There are two different but related things nudging at my brain this week, and I need to get them out on the page and kick them around a little bit. I really don't know where they will lead me, but like most weeks I always end up where my brain and my heart need to be, so I'm just going to write and see what happens....
The first is part of a response from a colleague of mine on an Army forum called Leader Net. RS introduced me to Leader Net and was influential in getting me a place there for my work. In his reply to a question entitled, "Who's Example do You Follow?" he wrote:
"I no longer consider leadership the mere ability to influence a group of people to "accomplish the mission" because the mission may not always lead the people in a constructive direction. Such an approach to leadership is little more than Machiavellian manipulation that may succeed in a temporary mechanical efficiency but ultimately sows discontent and anger once the true motive is revealed."
" There comes a point when a leader's job is greater than simply keeping our 'eye on the prize,' showing empathy/sympathy, or being the example the organization expects us to be. There comes a point in time when a leader must be willing to stand and say no."
"Leadership must stand on behalf of those it leads. It must not merely acknowledge truth, it must speak it to power. It must inspire people from within for the betterment of themselves and others. True inspirational leadership articulates a higher vision, evokes a deeper meaning, and demands the absolute best from both the led and the power it challenges."
The second is from the Servant Leadership Blog and is an adaptation of a presentation given by Will Keepin in 2009. The post is called the "Principles of Spiritual Leadership" and the second principle is the following:
"Non-attachment to outcome. To the extent that we are attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our success and failures, which is a path to burnout. Failures are inevitable, and successes are not the deepest purpose of our work."
What struck me about both of these inputs is that they require something even more fundamental on our part in order for both to be true. They require a full, deep, complete, and comfortable understanding of ourselves. The require an acceptance and recognition of who we are. They require a detachment from the bonds of simple labeling and expectation. They require us to live fully and completely and faithfully to who we are. They require us to accept ourselves honestly - speak our power and goodness with the same ease and recognition of the truth as we accept our failings and weaknesses. They require the most truthful and authentic parts of us be known to us.
Leadership cannot be tied only to a measurable metric. That is not leadership, it is management. It is a model of efficiency and production. It merely requires a person who can figure out the need and then produce the most effective way to fill it. You are not leading if that is your purpose. To simply build a better mousetrap. That definition is much too limited and leadership is something much more than mission accomplishment by providing purpose and direction and vision for the organization.
Leadership is something more than the way you treat people. It is more than the ability to be kind or understanding or fair or just or nice. Those things will make for a happy and content workplace most of the time, but they are only methods, a way, of expressing yourself. They are not, in and of themselves, leadership. Empathy and sympathy are powerful and effective tools that all leaders possess, but their exercise is not leadership. Their exercise, in most cases, is behavior manipulation.
Leadership is more than the ability to say no. There are a million people running around who are saying no to a lot of things right now. A very tiny portion of them are leaders. Most are simply arguing for their way of thinking. Defending or protecting themselves against change and perceived threats to their way of life and thinking.
As my journey has progressed and I have uncovered and looked at myself I have found that almost every definition of leadership I can find falls somehow short of the mark. Is in ways large or small, incomplete for me. And I started to wonder why. And slowly, sometimes painfully slowly, it has occurred to me that leadership is being yourself so much that who you are totally disassociated from the outcomes, or the consequences, or the judgments, or the comparisons and stand fully and totally and completely in who you are. It is a faith that you can discover and live authentically at all times. It is a letting go of worry and fear, and a thoughtful consideration of why you act, feel, behave and see the world the way you do. It is deciding for yourself what is right and wrong, good and bad, comfortable and uncomfortable for you. It is an acceptance of yourself that is free of anyone else's judgment. It is the strength to stand alone and the strength to empower others to do the same. It is trusting your soul completely. And then living in accordance with it.
I have been also been thinking about love a lot lately. Love is an abstraction that is personal to each of us. It cannot be defined and must be taken on faith. We each see it and feel it in our own unique way. You cannot say to someone, "I love you." and have them feel it in precisely the way you feel it. It is ethereal and present everywhere at the same time. It is the ability to transcend behavior and emotion and day-to-day and see something more. It is not the words or the actions, it is the depth and measure of you that fills them. When you tell someone you love them you are choosing to give yourself completely and openly to them. It is beyond definition and beyond decision and beyond reason and words. Love is the power of being, and force of being, completely you. Love is not attached to the outcome or the payback or the comparative return. It is not open to judgment.
Love and leadership seem much the same to me right now. Both are bigger than the small words used to describe them. Both defy quantification or comparison and complete definition. Both are as unique as the person who is loving or leading. Both evoke feelings of empowerment in others and the fullest expression of us in ourselves. Both can never be tied to measurable outcomes. To be successful, both must be given with every ounce of us that we have. They both demand living and giving completely, with all of our energy, passion and force. You cannot define leadership simply by the metric of numeric success or efficiency. Nor can you define love by some barter system of give and take. You cannot define yourself or your leadership by success or failure anymore than you can define your love by good days and bad days. True love and true leadership both generate from the most authentic sense we have of ourselves. The purity and fearlessness and force of who we are. The complete awareness that to lead purely and to love purely we must know and follow our heart, our instinct, our most pure selves. To lead completely I have to open myself up completely to my authentic self and then give all of that, every ounce of my authenticity, someone else. Funny thing is, we have to do the same to those we love.....
People have commented to me that at some point the blog moved away from leadership and moved down another path to self-awareness. That once I stopped talking about the Army leader development model or complaining about this or that part of the Army, that it ceased to be a leadership blog and started to become an online diary of sorts. Those people are wrong. My journey has always been about leadership. Those who sell it short or do not understand it are getting caught up in the management model we sell. My journey of self-discovery is a journey of love for me and for those who love me, but it is also an important journey in leadership as well. I cannot lead and love others if I cannot lead and love myself. The journey is leadership. By searching for and discovering and loving my authentic self, I am able to step fully into leading as well.
It is often said that to lead them you must love them. And that is true. You must lead them with the same intensity, the same passion, the same completeness - with every ounce of the power of love that you have. In order to lead big, you must love big. Keep searching for love and you will inevitably find how to lead.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#143 Priorities, Values and Leadership
I learned a powerful lesson yesterday in priorities and values. And in leadership. In investing in something and sharing something and caring for and protecting something that is important to me.
Like many people right now, money is tight in my family. This is a not new for us, we just ran into a tight spot this month and things are down to the wire. The lights will stay on, and the house will have heat, and there will be food on the table, but there will be precious little extra until payday rolls around. No different than millions of other people, even in the best of economic times. And, quite honestly, better off than many others who will slip through the cracks and fall just a little more behind this month until they cannot keep their heads above water any longer.
However, there were 3 different things that all took place in one day that had a large impact on me and form the basis of this post. First, my original reaction to how close things would get was one of anger, frustration, and hurt pride. I have been in the Army for 21 years, I have rank and position and a stature in the organization. I have responsibilities and obligations. Things that need get done and people who rely on me. My Army stature is part of my identity. A large part. And yet, I find myself now in a position that I see many Soldiers in. The wallet is a little light at the end of the month and there will have to be some juggling that goes on. The dollar amounts are larger, but the margins are still the same. Slim and none. I had been equalized and my pride didn't like it. How could this happen? How could I run two Division level programs and yet not be able to ensure the security of my family any past the next paycheck? Tough sort of spot to be in. Sort of a 'role of man' place to be. The idea of provider and caretaker. Something I do for my Soldiers every day. How then could I have not done it in my own life?
A friend of mine though asked me two simple questions that unraveled a lot of that. "What do I value?", and "What is enough?" In 7 words, she made me consider my position and look at my priorities. She turned the feeling of worry and inadequacy into one of power and strength in about 3 minutes by pointing out some compelling competing truths that I didn't want to see. My home is safe and secure. My daughter will eat a healthy meal and have clean, warm, dry clothes and a soft bed to sleep in tonight and play in a youth soccer league. We will not wonder where our next meal is coming from or where we will sleep tonight. In fact, beyond merely making it, we are actually a thriving and healthy family. We might not be financially secure, but we will have done the very best could this month, and will certainly make it until the next paycheck comes in.
Which drove home the question about figuring out what I value. Do I value amassing a ton of money and keeping up with the neighbors to see who can have the newest car or who is putting a pool in their yard, or rebuilding their deck? Or do I care about raising my daughter in a healthy and complete, and safe home? A home that protects and nurtures her? A home where she knows that she is loved and cared for? Sometimes choices have to be made. Right now, the choice has to be that my daughter is raised in a healthy and happy home. If there is budgeting to be done, then it will have to tilt in that favor.
The second event stems from the first. The realization that I was looking at my situation from one point of view and there was an equally powerful one available to me that I originally could not see, nor give any credence to. It was a powerful demonstration of how my emotions affect my behaviors and my views. It showed me in a real way that I have to learn to stop, recognize where my filters and point of view are affecting the outcome of something, and then actively look for another way to view the situation. In essence, the see a problem as either a problem, or an opportunity to check in with myself and reaffirm my values and priorities against my reality. I wasn't leading my family through a tough spot, I was allowing the tough spot to dictate how I would feel and then react. I wasn't separating myself from the emotion enough to see alternative solutions.
The final piece of this puzzle fell into play last night as my wife and I were putting our 4 year old to bed. Every night, part of our routine is to state what we are thankful for that day. We call it the Gratitudes. We all take a turn and it reminds us to be grateful and to keep looking on the bright side of things. Last night, my daughter told my wife and I that she was grateful to live in a house of love. She's 4! But the force of her words nearly buckled my knees. Everything else aside, a little girl, tired at the end of an adventuresome day, managed to help me keep my priorities straight and concentrate on what really matters. She told me all I needed to know. Broke or not, we have built what we needed to build. A family where a little girl feels loved and safe and happy and secure.
