked that had helped him redis­cov­er his life. He turned to the group and said, “So if they’d been into ‘pun­ish­ment’ at that time, I’d be dead today.”

   More silence and then, spon­ta­neous­ly, oth­er peo­ple shared their sto­ries of why and how they’d come to work for the depart­ment. These were all folks who had worked togeth­er for some years, but they’d nev­er had a chance to tell their sto­ries. And we went on that day to craft a real­ly beau­ti­ful and sim­ple vision for the depart­ment based on one thought: that the goal of the agency was “To restore the vic­tim, the offend­er, and the com­mu­ni­ty.” To restore.

   I share this sto­ry in hon­or of your father in law, whose work, I’m sure, will con­tin­ue in the hearts of many peo­ple who care about what’s “tox­ic” at work.

   Thanks, also for the paper on Devel­op­ing Lead­er­ship Capac­i­ty. You were right about the ques­tions — there are lots of them. It’s a great arti­cle with an excel­lent lead­er­ship model. 

   Being new to blog­ging, I apol­o­gize for not mak­ing all the links I need to…still on a steep learn­ing curve.

   Dan

7. Thanks for this…great story.

   As a new blog­ger, per­haps you’ll allow me the chance to offer one obser­va­tion on your blog:

   You’re putting juicy stuff in your com­ments! Some of these replys you’ve been post­ing are great! Don’t hide them…put them up front. You can refer to the com­ments with an intro like, “Reply­ing in my com­ments this week, so-and-so said.…” and then adding the rest of your post. 

   One good rea­son for doing that is that it makes it eas­i­er for your friends out there to link direct­ly to your thoughts, rather than to a com­ments thread.

   So don’t be shy…put the good stuff out where it belongs!

   Chris

8. Chris speaks sooth! (And Chris, I’m thrilled you’ve found Dan. Jay, who post­ed a com­ment above, led me to Dan. Love­ly inter­sec­tions in the world!)

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