Where You Lead, I Will Follow

Well, I'm back in the office-although hardly anyone is here, so I had time to think about leadership again, especially given some of the things going on in the world. I have been watching a course from Harvard called "The Psychology of Leadership"--see previous posts, and today the lesson was about leadership--and how do we train leaders. In looking around on the web, I found these interesting statements:
To Change the World, Change Yourself First
Inscribed on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop at Westminster Abbey
When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits,
I dreamed of changing the world.
As I grew older and wiser I discovered the world would not change
So I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change my country
But it too seemed unmoveable.
As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt,
I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me.
But alas they would have none of it!
And now I realize, as I lie on my deathbed, that is I had only changed myself first,
Then by example I might have changed my family.
From then, by example, I might have changed my friends.
From their aspirations and encouragement I would have been able t better my country
And who know. . . I might have even changed the world.

This was very apropos after a conversation I had with my daughter about men. Some women attach themselves to men that they think they can change--make better (it's for their own good, isn't it), and for the most part they find that it doesn't happen. I should know, I had one like that--that I was going to save, and fix all of the problems he had. Twenty-three years later I finally got it. It wasn't going to happen.

I also found this very interesting commentary that seems to fit in with the conversation:

Rules for being human
You will receive a body. You may like it or not but it will be yours the whole time.
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full time informal school called Life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn. You may like the lessons or you may hate the lessons but you will have little choice anyway.

There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The 'failed' experiment is as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.

A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, then you can go to the next lesson.

Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

There is no better there than here. When your there becomes here you will simply obtain another there that will again look better than here.

Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate in yourself.

What you make of your life is up to you. You have the tools and resources that you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

Your answers lie inside of you. The answers to life's questions lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
Y
ou will forget all this

The statement that caught my eye was the one marked above--which kind of follows the post on reflections.(see previous post).

So, what makes a leader--according to Harvard, two necessary things are competence and character. So, can we train people to have character? Is it a skill or an innate part of the person. And, if it is innate--how did it get there--through parental/teacher models?

I know this is blasphemous, (I don't think any of my bosses read this), but where I work, leaders are determined by who you know, what ladders you climbed to get ahead--not competence and character. Sometimes it seems like if you mess up bad enough (and you are in the network--you get bumped up the ladder higher). Certainly the people who end up in leadership positions for the most part never received training for it--so I guess my work thinks that leadership is innate (at least that's my logic). I'm not jealous or anything because I have been put in leadership roles several times--not because I wanted to climb the ladder, but I was willing to do the work. I figure if I lead, I don't have to follow.

So, I would like to put this out to my loyal (reader(s))--is leadership a skill or innate?

Still hot and humid in Atlanta

Nancy

Reflections

 
 
 

I saw a great reflection photo on another blog and decided I would share a couple of mine from Alaska. Reflections are very interesting--the fact that they are backwards of what really is. Have you ever done that experiment where you take a picture of the left and right half of your face and then put the two left sides or two right sides of the picture together--it's like we have a good twin and an evil twin.

My husband is a Gemini and he really is sometimes like two people--the great guy, very kind and generous and then the other one that seems to only pop out when he is tired. The one that seems to be like Dr. Jeckyl. Me, I'm sure that some people see me completely differently than my family sees me. I remember long ago when a family counselor just couldn't believe that I ever got angry. Yep, our reflections--the one out front, the one behind the mirror that we try to keep out of sight from the rest of the world, or not. My son believes totally in the premise,that what you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, f..k it. He is totally himself (unless he is trying to get something from me), all the time, no airs, no games--of course who he is drives some people batty (sometimes me), but I do admire him for having the guts, (not necessarily the best judgement) to be totally who he is. My two other sons have learned how to play the game pretty well--the "how to win friends and influence people". My daughter, is a little more like my other son--just more reserved and more introspective and quiet. (Of course, I am now hearing stories from her younger days that would make me think differently). I think sometimes bad stuff happens to good people and it has a dramatic effect on them.

So, what do people see when they look at me? I know that I have my own internal view of myself, and that's probably why there aren't a lot of pictures of me hanging around. In my head, I'm a kid, uncoordinated, havent' really gotten comfortable with my body, but still wanting to play and have fun, be silly, dance, laugh, and not have to be an adult. What I have had to be in real life is the "adult", reserved, I won't say quiet, but certainly not raucous, except at home dancing with my 19 month old grandchildren. I have had to be the responsible one, the caregiver (not so good at that part), the provider, and now, since my Dad died, sort of the head of the family. It isn't necessarily who I want to be, but so it goes. 

North to Alaska

I can't help it, as soon as I got home I was working on putting my pictures together into a program on my computer called Click to DVD--it allows you to put your pictures in a slide show, but you can also add music. Now finding the right music for the pictures took me more time than putting the pictures in. As you can tell from previous posts, I have started tying everything to a song title. (I was hoping it would get more folks to my blog, but that didn't work either). Well, anyway, I divided the slides into Homer, Denali, Seward, and Anchorage--since those were the places we visited. I started looking for free mp3 songs on the internet, and found some very cool sites with Alaska stuff--unfortunately, some of the mp3's turned out to be mpu's (don't even know what that is, but my program won't convert them to mp3's). So, I found the first song (if I knew how to add audio files I would-but haven't figured that part out either). It was called "Where we live", and talked about a place with blue skies, big oak trees, lots of love, yada..... So that one had to go with Homer--see previous posts. Then for Denali--I had found this great music, but it was mpu, so I ended up using a John Tesh song--and it really worked. Then, for Seward, I used a Queen song--"This could be heaven"--and Anchorage --I found that I had "Find Your Way Back", right on my Jefferson Starship cd sitting downstairs. So, got it all put together, and must have watched it 4 times yesterday--once with each kid, and once on the tv in the living room--bigger picture, better sound. Made copies for the inlaws, etc.

Pretty crazy what can give you satisfaction.