What does my little story have to do with leadership? A lot I think. It has to do with self-awareness, a recognition of the power of attitude, a constant evaluation of priorities and the values you lead by, and the impact expectations and roles can have on your thought process. Yesterday reminded me that my personal pride, and some vision of where I think I should be at this point in my life, was affecting my ability to actually lead my family out of our current financial location. My attitude, my hurt feelings and my sense of failed obligation were only going to continue a cycle of tension that would never actually confront and face the reality of my situation. I was contributing to it instead of seeing it honestly. I never considered for a second that what was really important would be brought to me by a 4 year old. I may be broke for the moment, but my daughter and wife are living in a house that is built solidly with its priorities in order. The rest, while important and needing to be addressed, are not critical. My family having a solid foundation of love and joy and well-being is.
It also reminded me that one's Values have to be constantly considered. What are they? Why do you hold them? What standard are you using to judge them good or bad? How do you make your choices and decisions about what's important to you and why? How do you set those priorities in motion in your organization - be it your family or your platoon? Most importantly, are they being done actively or passively - are they your choices, or are you simply accepting those of others by default? We live in a world where many many men define themselves and their personal worth by their profession and their paycheck. So much of their identity is comprised of what they do and their net worth. And that was the starting point for me yesterday. A passive acceptance of what the world says is important, not an active evaluation of whether that is the right answer for me and my family. I discovered that I had my priorities wrong and they weren't in line with my values. 7 words helped me see that.
You lead yourself first. You lead yourself by gaining self-awareness, figuring out what you value and why, and then aligning your priorities to support your Values. In the course of one day, I learned a lot about each of those things. I learned to see how little attention I was paying to the impact someone else's idea of what or where I should be at this point in my life. How I was passively following instead of actively checking. I spent some time affirming my values and those of my family. Making sure that we all understood clearly what really matters to us. What this family will ground itself in. What will define us as a group. Now my wife and I can get our priorities straightened out and begin to work collectively on supporting our values and our vision. All of which equals leadership, no matter how you cut it. And the only benchmark for success that matters is that a little girl grows up in a house where she feels loved and safe and secure. Because that is what I truly value. Now to get my priorities in order.
As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Like many people right now, money is tight in my family. This is a not new for us, we just ran into a tight spot this month and things are down to the wire. The lights will stay on, and the house will have heat, and there will be food on the table, but there will be precious little extra until payday rolls around. No different than millions of other people, even in the best of economic times. And, quite honestly, better off than many others who will slip through the cracks and fall just a little more behind this month until they cannot keep their heads above water any longer.
However, there were 3 different things that all took place in one day that had a large impact on me and form the basis of this post. First, my original reaction to how close things would get was one of anger, frustration, and hurt pride. I have been in the Army for 21 years, I have rank and position and a stature in the organization. I have responsibilities and obligations. Things that need get done and people who rely on me. My Army stature is part of my identity. A large part. And yet, I find myself now in a position that I see many Soldiers in. The wallet is a little light at the end of the month and there will have to be some juggling that goes on. The dollar amounts are larger, but the margins are still the same. Slim and none. I had been equalized and my pride didn't like it. How could this happen? How could I run two Division level programs and yet not be able to ensure the security of my family any past the next paycheck? Tough sort of spot to be in. Sort of a 'role of man' place to be. The idea of provider and caretaker. Something I do for my Soldiers every day. How then could I have not done it in my own life?
A friend of mine though asked me two simple questions that unraveled a lot of that. "What do I value?", and "What is enough?" In 7 words, she made me consider my position and look at my priorities. She turned the feeling of worry and inadequacy into one of power and strength in about 3 minutes by pointing out some compelling competing truths that I didn't want to see. My home is safe and secure. My daughter will eat a healthy meal and have clean, warm, dry clothes and a soft bed to sleep in tonight and play in a youth soccer league. We will not wonder where our next meal is coming from or where we will sleep tonight. In fact, beyond merely making it, we are actually a thriving and healthy family. We might not be financially secure, but we will have done the very best could this month, and will certainly make it until the next paycheck comes in.
Which drove home the question about figuring out what I value. Do I value amassing a ton of money and keeping up with the neighbors to see who can have the newest car or who is putting a pool in their yard, or rebuilding their deck? Or do I care about raising my daughter in a healthy and complete, and safe home? A home that protects and nurtures her? A home where she knows that she is loved and cared for? Sometimes choices have to be made. Right now, the choice has to be that my daughter is raised in a healthy and happy home. If there is budgeting to be done, then it will have to tilt in that favor.
The second event stems from the first. The realization that I was looking at my situation from one point of view and there was an equally powerful one available to me that I originally could not see, nor give any credence to. It was a powerful demonstration of how my emotions affect my behaviors and my views. It showed me in a real way that I have to learn to stop, recognize where my filters and point of view are affecting the outcome of something, and then actively look for another way to view the situation. In essence, the see a problem as either a problem, or an opportunity to check in with myself and reaffirm my values and priorities against my reality. I wasn't leading my family through a tough spot, I was allowing the tough spot to dictate how I would feel and then react. I wasn't separating myself from the emotion enough to see alternative solutions.
The final piece of this puzzle fell into play last night as my wife and I were putting our 4 year old to bed. Every night, part of our routine is to state what we are thankful for that day. We call it the Gratitudes. We all take a turn and it reminds us to be grateful and to keep looking on the bright side of things. Last night, my daughter told my wife and I that she was grateful to live in a house of love. She's 4! But the force of her words nearly buckled my knees. Everything else aside, a little girl, tired at the end of an adventuresome day, managed to help me keep my priorities straight and concentrate on what really matters. She told me all I needed to know. Broke or not, we have built what we needed to build. A family where a little girl feels loved and safe and happy and secure.
What does my little story have to do with leadership? A lot I think. It has to do with self-awareness, a recognition of the power of attitude, a constant evaluation of priorities and the values you lead by, and the impact expectations and roles can have on your thought process. Yesterday reminded me that my personal pride, and some vision of where I think I should be at this point in my life, was affecting my ability to actually lead my family out of our current financial location. My attitude, my hurt feelings and my sense of failed obligation were only going to continue a cycle of tension that would never actually confront and face the reality of my situation. I was contributing to it instead of seeing it honestly. I never considered for a second that what was really important would be brought to me by a 4 year old. I may be broke for the moment, but my daughter and wife are living in a house that is built solidly with its priorities in order. The rest, while important and needing to be addressed, are not critical. My family having a solid foundation of love and joy and well-being is.
It also reminded me that one's Values have to be constantly considered. What are they? Why do you hold them? What standard are you using to judge them good or bad? How do you make your choices and decisions about what's important to you and why? How do you set those priorities in motion in your organization - be it your family or your platoon? Most importantly, are they being done actively or passively - are they your choices, or are you simply accepting those of others by default? We live in a world where many many men define themselves and their personal worth by their profession and their paycheck. So much of their identity is comprised of what they do and their net worth. And that was the starting point for me yesterday. A passive acceptance of what the world says is important, not an active evaluation of whether that is the right answer for me and my family. I discovered that I had my priorities wrong and they weren't in line with my values. 7 words helped me see that.
You lead yourself first. You lead yourself by gaining self-awareness, figuring out what you value and why, and then aligning your priorities to support your Values. In the course of one day, I learned a lot about each of those things. I learned to see how little attention I was paying to the impact someone else's idea of what or where I should be at this point in my life. How I was passively following instead of actively checking. I spent some time affirming my values and those of my family. Making sure that we all understood clearly what really matters to us. What this family will ground itself in. What will define us as a group. Now my wife and I can get our priorities straightened out and begin to work collectively on supporting our values and our vision. All of which equals leadership, no matter how you cut it. And the only benchmark for success that matters is that a little girl grows up in a house where she feels loved and safe and secure. Because that is what I truly value. Now to get my priorities in order.
As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#142 Coaches, Mentors, Friends and Choices
I am a fortunate man. I have the very good fortune of having people in my life who truly care for me and about me. People who love me enough to tell me the unvarnished truth. Even when that truth is not pretty. People who love me enough to let me find it out for myself, to come to it on my own, no matter how long, and how many missteps it takes to get there. People who invest themselves, their love, their powerful talents, and their time to walk parts of my journey with me. Some I interact with every day, other are less visible, but no less present. They are blessings. They are treasured gifts. Friendships like these are what excite me and make me get out of bed in the morning. They are the reason that I wake up and rush to get my coffee and wake my brain and start to think.
I have few friends and generally don't do surface relationships, so the friendships I have tend to take on a lot of significance for me. Some people need to be surrounded by a lot of folks all the time and people slide in and out of their lives easily. I would rather be surrounded by a few folks for a long time and cultivate whole conversations that never seem to end and pick up right where they left off the time before. Sitting around a fire bowl with one or two others and having a serious conversation. To hear the ideas, explanations, thoughts, opinions of people I trust and respect. And strangely enough, in this technological world of instant communication, the two people most on my mind as I write this, are folks who I either have never physically met, or have spent a very limited amount of time with a long time ago. And yet, with either one of them, I can pose a question and tell my truth and it is received as openly and honestly and is as carefully considered as if they were sitting in the room with me late into the evening. Funny how the world works these days...
This post generates from that place. The intersection of friendship, coaching and mentorship. Where does one end and another begin? Are they all present in one form or another all the time? Why do we all need them at one point or another in our lives? Do we all need them?
All of this is prompted by an article I received yesterday from a colleague that caught my eye. He sent it to me to solicit my thoughts on professional development and mentoring and coaching for Army leaders. You can find the link here:
Essentially, it poses the question why professional athletes, musicians, singers, actors etc have coaches, but teachers, doctors and others responsible for some critical areas of our lives do not? Coaching professional athletes is a lucrative business for what essentially equals about a 10 year career in the life of the athlete. The education of our children is infinitely more important than that and yet we just leave it to the teacher in the classroom to figure out how to reach each child by themselves. Why not have coaches and mentors for them as well? And why does the Army leave coaching and mentoring to whoever is senior in rank or position to the person being coached. Why are the lines drawn as straight as they are? I am senior to you by time in service or by title, so therefore I automatically become a mentor or a coach? Why? What makes my ideas, thoughts or opinions any more important than yours? My best friend is 3 years younger than I am and has never served a day in uniform, but has arguably changed the course of my life. My most powerful professional mentor right now is only a few years older than I am but has an understanding of the profession far greater than I do. I get coached daily by my daughter on how to be a better Father. The main influences in my life come from all over the place.
The other day, I was having a conversation with someone who told me that my writing about leadership would always be suspect until I got back into the game. Sitting on the sidelines and throwing my ideas out there doesn't get it. Especially in the Army. In a culture where the expectation is that the more senior you are, the better you get. The expectation that leaders can do anything and everything that their subordinates can do. That you lead from the front and inspire people to accomplish the mission at hand. And he is right. There is no good reason that anyone should take anything I put out here as gospel truth until I put myself back into the arena and try it on for size. Take all these ideas and put them into practice. See which ones pan out and which ones don't. He challenged me as a mentor. He also challenged me as a friend. He knows the cost associated. He understands the demands. He knows what I am doing in my family. He knows I have the talent, skill and ethic to do the job well. That is without question. But while I have focused most of my writing and ideas at the upper end of the Army spectrum, the senior NCO and officer side of the equation, his contention is that it has to be taken down to the pointy end of the stick. To the 22 year old Corporal with 2 combat tours under his belt and the absolutely well-earned arrogance of someone who has faced huge challenges early in life and now believes very strongly that the way he sees his world is exactly the way it is. To stand in front of that young man with an equal assurance that I can lead him, motivate him, educate him and develop him. That I can take him to combat and bring him home alive. To do that takes passion, and a commitment to the long haul.
And deciding whether or not I want to do that is the turning point for me. It is the fork in the road. If I go down one path, I can have a successful career and retire with a decent pension and find my post Army career and provide for my family well. The only sticking point is that I will not have gone back into the leadership arena since I left it 5 years ago. If I go down the other path, I will have all those same things at the end but will be presented with another choice as well. To see whether or not what I believe leadership is all about is true. To see whether or not the journey I have taken really does make me a better leader than I was in 2006. I will have to confront and face the fundamental question that I have been avoiding for a little while now. Can I lead troops in combat again? Do I want to? Because that is what it comes down to. Is the pull of proving to myself that I can lead stronger than the pull to provide what other parts of my life need right now. Tough choice. A choice I can feel coming and will have to be made soon. A fundamental choice. One that, once made, will impact a lot of other things in my life.
Honestly, I go back and forth on it. As I sit here now and write this, I want back in the game. I am feeling the pull to go do what my whole career tells me I should do. To go back and settle the question. Yesterday though, I told another friend that what I do best, where my true talent lies is with planning and thinking and operations. I might just serve the Army best not by being at the pointy end of the stick, but by making sure that the plan, the resources and the situation are as right as they can be for the executor to go do their work.
And this is where the intersection of coaching, mentoring and friendship come together in the most meaningful ways. One friend challenges me professionally, fully understanding the nuances and requirements of the profession. Another challenges me to learn and grow personally within the totality of both my personal and professional life. Both are brutally honest and will disabuse any pretense on my part pretty damn quickly. Both are committed to, and care about me. I can turn to either of them and solicit their ideas, their thoughts, their opinions. And with the ultimate respect that the decision is mine, they offer those things as plainly as they can. And that is the essence of the coaching / mentoring piece. To help clarify the choices. To remove the confusions and help clarify the situation. To help weigh the pro's and cons. Not to decide, but to challenge the assumptions.
No matter how talented or professional or secure we might think we are, we all need mentors. We all need coaches. We all need friends. When all of those are brought together in the same person, you might well consider yourself as blessed as you can be. I am extremely grateful to have two such people in my life. Go find yours and cultivate the friendship. You will be a better leader because of it.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#141 Three P's
"Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."
If you follow my writing at all, you know that awhile back the work took a decidedly different turn and started to focus inward, on me. A look at myself, my life, my history, and how all of that has come together and helped form me into the type of leader I am today. Prior to that I spent most of the time here either trying to justify/explain my actions during the Black Hearts period, or ranting about the gap between what senior Army leaders were saying, and life down at the lowest rung on the ladder.
If you follow my writing at all, you know that awhile back the work took a decidedly different turn and started to focus inward, on me. A look at myself, my life, my history, and how all of that has come together and helped form me into the type of leader I am today. Prior to that I spent most of the time here either trying to justify/explain my actions during the Black Hearts period, or ranting about the gap between what senior Army leaders were saying, and life down at the lowest rung on the ladder.
Then someone came along and told me that my writing lacked my soul. She told me that the writing was good, but that it was missing me. Together, we went looking. Very slowly. Very carefully. With deliberateness. We have looked at every part of my life and slowly unlocked a lot of doors that have freed me to live a much more productive and powerful and purposeful life. I have learned to laccept responsibility for, and be accountable for my whole life. There are no accidents and things do just happen to me anymore. There is always a choice to be made. A choice to respond, or not. A choice to engage or not. A choice to live with passion and purpose - to follow my heart, or to lay back and let others dictate the terms of the engagement. A choice to work through the darker places and honestly look at myself, or hide away in the false protections of self-deception. I am no longer a victim of circumstance. I am responsible for me. I have taken possession of me. I have found my soul.
Along the way I had to confront some things, and in those confrontations I have found some qualities that surprised me a little. I can and will persevere. I have and can display my passions. I am learning to keep my perspective. These are powerful life defining qualities and I am glad to make their acquaintance. I am glad to finally recognize them in myself. They have changed my perspective on a lot of things and where I was, and where I am, are all brought together in the quote at the top of the page.
I used to spend all of my time worrying about the next storm. Slowly robbing myself of the happiness of today simply by overlooking it and concentrating all of my energy on the potential storm of tomorrow. And, importantly, some of that thought process comes from my Army experience. The Army plans in great detail. It develops multiple courses of action. It tries to predict the outcome and control the inputs. It makes people think 3 deep. It trains cause and effect. And after 21 years of being in the environment I have developed a deeply ingrained sense of how to think beyond the immediate, and to continually look for the next storm. What will I do if X? How will I react to Y? What happens if Z occurs? All of this training and developing almost naturally leads one to be forever looking over the horizon and anticipating the next impending storm. On a personal level, it stopped me from being able to live in the moment and enjoy that moment for all of it's own unique glory. I was always asking myself, "What next?" And often times being afraid of the answer.
When the Army started talking about focusing on developing adaptive leaders, there was a ton of pressure from within to stop that. Adaptive meant creative. Adaptive meant exercising personal judgment. Adaptive meant making the best decision you possibly could and then living with the outcome of it. It meant being able to see a moment clearly and then make choices and decisions accordingly. It implicitly accepted that something that is a good choice in this moment, might not be in the next. And we figured out that living and seeing and appreciating that moment is critically important when you are in the fight. It means sensing and knowing when a situation is at a tipping point. It means trusting yourself and your judgement. Personally, it means learning to listen carefully to my heart and letting it dictate the course of my life. In a sense, it's a letting go because I already know that I cannot always control the outcome, but that I can accept it and work with it when it arrives. It also means not always asking for permission or acceptance. Adaptability in the Army sense is developing the ability to dance in the rain. Dancing in the rain for me means not fearing the next storm, but enjoying the feel of the rain on my face.
To get to dance though, you have to be able to persevere. You have to be able to see the bigger picture. You have to understand that there will be storms and that no plan survives first contact. And there is a huge difference between perseverance and endurance. I have persevered through many painful days along this journey in order to get to this point. I have endured some incredibly hard and some incredibly painful moments, but I have persevered. Endurance seems short term to me. Perseverance seems more permanent. Someone endures a tragedy. They are characterized by their endurance. From my perspective, perseverance has meant taking very honest and sometimes incredibly unflattering looks at who and what I am, but holding onto the essential goodness of me. From the Army's it might mean enduring the loss of a battle and holding onto the value of the fight. There have been times along the way where I could not see what needed to. I could feel it, or sense it, but could not understand it. I only knew how to persevere. That sense that I had to keep pushing, no matter how painful, and that one day the understanding would come. Being able to persevere has been an important strength in my journey. It also that for an Army at war.
The journey has brought me something else as well. Something critically important to my well-being and that of my family. It has brought me back my passion. It has removed my fears. It has filled me with a trusting hope that what I do matters, and that it's sometimes important that only I do it. There are some parts of living and leading that just cannot be delegated to anyone else. They belong with you. They are yours alone and you must stand in the breach and make the best choice you can. Acting in full volition and with a full sense of responsibility for the outcome. It has taken me a long time to get to this place. It is a powerful lesson in leadership. Without a passionate belief in who you are and what you value, you cannot lead yourself or anyone else. Who you are matters. People, Soldiers, anyone follow you because you have a clear sense of who you are and what your passions are. Where your priorities lie. Having those things allows you to have a vision of the outcome. It equals the Commander's Intent. I now have a vision for myself and my family. It is flexible enough to withstand the storms and permanent enough to be able to dance in the rain.
The combination of perseverance and passion come together in perspective. As a friend of mine put it to me on many occasions, the ability to step outside the emotion and respect both sides of the argument equally. The ability to offer others the respect they deserve for their differing opinion. To respect their perspective and their passion as equally as out own. In essence, to allow for dissent. To allow for an opposing view. To value the argument as much as the outcome. To learn and see and appreciate how to live outside of your own views. To truly learn COIN. To suspend your own filters and judgments long enough to hear and see another way of being. To respect yourself enough to respect others.
The Army is constantly re-looking the attributes it requires of the profession. Perseverance, Passion and Perspective might just be some to consider. I want my leaders to have the ability to keep their perspective, the perseverance to stay the course, and the passion to learn to dance in the rain. I want to surround myself with that kind of professional. I want to fill my life with that kind of person. I want to embrace those qualities in myself. I want to be led by people who are passionate about what they do. I want to be led my people who I know will persevere. I want to be led by people who can keep their eyes looking towards the future without surrendering the joy and pain of the moment. Don't you?
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
The journey has brought me something else as well. Something critically important to my well-being and that of my family. It has brought me back my passion. It has removed my fears. It has filled me with a trusting hope that what I do matters, and that it's sometimes important that only I do it. There are some parts of living and leading that just cannot be delegated to anyone else. They belong with you. They are yours alone and you must stand in the breach and make the best choice you can. Acting in full volition and with a full sense of responsibility for the outcome. It has taken me a long time to get to this place. It is a powerful lesson in leadership. Without a passionate belief in who you are and what you value, you cannot lead yourself or anyone else. Who you are matters. People, Soldiers, anyone follow you because you have a clear sense of who you are and what your passions are. Where your priorities lie. Having those things allows you to have a vision of the outcome. It equals the Commander's Intent. I now have a vision for myself and my family. It is flexible enough to withstand the storms and permanent enough to be able to dance in the rain.
The combination of perseverance and passion come together in perspective. As a friend of mine put it to me on many occasions, the ability to step outside the emotion and respect both sides of the argument equally. The ability to offer others the respect they deserve for their differing opinion. To respect their perspective and their passion as equally as out own. In essence, to allow for dissent. To allow for an opposing view. To value the argument as much as the outcome. To learn and see and appreciate how to live outside of your own views. To truly learn COIN. To suspend your own filters and judgments long enough to hear and see another way of being. To respect yourself enough to respect others.
The Army is constantly re-looking the attributes it requires of the profession. Perseverance, Passion and Perspective might just be some to consider. I want my leaders to have the ability to keep their perspective, the perseverance to stay the course, and the passion to learn to dance in the rain. I want to surround myself with that kind of professional. I want to fill my life with that kind of person. I want to embrace those qualities in myself. I want to be led by people who are passionate about what they do. I want to be led my people who I know will persevere. I want to be led by people who can keep their eyes looking towards the future without surrendering the joy and pain of the moment. Don't you?
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#140 Thanks and I'm Sorry...
A while back, a friend of mine told me that one day I would need to write a thank you note to the Army. To express my gratitude to the institution and everything that it has provided me over the years. To tell it how much it has means to me to serve in it. To say thank you for allowing me an extremely productive and powerful and successful career. To recognize the impact that it has had on my life. To give the Army its' proper due. To say "Thank you". And while I'm at it, to offer it an apology. I have been a harsh critic of the institution at times, particularly regarding leader development. This week another friend showed me how wrong I have been.
So tonight with a ton of humility I want to thank the Unites States Army for everything it has provided to me over the last 21 plus years. Far beyond a job, the Army has been my profession. Far beyond a paycheck, it has become part of my life. Like with my child or my wife, I cannot remember a time when the Army wasn't part of my everyday thinking, my behavior, my pattern of being. I carry it with me everywhere I go. I wear my service and my dedication to the Army like an old comfortable coat. It is always there.
I joined the Army when I was 21 years old. I turned 22 during Basic Training. At the time I enlisted I was broke, bordering on homeless, and drifting from one job to another with no real goal in mind. I had tried college for a year after High School, but wasn't prepared for all the freedom and lack of structure that college life affords. I couldn't handle it and quit. I walked into a recruiting station one day and saw a way to at least stay fed, housed and protected for a period of time while I sorted out what I wanted to do with my life. That was the first time the Army came to be my provider. I have never said thank you for that opportunity.
I saw in my first unit that the Army was filled with all kinds of different people, from all kinds of different backgrounds and experiences. We were all brand new Privates and we learned together to be tough, to endure, the value of strength and determination. In the rough, course language and ways of young men, we learned to become men. I was the smart kid, there were others who were tougher. We learned to value what each of us could bring to the table. There were guys who would come to my room on Sunday morning, hung over, or beat up and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and we would talk. They wanted to have my brains, and I wanted to be unafraid and as tough as they were. The relationship worked out well for both sides. The Army taught me the value of diversity. It takes each of us to contribute everything we have, with all of our vast experiences to accomplish a mission that is bigger than each of us alone. I do not live in an insular world. I live in a world filled with every race, creed, color, gender, background you can imagine. The Army gave me that opportunity and I am grateful to it for having done so.
I have been mentored over the years by some great people who saw in me more than I could see in myself. JC and CW who gave me opportunities that have paid off ever since. I could not have known what graduating Ranger school, or being inducted into the Audie Murphy Club, or being the NCO of the Year would mean to me back then, but I do now. That was the beginning of a magical and powerful period. It would provide the strength I would need down the road. JB taught me how to navigate the Army systems. SG taught me that there were no excuses allowed. There are only expectations of excellence. MO taught me that no matter how high you might get in the organization, there is always time to recognize the people a lot further down on the ladder. BS showed me what common sense and true friendship look like. When everything went sideways for me, it was the ideas, thoughts, discussions, and examples of these people who have shaped my service the most. The Army brought them into my life. I am so very grateful that it did. The Army has brought hundreds more as well. Soldiers I have served with, Soldiers I have trained, Soldiers who have pushed me to be better than I thought I could be. KM and CR have come to my life because of the Army. To them - and to the Army - I owe a special debt of thanks.
The Army has provided for my family very well. It has given me security and value and allowed me to build my family in a safe and secure home and community. I have not ever wondered if I would lose my job, or end up in dire financial straights or whether I could afford decent health care for my family. I have been blessed by the Army and the taxpayer for a solid middle class standard of living. I am grateful for that. As we stare at high unemployment rates and job losses across all sectors, there is a security that I enjoy that many others do not. I am thankful for that. There are thousands of people across the country tonight who do not know how they will provide for their loved ones tomorrow or next month. I, thankfully, do not have that worry. And in those times when the Army did ask more of me than normal, it also provided generously for anything it extracted in return. The Army has always been a more than fair partner and I am grateful for that.
The Army brought me my family. I was raised in New England and only by chance ended up in the South. I was going to leave the Army before I met the woman who has been my wife for the last 16 years. We were brought together by other Army friends from another magical period. I will always be grateful for that. She and I have been through a lot together, but through it all, the Army has always been there. It is as much a part of her life - whether she wants it to be or not - as it is mine.
The Army has tested me. In every way possible. Ethically, physically, emotionally and intellectually. The Army has provided me the opportunity to grow and mature and strive and overcome and be pushed to the limits and I am grateful for each of those times. Even the dark period of Black Hearts has turned out to be a blessing. As huge a tragedy, and as evil and difficult as that time was, it has provided me the opportunity to take this journey,one that far too few people ever do. I am a better man today because of it. Of that, there is no doubt.
And so, I want to thank the Army. To thank it with all of my being for taking such good care of me over the years. The man I am, the man that I want to become and the man I never want to return to again, have all been shown to me because of my time in the Army. I will forever remain grateful to and humbled by the many blessings she has provided me. A huge institution made up of millions of people, and there is still the powerful force to affect one man.
That sense of gratitude also forces me to offer an apology to the Army. I spent much of my early time here on these pages ridiculing and reviling and complaining about and railing against the very institution that has taken such good care of me. I have acted like a spoiled and petulant child at times. And like a child, I often didn't know all the facts and cast judgement well before I should have. That came home to me this past week when a mentor of mine sent me 3 short paragraphs and told me that maybe the institution isn't as far off base as I keep saying it is. Maybe, just maybe, it's not the Army that is getting it all wrong, maybe it's just a small bunch of people inside the organization who won't embrace change and development and the reality of 21st century warfare and leadership. His comments came out of post #139 where my contention was that the system we have in place for leader development isn't working and should be refocused solely on developing one individual. He sent me the following passages:
"Professionally competent leaders strive to develop, maintain, and use the full range of human potential in their organizations. This potential is a critical factor in ensuring the Army, as a whole, is performing at peak capacity. The Army must never underestimate the talents of subordinates, nor miscalculate how oversight of this potential can thwart productivity within organizations."
"The obligation to train and develop junior leaders includes training subordinates on the full spectrum of Joint Operations, and then presenting them the occasions in both Institutional schools and Operational assignments, to obtain the highest levels of personal achievement possible in their profession. It is imperative to continually enhance their potential and develop relevant skill-sets that support the unit's mission. In doing so, the institution will essentially promote the growth and development of a future generation of talented leaders."
"Structured professional growth from institutional schools augmented with leadership training conducted at the organizational level will continue the individuals growth. Effective counseling, hands-on coaching and committed mentorship will ground this developmental process in the fundamentals of leadership to develop mental agility, and flexibility, while still insisting on a high standard of performance at all times, regardless of the circumstances."
Apparently, the Army recognized awhile ago what it needed to do. I am the guy who didn't get the memo. I should have been paying closer attention to what the system was getting right, rather than just spouting off about what I thought it was getting wrong each week. So for being ungrateful and for being short-sighted, I want to offer my most sincere apology. I am sorry. The institution did not deserve my callousness and my sarcasm and my holier-than-thou attitude. The only one jacked-up around here is me. A powerful lesson learned to be sure. The institution seems to know exactly what it needs. Maybe I might want to shut up and listen.
Apparently, the Army recognized awhile ago what it needed to do. I am the guy who didn't get the memo. I should have been paying closer attention to what the system was getting right, rather than just spouting off about what I thought it was getting wrong each week. So for being ungrateful and for being short-sighted, I want to offer my most sincere apology. I am sorry. The institution did not deserve my callousness and my sarcasm and my holier-than-thou attitude. The only one jacked-up around here is me. A powerful lesson learned to be sure. The institution seems to know exactly what it needs. Maybe I might want to shut up and listen.
Over the past 21 years, the Army has treated me well, encouraged me to grow, and supported me when I needed it. Tonight I am so very thankful for all of that. I am also grateful that it is forgiving enough to look past my many shortcomings and continues to offer me opportunities to learn and develop. My journey to this point would not have been possible without the support of the Army. My future successes, failures and lessons learned will also be made available to me because of it. The past, the present and the future of me is intimately connected to the United States Army. She is an incredible partner to walk with. I am grateful to call her my friend.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#139 Inspiration
"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."
"Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it."
Buddha
This past week I asked the administrators on the Army Leader Net site to post all of the blogs from 127 - 138. I had been posting them myself each week, but had fallen behind. I also wondered if this part of my journey really belonged there. Is it worth sharing with other Army leaders? Is it really an Army leadership topic at all? Do people care enough to read and consider it? Finally, I decided to do it for a couple of reasons. First, the readership and feedback here has been steadily growing over the course of the last 6 months, which told me that there are other folks out there who are relating to, and finding value in, my thoughts. I average just shy of 200 page views a week now, not including those people who I mail it to, and that number has grown since the blog took a more personal turn over the summer. Second, I strongly believe that most folks are not as self-aware as they could or should be. Especially in the Army. If sharing my journey will help them start, or possibly get the organization to take a hard look at how it develops young leaders, then it is worth it. While the journey itself is mine, there are some larger questions that I think many people in the Army are coming to grips with after 10 years of war. Plus, if you don't agree with my thoughts you always have the option to not read them or to disagree with them and form your own ideas. Ultimately, I hope that while my journey is personal and helps me to become a better man, husband, father and Army leader, if it provokes someone else to consider their own ideas and thoughts, then it has an inherent value all its own. Sometimes all it takes is a spark.
When I came across the first quote above, it struck me though how far I have to go. Because someone who has become a dear friend showed me the first step back in March or early April and has walked every inch of it with me, I am a much more complete person than I was before. At very least, I am more honestly seeing myself than I probably ever have. Being more truthful and searching harder for the answers that are truly mine. In effect, stripping away the a lot of the self-deceit and learning to fight hard to recognize the truths about myself and then grow into them. That has been the start of the journey. For example, really seeing and accepting last week that I am a type 4 Romantic and not running from it and denying it or trying to make myself believe that I am someone or something else. Seeing it, recognizing it's truth and then accepting it felt really good. It felt very true and real and comforting. I wasn't hiding or pretending. I am exactly who I am. It felt authentic. Another piece of the puzzle fits into place.
Each new layer though has uncovered something else underneath it. I have come to see that there is no real endpoint to this. And that sense of lifelong discovering fills me with happiness and joy. I look forward now to searching and looking and seeing myself more truthfully each day. It is no longer a fearful journey. It has become one of strength and optimism. That recognition that the journey itself is never complete is important. It's the part I think most leaders and leader development systems miss. There is this idea that one 'discovers' what type of leader they are and then they stay that way, never accepting that we cannot remain the same person, with the same outlooks, the same thoughts and ideas and priorities forever. We are dynamic and our lives are dynamic and we must continually fight to live in the present moment. Knowing that who we were a decade ago is not who we are today and will not be who we become a decade down the road. The key is to remain truthful to yourself in each of those places. To live each day as honestly as possible, accepting that tomorrow that honesty might be slightly different.
Importantly though, there will be some threads that bind each of those parts together. Threads that run constant and seamless through all the periods of our lives. Those are the truest parts of our core and those are the things we need to fight to find and hold onto when everything else changes. Those are the values we hold dear. I am not the same man at 43 that I was at 27, but the core values and attributes that make me me have not changed. I am still dedicated and persevering and hard working and loyal and thoughtful. I still feel the pull of obligation. The sense of duty. A sense of pride in myself and my life's work - even when it has been doubted and discounted. Those are cornerstone things. They do not change. How they manifest themselves does. At 27, I had the Army by the tail. I was a young lion, ahead of the game and making a name for myself. Brash, arrogant, smart and willing to do whatever you asked me to. No questions asked. Pure determination and ballsy confidence that no matter what I touched it would turn out right. At 43, that determination still exists. Make no mistake about that. Now though, it is brought about by a different set of influences. I am not the same man. I should not think the same way.
The second quote above is the goal. To continually discover my world - to see it as truthfully as possible - as cleanly, clearly and honestly as I can, and to recognize those blind spots that I have that prevent me from always being clear, and then to live in each day, each moment, each second with the fullest of intention and intensity. Feeling safe that where I am is where I belong right now, and that no matter what tomorrow or the future holds, I know two things will always be true. First, that I will not be 10 years from now who I am today. Second, that those things that truly make me me will never change their true nature, only their form. A lot of the journey is figuring out what they are.
Why is this important to leader development systems? Because the system itself is charged with developing people into leaders. The start point is one person at a particular point in time. The system is also generally designed to meet the needs of an organization at a particular point in time. If you see those as fixed points, then sooner or later you will lose. The system becomes too big to deal with rapid change, and the person finds they cannot adapt as well as they need to in order to keep up. The system says to the person, "Here is what we need you to become today." The person then meets that need. Neither side really looking at the fact that there is no stagnation to time. Each moment demands it's own recognition and then it passes and the next one appears. You cannot build a structured system in a dynamic environment.
Or can you? What if the entire system was designed around the person? What if the purpose of all Army leader development systems was to help you see yourself authentically at each step along your career. What if, instead of teaching management steps in what we call our leadership schools, we started the young leader down a road of personal discovery and development? What if instead of forcing me into the system, we developed a system designed to enhance me? We do this in other places, why not the Army? Why shouldn't self-awareness, self-recognition and self-regulation be the endstate of leader development? Why shouldn't we, or couldn't we really give people an understanding of dynamic change? We tell people in our manuals that they need to develop self-awareness as a leader tool, but we never really spend any time doing it. It's about time that we really focus leader development away from rigid systems and focus it only on the enhancement of the person. The Army is a huge organization, it has a place in it for each of us. Why not create a system that helps us find that place and then contribute back from there?
My life and my career are intimately connected. My journey on these pages is representative of how I got to this point both personally and professionally. The road ahead fills me with hope. As I become more authentic and true to myself, so does my capacity to lead authentically and truthfully.
I have taken the first steps on a long journey. The goal is to discover my world and then live in it with all of my heart. I have started. Now I must go all the way. There is one final quote from Buddha that struck me that I think is valuable here:
"It is better to travel well than to arrive."
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#138 What Number are You?
I actually wasn't planning on writing this week. I couldn't find anything that I felt I could pin down enough to make sense of. It has been an intense week of discovery and understanding and clarity in many ways, and there are a lot of half-formed and somewhat incoherent thoughts floating around.
This morning though, a friend of mine asked me to take an Enneagram personality test. I took the 38 question sample test and then looked at my results. It absolutely floored me how accurate they were! In fact, many of the issues that she and I have been discussing over these past months became very very clear in just a few moments. It turns out that who I am and many of my common behaviors and feelings and methods of operating are not all that original. In fact, there are only 9 types of personalities indicated by the test itself, so at best, using the way it works, there are only 243 total permutations available. On the results page however, were tips and hints and suggestions as to how to best communicate or deal with each of the 9 types.
While this was another sort of "Ah Hah!' moment for me personally, it also opened up another discussion between she and I regarding leadership and the Army. And then what I wanted to write about became clear.
The Army really only has one leadership model to work from. It is a hierarchical system, top-driven, and based upon position, power (both real and perceived) and rank and title. The qualities that it requires or applauds or accentuates are things like toughness, decisiveness, aggressiveness, perseverance, respect etc. A leader who can Be, Know, and Do. A leader who is comfortable with themselves and the requirements of their position and their role. Someone who is cool under pressure, and calm in crisis and grounded in a solid sense of right and wrong and who can keep an eye on the overall objective when the situation doesn't turn out as expected.
So far so good. The Army has requirements for it's leaders. No problem. In fact, those qualities listed above are probably highly sought after in other organizations as well. I'm sure corporate America would highly praise those same attributes in their employees too.
The issue becomes what happens when the individual's personality traits don't fit the model the Army requires? If you accept for a moment that there are 9 different personality types outlined in the Enneagram, and the Army, generally speaking, prizes only one of those types, then what are we to do with the other 8 types of people? Do they have a place inside the organization? How do we make best use of their talents? Importantly, are we trying to force round pegs into square holes? Maybe even more importantly, do we need to expand the Army model of successful leadership to include those types of personalities other than the ones who naturally fit the leader paradigm we have established? My answer to the last two questions is we are and we do. We are spending a lot of time with the wrong personality types in the wrong places in the organization, and recognizing that would drive home the need to expand the requirements of leadership to include other models not currently valued. Simply put, the Army will always need people like George Patton or Douglas MacArthur, but people like them will not be successful without people like Dwight Eisenhower or George Marshall. You can't have Norman Schwartzkopf without having Colin Powell.
Over the last 6 months, I have outlined many of the aspects of my personal journey towards self-awareness. It has been a demanding and interesting and powerfully uplifting time of my life. There have been some very hard and difficult days, and some where the understandings have come quickly and easily. It was hard to admit that I failed to provide my platoon authentic leadership in 2006 when they needed it most. It took months to get to that point. Other awarenesses have become clear to me very quickly, the pains and hurts easy to let go of. Others have been amazingly slow coming and I have had to revisit them time after time to become comfortable with my understandings. As one layer of the onion would get peeled back, another set of challenges would have to be confronted. Sometimes what I thought was clear 3 months ago, only turned out to be a single layer of the issue. It contained a complexity I could not then understand. Three months later, another layer gets revealed. That is why it is a journey. Not everything can be revealed at once.
Today was one of those days....A day when a lot of other pieces seemed to come together for me. I failed to provide my platoon 'authentic' leadership in 2006. Fact. Kind of. It's a little more complex than that. What I really failed to do was provide them my authentic leadership in the way that they needed it to for the situation and time we faced. I was trying to be something that I am not. Trying to be an Army model leader, when, by personality type, that's not the model that suits me best. I am not a failed leader, I was the wrong guy for that situation. There was another guy, readily available, who might have been the right guy. It's not that I am not a solid leader, it's that the type of leadership, the method, the way I operate best - and most authentically - wasn't what was needed at that time.
The key to any successful leader is their authenticity. That they remain true to themselves. That they know and understand and live comfortably in their own skin. That they operate in concert with who they truly are. That there not be any distance between their core self-understanding and their outward behaviors. That who you see is who you get. As soon as you try to force someone into a model that does not suit them, and then force them into roles and positions they are not suited for and are not comfortable with, then they will be forced to become false representations of themselves. They will become actors. Once someone starts acting out of concert with themselves, it is a long slow slippery slope until you end up one day not being able to tell who you are anymore. Trust me on that. It took 5 years of sliding to see how far from my authentic self I had slipped. The journey back has been amazing, and has transformed my life, but it isn't something I would want to have to do again.
To be fair, the Army does administer personality tests in different organizations and at some points along the leader development spectrum, but it is often too late when they do. If your career path has already been laid out for you as an Infantry officer for example, 10 years into that path may not be the time to find out that you are ill-suited to the type of leadership model that that path requires. Especially if promotions and paychecks and careers and your livelihood are hanging in the balance. The organization should start much earlier in a person's career path. That way, the possibility of aligning the right person with a particular personality set to the right place in the organization where they can best contribute using the totality of their skills, abilities and attributes is greatly enhanced. I saw an article today online that said the Army needed to draw down its over-all size by 50,000 Soldiers. I wonder how many people we might lose only because we are putting them in the wrong place where they don't match up with the needs of the organization? Just a thought, but not everyone is George Patton, and Dwight Eisenhower was not considered a stellar officer during his early career. It shouldn't be chance, fate, or patronage that keeps people like Eisenhower around, it should be by aligning the way they are best suited to contributing with the needs of the organization.
I am a Type 4. A Type 4 heavily influenced by Type 3 and Type 6. The Army only seems to like Type 8. What type are you?
#137 Passion, Purpose and the Road Back
4:30 in the morning may not be the best time to start a blog post, but it works for me. I like the quiet, the sense that I can work peacefully and write and then post and then move on with my day. While many people take Sunday mornings as a chance to sleep in, I find that getting up early on Sundays to write sets the whole day, and the following week, off to a good start.
Yesterday, a very dear friend of mine sent me a YouTube video of a Ross Evans presentation at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) event. Evans is a relentless inventor, seeing a problem, a practical solution, and then creating opportunity by merging the two. You can Google TEDx for more information.
The important part of the presentation had to do with how Evans got started. In it, there are 3 overlapping circles, one labeled Passion, another labeled Purpose and a third labeled Contribution, which caught my eye.
What is your passion? What makes you most come alive? What brings you to that place where every effort and every sacrifice seems so full of potential and makes you want to just give into it every time? That place where you know that you are doing something that speaks to you and calls forth the best of your talents and understandings.
What is your Purpose? Why are you here, and what is your obligation to your world? What do you singularly contribute to that world that no one else can? What is it about the your particular make-up and experience that makes your contribution different than anyone else's?
What is your Commitment? What are you committed to doing in your own space? It doesn't matter how small or large that space is, it can be your own family, your neighborhood, your city or town, or maybe even the world. What is it that you want to have happen if you can get your Passion and Purpose to come together in one clear moment?
The idea of these three over-lapping circles immediately struck me and, while I have no real interest in any of Evans inventions, or even their implications and contributions in the developing world, I was struck by his demeanor, an almost overflowing enthusiasm for his work, his contribution. By watching the video, you can clearly see the potent combination of Passion + Purpose + Contribution playing out on the stage.
This post also feels a little like a turning point, I think, a bend in the road. For the last 6 months I have torn apart my life in a very real way and have gained a lot of understanding about who I am, who I'm not (arguably more important) and the ways in which my behaviors and actions have an impact on my authenticity, my relationships and the peace in my soul. A lot of that, at least thematically, has shown up here and has touched a nerve with a lot of people. 7 of the top 10 posts from Fen's Thoughts have come from this period and the readership has almost doubled in that time. I have tried to see my failings honestly, struggled to see myself authentically, uncovered the lies that I present to the world every day because I think I have to, and tried to answer the question, "Well, if I'm not who I thought I was, then exactly who the hell am I?"
And that may be the purpose of this post. To begin looking at who I am, instead of looking so much at who I am not. What are my passions? What is my purpose? How do I contribute to my world? Have you ever thought about that? About the relationship in your life between passion, purpose and contribution? After 6 months of near-constant work the time seems to be approaching when it is time for me to start rebuilding. It's time to be me. Authentically me. Time to dedicate my energies to those things that speak most directly to me and fill my life with real purpose. To fill it with the full impact and force that I have. To appreciate, and use, my singular talents to contribute to my little world and to bring peace, calm and purpose to my soul. This time though, to do it with intention. Not accidentally, not by suddenly ending up somewhere and having no idea how I got there, but with the clear intention of discovering and retaining and developing my authentic self. Do you live in your world intentionally? Or have you ended up somewhere finding yourself out of place and not really sure how you got there? I have been given the most wonderful gift of being able to take a look at my life and how I got here and now it it time to take those parts that were unintentional, even accidental and replace them with a life of intention and purpose.
What I do best is solve problems. The problem itself doesn't really matter. Crafting a viable solution does. I find a sense of personal value - of passion and contribution there. In the understanding and context or it, in the solutions available to solve it, and in designing a mechanism to resolve it. I saw a marksmanship problem and solved it. I saw a female body armor problem and helped craft a solution. What started out as my own personal unraveling here has become a body of work that people approach me about and are interested in. When I am most clearly being me, I recognize a need, and have an ability to craft a solution pretty quickly to fill it. I am articulate and bright enough to find resources that advance it. I also don't mind short-circuiting the process and finding that person or that group who can most rapidly affect change or help move a project forward. A combination of understanding, vision and abilities that allow me to see things that others don't, to recognize the implications and to marshal the requirements necessary to fix them. A force of personality and passion and drive. While it has taken 3 years to get the marksmanship program fully supported and resourced, we are now running at full capacity and are spreading the word each week to units and Soldiers alike. The next generation of body armor will be the first to have a design fit specifically for female Soldiers to increase their ability to defend themselves and their peers and to effectively fire their weapon. The blog has led to friendships and opportunities, and blessings that I would not have had if I didn't think and write each week. I need something to focus on. I do not do well in a void. Without something to consider, I become restless and bored and self-destructive. I am not in a good place for me without something to sink myself into.
I am relentless once I turn my full attention to something. The basis for the original marksmanship program was built in 3 days and executed over 3 months and then I worked endlessly to continue it and advance it and get it resourced and funded and supported. I certainly had help from a lot of people along the way, people with vision and authority and influence who have been instrumental in helping advance the idea, but ultimately, the hard work, the day-to-day raising of it has been done by me. Now I can turn my energy towards sustaining it, although admittedly, that does not interest me nearly as much. The same is true for my personal journey. The amount of hours, the near-total immersion into looking at my life has been staggering. It is truthfully a part of every thought I have now. I used to be able to treat it as something I could pick up and put down. To work on for a bit and then put back on the shelf. Not now. Now it demands and commands my attention every day. My real commitment and passion now is to effectively leading myself and my family. That is the journey. To authentically lead myself. That leadership demands self-awareness, authenticity, and talent. Talent can be developed and nurtured and expanded on. Self-awareness and authenticity have to be uncovered. I have not done this alone, not by a long shot, but I did have to recognize the problem and then set myself to working on it. I did have to be willing to take on the project of my own unhappiness in the first place. Marksmanship, body armor, me.....No difference really. Only the complexity of the problem, the depth of the obstacles that have to be overcome and the willingness to take it on. And the relentless focus to fill the need.
What are your passions? Is it your passion to lead Soldiers? Is that what you truly want to do with your life? Is it your passion to create or to sustain? Each have their own merit. There are plenty of people who can build something or invent something or create something who cannot nurture it to a long-term viable state. There are also those folks who will never be the creative force behind something new, but who, once it is seen and understood, have an incredible ability to sustain it and ensure it remains relative over time. Our world, from our families to our communities to the world at large need both. Knowing where you properly fit - where your passion meets your purpose is a crucial step.
What is your purpose? Are you, have you, taken your passions and mixed them with your skills and abilities to affect positive change in your life? Professionally, I am getting very close to that on some days. Personally, I have a lot of miles to go. But now, instead of just feeling out of synch and lost as I move through my days, there is a sense or recognition of when my passions and my purpose are working together and when they are not. That's been a major step in coming to my understanding of me. I cannot always affect change the way I would like to quite yet, but that doesn't mean I failed. Now that I can see where the divergence happens, I can turn the relentless energy of problem solving inward and focus on finding a solution that works for me.
Where is my deepest passion? I'm not exactly sure, but somehow this journey, my journey, calls to me. If I could do anything at all with my life right now, it would be to travel the Army and talk about leadership. Not how to do it - that's management - but rather why discovering, knowing and living as truthfully and authentically as possible is ultimately the key development piece to becoming a leader who espouses those characteristics the Army is trying to find so desperately right now. I have the answer. The answer is in the journey. The journey we all must take in order to not find ourselves one day in a place we do not belong. With skills ill-suited for the problems we face, and completely out of synch with our passion and purpose. The answer is in the journey to ensure that we end up in the place where passion, purpose, and commitment come together in such a powerful way that our world - no matter how large or small - is positively influenced by our presence in it.
My journey is instructive toward that end. It calls out the best of me every day. Last week on a rifle range, I met a battalion commander familiar with Black Hearts and that period in my life. He indicated that he would like me to come to his unit and talk about that time. I don't know today whether it will come about or not, but what I do know is that Black Hearts was a terrible, tragic time that has also been the greatest blessing of my life. Out of that nightmare, I have been reborn and today, with full intention, and all of the passion and purpose I have available to me, I have come around the bend. I am on the road back and the journey has been worth every single step.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Yesterday, a very dear friend of mine sent me a YouTube video of a Ross Evans presentation at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) event. Evans is a relentless inventor, seeing a problem, a practical solution, and then creating opportunity by merging the two. You can Google TEDx for more information.
The important part of the presentation had to do with how Evans got started. In it, there are 3 overlapping circles, one labeled Passion, another labeled Purpose and a third labeled Contribution, which caught my eye.
What is your passion? What makes you most come alive? What brings you to that place where every effort and every sacrifice seems so full of potential and makes you want to just give into it every time? That place where you know that you are doing something that speaks to you and calls forth the best of your talents and understandings.
What is your Purpose? Why are you here, and what is your obligation to your world? What do you singularly contribute to that world that no one else can? What is it about the your particular make-up and experience that makes your contribution different than anyone else's?
What is your Commitment? What are you committed to doing in your own space? It doesn't matter how small or large that space is, it can be your own family, your neighborhood, your city or town, or maybe even the world. What is it that you want to have happen if you can get your Passion and Purpose to come together in one clear moment?
The idea of these three over-lapping circles immediately struck me and, while I have no real interest in any of Evans inventions, or even their implications and contributions in the developing world, I was struck by his demeanor, an almost overflowing enthusiasm for his work, his contribution. By watching the video, you can clearly see the potent combination of Passion + Purpose + Contribution playing out on the stage.
This post also feels a little like a turning point, I think, a bend in the road. For the last 6 months I have torn apart my life in a very real way and have gained a lot of understanding about who I am, who I'm not (arguably more important) and the ways in which my behaviors and actions have an impact on my authenticity, my relationships and the peace in my soul. A lot of that, at least thematically, has shown up here and has touched a nerve with a lot of people. 7 of the top 10 posts from Fen's Thoughts have come from this period and the readership has almost doubled in that time. I have tried to see my failings honestly, struggled to see myself authentically, uncovered the lies that I present to the world every day because I think I have to, and tried to answer the question, "Well, if I'm not who I thought I was, then exactly who the hell am I?"
And that may be the purpose of this post. To begin looking at who I am, instead of looking so much at who I am not. What are my passions? What is my purpose? How do I contribute to my world? Have you ever thought about that? About the relationship in your life between passion, purpose and contribution? After 6 months of near-constant work the time seems to be approaching when it is time for me to start rebuilding. It's time to be me. Authentically me. Time to dedicate my energies to those things that speak most directly to me and fill my life with real purpose. To fill it with the full impact and force that I have. To appreciate, and use, my singular talents to contribute to my little world and to bring peace, calm and purpose to my soul. This time though, to do it with intention. Not accidentally, not by suddenly ending up somewhere and having no idea how I got there, but with the clear intention of discovering and retaining and developing my authentic self. Do you live in your world intentionally? Or have you ended up somewhere finding yourself out of place and not really sure how you got there? I have been given the most wonderful gift of being able to take a look at my life and how I got here and now it it time to take those parts that were unintentional, even accidental and replace them with a life of intention and purpose.
What I do best is solve problems. The problem itself doesn't really matter. Crafting a viable solution does. I find a sense of personal value - of passion and contribution there. In the understanding and context or it, in the solutions available to solve it, and in designing a mechanism to resolve it. I saw a marksmanship problem and solved it. I saw a female body armor problem and helped craft a solution. What started out as my own personal unraveling here has become a body of work that people approach me about and are interested in. When I am most clearly being me, I recognize a need, and have an ability to craft a solution pretty quickly to fill it. I am articulate and bright enough to find resources that advance it. I also don't mind short-circuiting the process and finding that person or that group who can most rapidly affect change or help move a project forward. A combination of understanding, vision and abilities that allow me to see things that others don't, to recognize the implications and to marshal the requirements necessary to fix them. A force of personality and passion and drive. While it has taken 3 years to get the marksmanship program fully supported and resourced, we are now running at full capacity and are spreading the word each week to units and Soldiers alike. The next generation of body armor will be the first to have a design fit specifically for female Soldiers to increase their ability to defend themselves and their peers and to effectively fire their weapon. The blog has led to friendships and opportunities, and blessings that I would not have had if I didn't think and write each week. I need something to focus on. I do not do well in a void. Without something to consider, I become restless and bored and self-destructive. I am not in a good place for me without something to sink myself into.
I am relentless once I turn my full attention to something. The basis for the original marksmanship program was built in 3 days and executed over 3 months and then I worked endlessly to continue it and advance it and get it resourced and funded and supported. I certainly had help from a lot of people along the way, people with vision and authority and influence who have been instrumental in helping advance the idea, but ultimately, the hard work, the day-to-day raising of it has been done by me. Now I can turn my energy towards sustaining it, although admittedly, that does not interest me nearly as much. The same is true for my personal journey. The amount of hours, the near-total immersion into looking at my life has been staggering. It is truthfully a part of every thought I have now. I used to be able to treat it as something I could pick up and put down. To work on for a bit and then put back on the shelf. Not now. Now it demands and commands my attention every day. My real commitment and passion now is to effectively leading myself and my family. That is the journey. To authentically lead myself. That leadership demands self-awareness, authenticity, and talent. Talent can be developed and nurtured and expanded on. Self-awareness and authenticity have to be uncovered. I have not done this alone, not by a long shot, but I did have to recognize the problem and then set myself to working on it. I did have to be willing to take on the project of my own unhappiness in the first place. Marksmanship, body armor, me.....No difference really. Only the complexity of the problem, the depth of the obstacles that have to be overcome and the willingness to take it on. And the relentless focus to fill the need.
What are your passions? Is it your passion to lead Soldiers? Is that what you truly want to do with your life? Is it your passion to create or to sustain? Each have their own merit. There are plenty of people who can build something or invent something or create something who cannot nurture it to a long-term viable state. There are also those folks who will never be the creative force behind something new, but who, once it is seen and understood, have an incredible ability to sustain it and ensure it remains relative over time. Our world, from our families to our communities to the world at large need both. Knowing where you properly fit - where your passion meets your purpose is a crucial step.
What is your purpose? Are you, have you, taken your passions and mixed them with your skills and abilities to affect positive change in your life? Professionally, I am getting very close to that on some days. Personally, I have a lot of miles to go. But now, instead of just feeling out of synch and lost as I move through my days, there is a sense or recognition of when my passions and my purpose are working together and when they are not. That's been a major step in coming to my understanding of me. I cannot always affect change the way I would like to quite yet, but that doesn't mean I failed. Now that I can see where the divergence happens, I can turn the relentless energy of problem solving inward and focus on finding a solution that works for me.
Where is my deepest passion? I'm not exactly sure, but somehow this journey, my journey, calls to me. If I could do anything at all with my life right now, it would be to travel the Army and talk about leadership. Not how to do it - that's management - but rather why discovering, knowing and living as truthfully and authentically as possible is ultimately the key development piece to becoming a leader who espouses those characteristics the Army is trying to find so desperately right now. I have the answer. The answer is in the journey. The journey we all must take in order to not find ourselves one day in a place we do not belong. With skills ill-suited for the problems we face, and completely out of synch with our passion and purpose. The answer is in the journey to ensure that we end up in the place where passion, purpose, and commitment come together in such a powerful way that our world - no matter how large or small - is positively influenced by our presence in it.
My journey is instructive toward that end. It calls out the best of me every day. Last week on a rifle range, I met a battalion commander familiar with Black Hearts and that period in my life. He indicated that he would like me to come to his unit and talk about that time. I don't know today whether it will come about or not, but what I do know is that Black Hearts was a terrible, tragic time that has also been the greatest blessing of my life. Out of that nightmare, I have been reborn and today, with full intention, and all of the passion and purpose I have available to me, I have come around the bend. I am on the road back and the journey has been worth every single step.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#136 Learning to Dance
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, join the dance"
Alan Watts
I'm standing in a doorway now. In fact, I've been here for a little while. Behind me is the past. Yesterday. The first 43 years. Ahead of me is a partial unknown. My instincts are a little rusty, but generally solid. I need to move. Need to push my way through the door. A friend of mine is standing right behind me. She will not force me forward, but she will not let me step backwards either. She stands there quiet and calm and unwavering. A voice inside me keeps asking me the same damn question over and over and over...."Hey man, when you gonna step through? When you gonna move? I'm getting tired of standing here spinning my wheels. C'mon, brother, it's time to leap. Lets go." For a long time, I have been trying to silence that voice. Not sure how much longer I can.
I got a note last week from an Army friend asking me facetiously whether or not I'd retired. Part of the note said, "Your blogs are more about life nowadays, than Army leadership. Well, actually, it all turns out to be applicable to both." Thank you my friend, you managed to say in 2 sentences what I have been trying to say for the last year and especially the last 6 months. This is a blog about leadership. It is also a blog about life - my life - and my leadership journey. It is a blog about me learning how to lead myself.
Anyone remember middle school dances? If you are my age, they might have gone a little like this: All the boys would stand on one side of the gym, all the girls on the other and everyone would stare at each other all night until there was 20 minutes left and the DJ would play either "Free Bird" or "Stairway to Heaven". And then suddenly you would screw up enough courage to walk across the dance floor and ask some girl to dance. Praying to God she said yes, so your buddies wouldn't laugh at you. And then you would get to put your hands on her waist and she might put her hands on your shoulders and the two of you would slowly spin in circles even though the songs picked up their tempo. Sound familiar? Remember that second when you knew that it was now or never? That if you didn't walk up and ask her right now, then it would be too late? Well, minus the too late part, that's a lot how I feel tonight about my own leadership journey. It's that last second before I break away and screw up the courage to ask her to dance. In this case, before I let go of the my past and embrace my future. Embrace my authentic self. Embrace the truth. Trust my instincts to guide me. My hands are shoved down deep in my pockets now, my feet shuffling around and kicking at some imaginary piece of invisible something on the gym floor, starting to rock back and forth a little....What have you got to lose? Go ask her! It's time to move. It's time to dance.
I have spent the better part of the last 6 months pulling and tugging and stretching and tearing and trying to look at my life and see how I got to this place. To see how I could end up feeling so paralyzed sometimes that it's almost impossible to even breath and then feeling such an amazing burst of energy and confidence that it feels like you can't be stopped. To peel back layer after layer after layer and start to take full responsibility for my own life. My own happiness. My own success. See, that's the part that confuses people about me the most. I am very successful. I have enjoyed a ton of good fortune throughout my Army career and most of it through my own efforts and determination and passion and drive. I have ambition and a talent for this particular profession. I have every reason to know - truly know - that I possess every single attribute and skill necessary to truly enjoy the challenges that lie ahead. I know it like I know my name. I know that I am a leader. I know that I have vision. I know that I can read the tea leaves and see around the corners better than most. I have faith in my ability to deliver what I say I will every time. And generally better than anyone expected. All if that is simple truth. But what drives all that success? Is it pure self-confidence, pure self possession? Pure belief in my innate abilities? The knowledge that I have an entire careers worth of success that informs me?
Don't I wish! If only it were so. Why, given all that I know to be true about myself, can't I seem to break free from this final chain? Why will I walk all the way to the edge and stick my toe over it and then pull back? Why is this final doorway kicking my ass so hard? Simple. I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid to strike out. I failed once in a really big way and it made a lasting impression. A lasting impression because it had never happened to me on that scale before. An impression that has been hard to break free of. A self-trust that has been hard to regain. I walked across the gym floor and asked the pretty girl to dance, and she said no and then turned back to her girlfriends and they all started giggling.
It's coming back though. I can feel it. All the hard work, all the excavating, all the stripping away of the layers. Every second of the journey completely worth it. Each day, I get a little bit closer to me again. My legs are getting stronger, my eyes clearer and my purpose more narrowed and pure. I have failed and I have survived that failure. It's time to cut all of the things that have been chaining me to the doorway loose and start to trust my instincts and my abilities again. It is time to take full possession of my life. To not be a victim of my own creation. Not personally, and not professionally. It is time to walk through the door.
As a leader, there will always be times when you come up short. Those times deserve to be looked at, studied and learned from. They deserve an honest appraisal and a search for the cause. But once you have done that - and God knows it might take some time - you will come to a doorway. On one side you remain chained to the failure and let it redefine you. On the other side is the humble acceptance that you won't always get it right. The other side holds one other important piece too. There's a pretty girl over there who just might say yes....I guess it's time to learn how to dance....
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Alan Watts
I'm standing in a doorway now. In fact, I've been here for a little while. Behind me is the past. Yesterday. The first 43 years. Ahead of me is a partial unknown. My instincts are a little rusty, but generally solid. I need to move. Need to push my way through the door. A friend of mine is standing right behind me. She will not force me forward, but she will not let me step backwards either. She stands there quiet and calm and unwavering. A voice inside me keeps asking me the same damn question over and over and over...."Hey man, when you gonna step through? When you gonna move? I'm getting tired of standing here spinning my wheels. C'mon, brother, it's time to leap. Lets go." For a long time, I have been trying to silence that voice. Not sure how much longer I can.
I got a note last week from an Army friend asking me facetiously whether or not I'd retired. Part of the note said, "Your blogs are more about life nowadays, than Army leadership. Well, actually, it all turns out to be applicable to both." Thank you my friend, you managed to say in 2 sentences what I have been trying to say for the last year and especially the last 6 months. This is a blog about leadership. It is also a blog about life - my life - and my leadership journey. It is a blog about me learning how to lead myself.
Anyone remember middle school dances? If you are my age, they might have gone a little like this: All the boys would stand on one side of the gym, all the girls on the other and everyone would stare at each other all night until there was 20 minutes left and the DJ would play either "Free Bird" or "Stairway to Heaven". And then suddenly you would screw up enough courage to walk across the dance floor and ask some girl to dance. Praying to God she said yes, so your buddies wouldn't laugh at you. And then you would get to put your hands on her waist and she might put her hands on your shoulders and the two of you would slowly spin in circles even though the songs picked up their tempo. Sound familiar? Remember that second when you knew that it was now or never? That if you didn't walk up and ask her right now, then it would be too late? Well, minus the too late part, that's a lot how I feel tonight about my own leadership journey. It's that last second before I break away and screw up the courage to ask her to dance. In this case, before I let go of the my past and embrace my future. Embrace my authentic self. Embrace the truth. Trust my instincts to guide me. My hands are shoved down deep in my pockets now, my feet shuffling around and kicking at some imaginary piece of invisible something on the gym floor, starting to rock back and forth a little....What have you got to lose? Go ask her! It's time to move. It's time to dance.
I have spent the better part of the last 6 months pulling and tugging and stretching and tearing and trying to look at my life and see how I got to this place. To see how I could end up feeling so paralyzed sometimes that it's almost impossible to even breath and then feeling such an amazing burst of energy and confidence that it feels like you can't be stopped. To peel back layer after layer after layer and start to take full responsibility for my own life. My own happiness. My own success. See, that's the part that confuses people about me the most. I am very successful. I have enjoyed a ton of good fortune throughout my Army career and most of it through my own efforts and determination and passion and drive. I have ambition and a talent for this particular profession. I have every reason to know - truly know - that I possess every single attribute and skill necessary to truly enjoy the challenges that lie ahead. I know it like I know my name. I know that I am a leader. I know that I have vision. I know that I can read the tea leaves and see around the corners better than most. I have faith in my ability to deliver what I say I will every time. And generally better than anyone expected. All if that is simple truth. But what drives all that success? Is it pure self-confidence, pure self possession? Pure belief in my innate abilities? The knowledge that I have an entire careers worth of success that informs me?
Don't I wish! If only it were so. Why, given all that I know to be true about myself, can't I seem to break free from this final chain? Why will I walk all the way to the edge and stick my toe over it and then pull back? Why is this final doorway kicking my ass so hard? Simple. I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid to strike out. I failed once in a really big way and it made a lasting impression. A lasting impression because it had never happened to me on that scale before. An impression that has been hard to break free of. A self-trust that has been hard to regain. I walked across the gym floor and asked the pretty girl to dance, and she said no and then turned back to her girlfriends and they all started giggling.
It's coming back though. I can feel it. All the hard work, all the excavating, all the stripping away of the layers. Every second of the journey completely worth it. Each day, I get a little bit closer to me again. My legs are getting stronger, my eyes clearer and my purpose more narrowed and pure. I have failed and I have survived that failure. It's time to cut all of the things that have been chaining me to the doorway loose and start to trust my instincts and my abilities again. It is time to take full possession of my life. To not be a victim of my own creation. Not personally, and not professionally. It is time to walk through the door.
As a leader, there will always be times when you come up short. Those times deserve to be looked at, studied and learned from. They deserve an honest appraisal and a search for the cause. But once you have done that - and God knows it might take some time - you will come to a doorway. On one side you remain chained to the failure and let it redefine you. On the other side is the humble acceptance that you won't always get it right. The other side holds one other important piece too. There's a pretty girl over there who just might say yes....I guess it's time to learn how to dance....
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
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